January 01, 2009 Happy New Year!!!! --------------- New Year's Day. We did a nice walk to the wetlands out in front of Stoneybrook then picked up some supplies at Publix. Had a new year's lunch buffet at the clubhouse which was very nice. I was expecting a grill menu but instead it was a buffet which was nice by itself. Our dinner was cheese, crackers and Chunky soup. I spent the majority of the day correcting pictures in Photoshop. ~ January 02, 2009 DVD, lunch, reading --------------- I burned a DVD today and after Libbie and I reviewed it we added a few slides and re-ordered some things that were wrong like the cake cutting before the food service. I think the DVD came out nice. When we were satisfied with it, I burned 3 copies and put it in a priority mailer to Denton. We had our last lunch today at the clubhouse. I had a Rueben and Libbie had the soup and a BLT. Her soup was excellent. I took half the Rueben home for dinner. Finished reading the book "Doing It" about a couple that has sex 100 days in a row. It was mildly interesting in how they revved up their marriages with all sorts of romance in spite of kids and the pressures of everyday life. ~ January 03, 2009 packing, decorations, Calzone, traffic --------------- Lib cleaned the place while I went to the Post Office with our package for Anne and some postcards. Made a list of things we need to bring next time. We helped Peter and Joe take down the condo Christmas decorations. We stored everything in our storage unit and got going by 12 Noon. We took I-4 and listened to LaBoheme from the Met. Did a McDonald's drive through just before Orlando around 2 PM and kept going. Traffic was not bad. Got gas at exit 15 in Georgia then shortly after that we got into a traffic jam that lasted all the way to Savannah at exit 87 where we got off. Checked into the Hampton Inn and then went in search of food. Found a nice little Italian restaurant called Gianni's. I had a Calzone and Libbie had Lasagna. IT was a small family run establishment and was very very good. We paid $23 including tip for our meals. ~ January 04, 2009 driving, spazzed out --------------- Got up early in Savannah and hit the highway by 7 AM. Traffic was heavy but not as bad as yesterday. We stopped for biscuits and coffee in SC, got some gas at 1.45 in Florence and got home just as it started raining at 12:00. I was wiped out so didn't do much. Libbie made her good pizza then we watched 60 minutes. ~ January 05, 2009 mail --------------- Went through a mountain of mail but didn't do too much else. Paid the bills that needed manual intervention and re-applied to be on the condo board. Dinner was BLT in the evening. For lunch we had Lean Cuisines. ~ January 06, 2009 LED grow lights, Violet Weddings --------------- Bid on an LED grow light this morning and won it. For the price it seems like a steal compared to the price of buying LED's and building my own. Did a grocery run today. I need to lose lots of weight. The scales say I'm 250. I want to be 200 and I'm going to do it. It was a miserable rainy day outside today but the temp is holding around 60. Got the first article formatted of the violet wedding. Now it's time to do the "how to" article. ~ January 07, 2009 Power, wind, curry --------------- I spent almost all of today working and reworking the AVSA articles. In the evening we had high winds which knocked the power out. Our generator came on and gave us light and heat. We went over to the greenhouse to check the plastic. All looks OK. When I came home, Anne had another revision which I added to the article. Dinner was a very nice chicken and broccoli with rice medley that Lib created using the Cury Simmer Sauce I picked up in Trader Joe's. ~ January 08, 2009 articles, CVS, furniture --------------- I finished the two AVSA articles and sent them to Ruth. Much communication with Anne this morning. I ended up sending the whole directory of print ready files to CVS for her to print. Libbie came home in tears today. Bruce left Sue for another woman. Lib's pretty upset about it. After lunch we went to Crossroads and looked at furniture at World Mart and also Ethan Allan. Saw some nice furniture at Ethan. Also stopped at Gole's on the way home and talked about my broken remote control which I got from them and also looked at some of their chairs. ~ January 09, 2009 furniture --------------- Fired up Mazeppa today so I could burn a DVD for Marjorie. Got it into the mailbox at noon. After a salad fro lunch, Libbie and I went furniture shopping. We went up 70 and first stopped at a large warehouse near Car Max. Walked through miles of furniture but did not find anything that jumped out at us. There were lots of pieces and if we were outfitting a home theater we would be in nice shape. Lots of overstuffed recliners with cup holders, etc. Our next stop was Carolina Furniture were we ended up buying a Bassett chair for $1000. The next stop was Bassett furniture. We bought a couch for another $1,000. I think we need to go back there and buy a recliner matching the leather we purchased. We went home to get the minivan and returned to pick up our chair. On the way out we stopped at Kincaid but didn't like the selections. Went to Sams for supplies, mainly trash bags and soap. We stopped at La Cocina at 7:30 for dinner. I had the quesadilla that Libbie normally gets and had it with a Margarita. It was great - lots of chunky shrimp, beef, onions and Avocados and sour cream. We moved the new chair into the family room and threw the old chair out into the garage. The upholstery was ripped pretty bad on the old piece. ~ January 10, 2009 opera, sound, chairs, salmon --------------- Scanned some of the Christmas cards in the morning then got dressed and ready to go to the opera. Left home at 11:45 and got to Brier Creek a little after 12. Decided to cruise the storefronts looking for Thomasville. Hit the McDonalds for a drive through hamburger before driving back to the theater parking lot. The performance of Rondine was enjoyable despite a few flaws. Peter Gelb announced that Alagna Gheigerou was recovering from a cold but would still sing. The real problem was the sound that quit during act 2, through the intermission and just for the first few bars of act 3. After that everything seemed to be fine. Theater management was very gracious at keeping us informed. The performance ended at 3:30 so we went across the street to the Thomasville store. Nothing jumped out at us so on our way to 540 we saw Ashby's Lazy Boy store. Lib found a chai she liked but the store was too busy to help us. Went to Raleigh and bought the same Lazy Boy chair and fit it into our little Corolla. Amazing. We paid $70 for the 5 year warranty which gives us a bottomless jar of leather cleaner. At home we had Salmon, peas and Yams for dinner. The new chairs look great in the family room. ~ January 11, 2009 scanning, tubs --------------- After the traditional morning paper, I scanned some more of the Christmas cards before Libbie came home. She and I took the old Love Seat to Goodwill and also went to target to buy 6 18 gallon tubs and 10 6 liter shoe boxes so she could empty Joe's stuff out of the bedroom closet. I did a little research on Landmark Forum and found that it's a cult. Downloaded a French documentary detailing the cult and their techniques to scam people. I was pretty sad after seeing this and knowing what happened to Sue. ~ January 12, 2009 birthdays, cleanup, laptop --------------- Libbie told me that yesterday was Mom's birthday. She learned that from Aunt Helen. I cleaned out a desk drawer and Libbie cleaned out Joe's closet in her office room. My laptop had trouble starting up and in addition exhibited a freezing which I couldn't figure out. Took out the hard drive, scanned it for viruses and also did a defrag and optimization. It was a success. The thing runs but not great. I'll probably reinstall windows in the future. Dinner was the chicken/broccoli with curry simmer sauce. It was enjoyable. The LED grow panel arrived via FedEx from Calif. I plugged it in and measured the power which was about 8 watts. The LEDs are too bright to look at. The color makes violet leaves turn black. I disassembled it to take photos and measure voltages. This afternoon I picked up some oil at Walmart and did an oil change at 36900 miles. Changed the filter as well which I had on hand. It's a FRAM PH4967. Couldn't find Champion D14 spark plugs for the generator. Tried Advance on 55 in Apex. ~ January 13, 2009 groceries, Florida --------------- Did some computer reading this morning the went out to the grocery store. I'm torn about whether to go to Florida tomorrow. I do and I don't. Charged up a camera battery and took some pictures of the internals of the LED grow light. Dinner was chicken with piccata simmer sauce over noodles. Very good. ~ January 14, 2009 punch down, Wall-E --------------- Went to Home Depot and picked up a box to house the telephone splice. Looked up some sample wiring for a type 66 punch down block which I'll mount in the attic. Anne sent the species program from Barbara Pershing. It's pretty dry and boring but fact filled. Richard Nicholas will narrate the program. Picked up a copy of Wall-E which we watched this evening. Pretty creative stuff but I doubt if it's best picture Oscar material. Dinner this evening was Spinach stuffed pasta from Trader Joes. I pretty much decided to go to Florida the last week of January instead of this week. Studied a little the sculpture of Harriet Frishmuth. Very nice stuff. I added some of her bio to Toms Life Bits. Stopped into NAD on 55 today and filled my tank at 1.79 and also filled the Kerosene can for 3.79 per gallon or $15 total. That was a shock. Kerosene didn't fall as much as gasoline. ~ January 15, 2009 cold, fan belts --------------- I picked up lathe at Home Depot and some Mollies to hang the quilts using the lath strips. After a dinner of chicken, rice and cury simmer sauce, Libbie and I hung one quilt in her office room and the other over our bed. It is going to be cold tonight so I went to the greenhouse at 10:30 and checked the probes. It was 25 outside but the probe was reading 29. Moved it higher away from the greenhouse roof and now it is reading 27. This is good enough to detect the 22 degrees that turns on the second heater. We woke several times during the night to check the temperatures. All seemed OK. Earlier in the day I checked the fan belt. It is well worn even though installed Dec 24. I cut a piece of aluminum to use as a heat shield for the belt when I replace it again. ~ January 16, 2009 cold, heater, bbq --------------- We got up at 6 am this morning and drove over to the greenhouse to see how things looked. It was 16 degrees outside but nice and toasty inside. Both heaters in house 1 were running keeping the interior at 61 degrees. Libbie called the greenhouse every few hours all night long. After she came home late at 2:30 PM we had lunch then headed over for some repairs. I installed the aluminum heat shield then replaced the fan belt, The old belt was paper thin. Not sure why it was so thin. I loosened the motor mounts so the belt wasn't so tight. We had an appetizer of the birds nest vegetable with soy dipping sauce. Next course was salad then a pork BBQ sandwich. Very nice. ~ January 17, 2009 TNC reading, salmon --------------- Did another day of reading about TNC's. Dinner this evening was salmon with sweet potato and shiraz. We had Birds Nest veggies as an appetizer beforehand. ~ January 18, 2009 slow day --------------- Did not get much done today. Read the Sunday paper this morning then did some reading about packet and TNC communications. Need to build a comm system for the greenhouse. Dinner was Libbie's super pizza as usual. She used a frozen dough which makes a nice crust for reasons we don't understand. The frozen ones come out better than the fresh ones. ~ January 19, 2009 airport, garbage, storm ready --------------- This morning we heard that it was going to snow tomorrow. I worked to change Libbie's reservation so she leaves today instead of tomorrow. Took her to airport for a 3:50 flight which didn't leave until 5:15. They waited for the plane from Philly to get in. It was pretty late. She flew to Baltimore and then was to go to Providence tomorrow. I rounded up the garbage, threw out a lot of CD's from my office and also picked up the greenhouse garbage and put it all in the can out at the street. We're getting ready for some snow that's supposed to start after midnight. Picked up a new remote control for our fireplace. It's an RF remote instead of ultrasound. Dinner was a mish mash of everything - some egg rolls, a Lean Cuisine and fruit. ~ January 20, 2009 snow --------------- This is inauguration day. woke to a few inches of snow on the ground. We may end up with as much as 6 inches or more of the stuff. It was a surprise. They predicted this but I had my doubts. A cold wave was making it's way down from Canad while Atlantic moisture was supposed to come in to collide over NC for 2 to 5 inches of snow. It may be 6 inches or more - who knows? I watched some of the pre-inauguration on TV. Instead of doing the dumb coverage of reporters in the snow they switched to National coverage and said to go to the HD transmission to see local snow coverage. ~ January 21, 2009 spark plugs, shoveling, chicken --------------- Did the credit union today with Libbie's checks and a rebate check I had. I also paid the Stoneybrook bill via Visa for 565 today. Went out for the first time of this storm today - roads were mainly clear except for shady spots which were still icy. Shoveled the sidewalks and driveway pad but they were still icy. Came back with cat litter and sprinkled it around. Had trouble with the spark plugs. The new Champion D14s needed a 7/8 deep socket which I didn't have so I bought one at Ace hardware. Surprisingly the existing Autolite 35's have 18 mm threads like the Champion D14's but they only need a 13/16 wrench. Communicated with Barb Pershing about the species program. For dinner I bought a roast chicken which was marked down to 2.99 ~ January 22, 2009 Venus --------------- Went to Tiger Direct and bought speakers for Mazeppa. Downloaded Songbird and had fun walking through my music collection and playing random tracks. The program has a fantastic tag editor which I used to classify a lot of my music. Worked a little on building the Venus packet system in my shop. Charged the HandiTalkies, mounted the TNC board and a terminal strip. Will probably mount the Venus board with velcro. Dinner was Lean Cuisine French Bread pizza and also a Lean Cuisine Veggie pizza. ~ January 23, 2009 microwave --------------- Spent the whole day doing various changes to the microwave probe. Nothing seemed to work. Went to bed as a failure. Libbie called at 9:10 PM. She's bringing her Mother's quilt home. The temp went to 60 today, completely melting any last traces of snow. For dinner I had the Trader Joes calzone. It wasn't too bad in the microwave. ~ January 24, 2009 Orfeo, Airports, ribs --------------- Worked on building a microwave probe then got dressed and out to the opera. On the way there I stopped into Best Buy and picked up a Sony PSP for the web browser function. I plan to do Greenhouse monitoring by using the browser to see a local web page with greenhouse sensing. The opera was great. I enjoyed Mark Morris choreography. Afterwards I stopped by the airport on the way home and picked up Libbie. The opera was over at 2:45 and I was at the airport by 3 PM. We picked up Ribs in Trader Joes for dinner which we had with Butternut Squash and Shiraz. ~ January 25, 2009 microwave --------------- After the paper this morning I worked on the microwave all day. Finally got the probe working wihtout error and also designed a nice error recovery algorithm. After Libbies wonderful pizza we drove to the post office and mailed the controller to ME using priority mail. ~ January 26, 2009 PSP. memory, YEar of the Ox, Chinese New YEar --------------- Picked up a memory stick for the PSP at OfficeMax using the $10 coupon I had. The cost was $10 after the coupon for a 4 gig stick. The device goes out on the internet and can listen to radio stations as well as surf the web. Did a little cleanup around the house. I put quite a few things away in my workshop. Libbie scrubbed and vacuumed the house. Today is Chinese New Years, The year of the Ox. We celebrated by ordering a Chinese takeout which we had with a bottle of Chardonnay. Afterwards we had WCPE on and read our books with the gas log burning. ~ January 27, 2009 guests, dinner --------------- Waited most of the day for Bill and Barb instead of driving to Sarasota. They were delayed in Southern Pines and came in at 5 PM. After some wine and cheese we went to La Cocina for dinner since it was $1 Margarita night. We had the large Margarita which is equal to 3 small ones according to our waitress. I had the La Cocina Quaesidilla which is what Libbie always orders. It was great. When we got back we watched the Joe and Christa wedding video. ~ January 28, 2009 driving, Stoneybrook --------------- Woke up shortly before 6. Bill and Barb were sleeping in the downstairs bedroom. Libbie so nicely made coffee. I filled my thermos, ate abowl of cereal and was out the door at 6:20. It was foggy and lightly misting. I stopped at Florence for bathroom and a bacon egg and cheese biscuit. I waited 14 minutes and then they gave me the wrong biscuit. I got a sausage egg and cheese biscuit. Got gas across the street for 1.64 but I only needed 5 gallons. Emerged under the cloud shelf in SC and had blue skies and warm temps the rest of the way. Took I-4 through Orlando without incident. I was in Orlando at 3 PM which was good. Got into Stoneybrook at about 5:15. I stopped on the way in for milk and juice in Publix. Overall it was a pretty good trip. I found that the refrigerator door won't dispense water. Took the metal plate off the back to diagnose the problem but no solution. ~ January 29, 2009 Florida --------------- Stopped and talked with Christa then walked with her up to their condo. Chatted with Peter and Christa about the pool party on Monday night. I won't be there - wish I was. Went down to Venice and watched birds for a while. There was an amazing amount of birds on the island with varioius nests. On the way back I stopped into Yoders Fruit and inquired about getting a case of Honeybelles. The owner said he would get me a case tomorrow morning. A case has about 40 pounds of oranges. Gave him my phone number and name. For dinner tonight I picked up a turkey sub at Subway next to Publix. Took a walk this afternoon after visitng Pat in the Real Estate office and Janet in the admin office. Walked out to the wetlands area in front of Stoneybrook. ~ January 30, 2009 cleaning, oranges, sunset, packing --------------- Got up and started cleaning the place. Washed the kitchen floor, vacuumed the rugs and spread the green matte carpet out in the Living Room. Did some laundry then went to Yoders Fruit stand to get my 40 pound box of oranges. Also bought tomatoes and strawberries. He only charged $25 for the oranges. At sunset I went out for a walk in shorts and a tee shirt. It was cold!!! I got to the clubhouse and turned around. Spent the evening reading and packing my stuff. Didn't talk to Lib in the later evening although we talked at 5 PM. Went to bed around 11 PM. I'm really enjoying the Karen Robards book, "Guilty". ~ January 31, 2009 driving, home, opera --------------- Got up at 5:30 and was on the road by 6 AM. It was 47 degrees when I pulled out of Stoneybrook. On the trip the temp was as low as 37 degrees in Orlando. The trip was uneventful. Important facts to note: Jones College radio is on 90.9, the last exit in Florida is 380 and the highest mileage marker in SC is 198 right around Pedro's but the last exit is numbered 193 in Dillon. The Pedros exit is 1 in NC. Listened to Rigoletto from the Met on the whole trip except for a dead zone from Florence to Dillon. When I reached Fayetteville I was able to get WCPE. I heard the intermission features again since WCPE ran them after the opera since they were fund raising during the opera. Gave Libbie the 40 pound box of oranges - not sure what she is going to do with all these Honeybelles. Libbie fixed Salmon with sweet potato and Chardonnay for dinner. ~ February 01, 2009 BLT, football, commercials --------------- Did the newspaper thing then started organizing some of my projects. We had BLT's for lunch with the Florida tomatoes I brought back. Filled the Kerosene heater in case it gets cold although it's in the sixties today. Libbie brought the first of the oranges to the greenhouse for Joy. We had her wonderful pizza this evening while we watched some of the super bowl ads. Turned it off and went to read my Karen Robards book. ~ February 02, 2009 microwaves, faucets --------------- Went over to Lowes and picked up a new faucet for the downstairs bathroom. Also looked for a brass tube to use for the microwave probe assembly. Couldn't find one. Installed the new faucet downstairs which went well. Finished the job and the faucet looks good. The microwave came back from Maine today. On the way to sculpting I stopped into the Hungate Hobby Shop in Cary Mall. It's a pretty pathetic operation - barely anything in the store. Next I tried AC Moore in Crosroads before giving up. Went to sculpting and did a pretty good job of representing Christa. I got the proportions correct, now I need to work on detail. I'm going to try for a face and hair on this one. Christa is very beautiful but she doesn't have much of a female form. she's flat chested and not defined much around her tiny tummy but she has a very shapely rear end. I enjoyed thee evening very, very much even though I was tired. ~ February 03, 2009 hobbies, epoxy, music --------------- This morning I stopped in Ace Hardware looking for brass tubing but no luck. Next I tried a railroad shop in South Hills and got lucky. Bought the last piece of 1/4 " tubing they had. What a fun little shop. They seem to have lots of railroad junk. The place reminded me of the one in Dunellen. Picked up groceries in both TJ's and Kroger before going home and working on the new probe. Not sure how to seal the end. Can't crimp it since it gets deformed like that. Tried epoxy but I doubt that it will give me enough of a seal under 70C heat without brass expansion breaking the epoxy seal. I installed the 1 TB drive in the Traviata server today. It seemed like I had trouble at first because the thing seemed to start with error messages but everything setled down and the music library is now in place. Spent a few hours organizing the directories of songs. Dinner this evening was bean burger with "Immunity" veggies, vidalia onion and the last of the Florida tomato. We also had some of the tomato for BLT's for lunch. ~ February 04, 2009 sculpting, no snow, cold --------------- Pretty cold day. No snow overnight. They initially predicted 1 inch. Finished my sculpture with Christa but not really. The arms, legs, hands and feet all need some work. Before I left for sculpting Libbie made some chicken in simmer sauce over rice but without veggies which was too bad. I like the veggies. It was a cold day today with a high only of 35. ~ February 05, 2009 files, cameras --------------- I spent most of today trying to organize files on Manon - moving stuff to the server, exchanging files with Mazeppa and so forth. Dinner was pasta from trader Joe's from earlier this week. I went to Lowes today and picked up a solid brass rod to insert into the brass tube as a plug. This worked well to build the new probe assembly. I ordered a new camera from Newegg since it was their valentine sepcial. $149 with free shipping for an SD1100IS. ~ February 06, 2009 microwave, first friday --------------- Worked all morning modifying microwave sn/001 for the new probe scheme. When all was said and done I couldn't get it to work. The controller kept saying "no probe". Found a 200 gig MP3 drive in my storage boxes. Transferred the rest of the files from Manon's 200 gig drive and replaced it with this new one. Found out i already had all these MP3's so I erased it and am using it as another drive in Manon. Put some of the images on it from the C drive. Later in the afternoon I debugged the probe of the microwave and found the jack was wired wrong. Corrected the wiring but did not test the microwave since we were going to First Friday with jack and Barbara. Picked them up at 6 then went to Nicoles Art gallery up Person St before parking near Cafe Luna and walking to ArtSpace. Enjoyed seeing Barbara's conversation with some of the Artists - the portrait lady and Judy Crane. We didn't have much time there before dinner at Cafe Luna. We were in the back room I've never been in before. Had the clams, mussels, shrimp and scallops over pasta. We ordered a very nice bottle of Rodney Strong Merlot with dinner. The total with tip was $110 which Libbie paid for on her credit card. ~ February 07, 2009 opera, ribs --------------- Got the probe working on microwave sn/001. It seems to be intermittent. We left at 11:45 for Lucia. The theater was sold out which was surprising. We didn't get our center seats since we arrived at the theater at 12:15 for a 1:00 performance. Libbie made sandwiches for us which we ate in the theater. It was an incredible performance. Our substitute tenor was very good. Anna was so so. Mad scenes are not her thing although she was competent. It was an enjoyable performance anyway. The sets were very complicated and large. They kept the cameras rolling b=during the intermission so we could see the action. We got out at 5 PM and stopped at TJ's for ribs and baked potatoes for dinner which we had with Shiraz. ~ February 08, 2009 paper, probes, walking, avsa species --------------- After the traditional newspaper on Sunday morning I worked somewhat on the probe and made a few test runs. The connector is intermittent, will redo it in the final version. Libbie and I took a walk around Seagroves after lunch. Worked on the AVSA species program. The Nicholas's sent me enough MP3 sound files for the first two parts of three. All went well although it's a lot of work for me. Dinner was Libbie's traditional pizza after which we watched the US Air flight 1549 crew story of the Hudson River landing and then watched the Grammys. It's a beautiful day in the seventies. ~ February 09, 2009 species, probes, rent --------------- Finished part 2 of the species show but the Proshow program won't burn a DVD. Went to my fallback of Adobe but didn't make a DVD with it. Started building the second temp probe - cut the brass and soldered the end but didn't get the connector on. Dinner was TJ's eggplant parmesian. Libbie didn't like it. I was neutral about it. Received a rent check for $2780 from Pat Ford. This is our Feb rental. ~ February 10, 2009 groceries, etc --------------- Did the grocery store thing late this morning after I worked on the music database stuff. I also wrote the article for the Lonestar Newsletter. Did a lot of shopping today. Went to Krogers, the gas station (1.89 per gal), Foodlion for Lean Cuisine on sale, the Credit Union to deposit the rent check. Libbie had a Violet Club Valentines party. I got to have the leftover 7 layer salad for dinner and then we had the Steamfresh veggie dinner for two. I love the 7 layer salad and would have been happy with that as a meal. ~ February 11, 2009 sidewalk --------------- I started working on the brick sidewalk. It's a windy day but nice and warm - almost 80. There were pretty severe roots under a lot of the sidewalk. Did about 10 feet. I wasn't hungry for dinner so left at 6 for sculpting after eating an apple. Our model is beautiful. Charlotte is young and very thin but nicely shaped with medium very firm breasts, a tiny waist and nice compact butt. She's very pale. She said she has modeled for Paris Alexander and for Life Drawing at Artspace. I wasn't looking forward to the session since I was tired but I enjoyed it very much. ~ February 12, 2009 sidewalk, sand, greenhouse --------------- Did quite a bit more on the sidewalk. Went to Home Dpeot and picked up a total of 8 bags of sand. I also looked at flooring. I like the Tarkett Click and lock engineered wood without beveled edges. It solves the problem I don't like about the edges which is the grooves which I think would catch dust. Put down 4 bags of the sand, the last 4 I picked up but left it outside. Dinner was chicken, broccoli and simmer sauce. Libbie doesn't like the Picata simmer sauce. I'm neutral about it. Went over to the greenhouse at 2:30 to meet Maurice with the Wyatt Quarles potting soil but it was too late - he already had put the pallet down in the garage opening. Libbie wanted it back against the wall. ~ February 13, 2009 sidewalk, post office, pics, fish --------------- Finished the sidewalk today. Spoke with the social worker, Emily and also Dr Golin about Aunt Helen. She is supposed to transfer today but laterfound she couldn't go from Overlook to the rehab in Runnels in Berkley Heights. I took the microwave to the post office after hearing that Mary and John were home. Insured it for $200 in case it doesn't make it there in onepiece. I developed 2 4x6 pics for Libbie at Walreen today for tomorrows Valentines card. Dinner was stuffed salmon with broccoli and Shiraz. In the evening I booked the return flight from Reno, some Amtrak reservations and the Nuggett hotel in Reno. I debated about the Nuggett courtyard which was across the freeway but AAA gave us a $57 rate in the tower so I booked it. Still need a Denver hotel and flight to Denver. ~ February 14, 2009 --------------- I gave Libbie the homemade Valentine card and the heart shaped box of Russel Stover this morning. Spoke with Anne today. They're sending the part 3 MP3 files. I received them as they came in and added them to the program for the species. Worked on the MP3's for the 60's on Tom's Music. We're getting all the top 100 songs for each year which is amazing. I have everything from 1946 on forward to 1967 as of today. Listened to Eugen Onegin from the Met and truly enjoyed it. I booked the Oxford hotel by the train station in Denver. It was built in 1891 and looks pretty cool with a nice restaurant downstairs. Still don't have transportation to Denver. Libbie and I went to Fresh Market after the opera and picked up some stuffed chicken with cheese and mushroom which we had with fresh asparagus and Cabernet Sauvignon. ~ February 15, 2009 species, fencing, cleanup --------------- After the newspaper and dropping the bird book in the library this morning I started receiving the audio files from the Nicholas's. Finished the part 4 species program today. Not sure how to package it - individually or in pairs. Went up the hill and installed another fence pole where I want to add an opening in the fence. Did a little cleanup in the backyard. Pruned the roses and chopped down the old canes of the Lantana. In the woods I picked up a few logs and put them on the pile. This is largely a make work type project. Cleanup is probably not necessary but I feel better when I look out and see the yard cleaned up so I'm not going to stop. Heard from Vicki - she is at the rehab place in Berkley Heights. She put a phone in the room for $20. Dinner was Libie's traditional pizza which was outstanding. She used the frozen crust which gives a nice pizza. Finished the W2 and W3 forms today. ~ February 16, 2009 chain saw, DVD --------------- Spent almost the whole day messing with the Species program DVD. I can't get the 4 videos to fit on one DVD. I ended up going to bed with the 4 videos rendered in high quality. Tomorrow I'll try making the DVD's. Outdoors I set the ladder up against the Oak tree and cut off the lower limbs. I hauled about 3/4 of them to the branches pile. While I was at it I also cleaned up a few downed logs on the hillside. Dinner was cheese toast and chunky soup sausage gumbo. We spent the rest of the evening listening to the Chicago symphony on WCPE and reading. I'm reading Mitso Soup by Ryu Murakami which I accidentally checked out of the library thinking it was Haruki Murakami. ~ February 17, 2009 DVD, walk, La Cocina --------------- I spent a lot of time working on the DVD and ended up with 2 DVD's for the species program. I read about writing to an SD card using a microcontroller and using relays to switch back to another host for the card in a circuit cellar contest article. The importance of this is I can use it to write a card in a digital picture frame and use the picture frame as a cheap LCD display device. This has possibilities. We didn't get shredded wheat from the stores today so Libbie and I went out for shredded wheat and then had dinner at La cocina. It's Tuesday which is 99 cent Margarita night. We each had a Margarita and I had the chicken chipotle. When we got home Anne called about the library program that Richard was going to do. He hasn't and said he needs a program to merge sound and pictures. ~ February 18, 2009 AVSA, web development, PHP, sculpture --------------- Talked with Anne many times today about the Trailer program and what to do about it. I spent a lot of the day working on the library website revamp. I want to use PHP to read an XML file to generate the web pages. Went to sculpting tonight - I'm getting better at legs. Charlotte our model is a beauty. I'm thinking of a private posing session for a more dynamic dance pose. Still need to work out the details. Dinner before sculpting was chicken and fresh asparagus. It rained today and was a little wet returning home. ~ February 19, 2009 microwaves, trailers --------------- I'm going to do the trailer program for AVSA since Rich Follett doesn't know what he's doing. Heard from John about the microwave. It's better but it still overshoots the target temperature. I need to re-adjust the timings. Dinner was Trader Joe's pasta. Received all the trailer images from Barb in California. The slides are pretty old. ~ February 20, 2009 postcards, microwaves, opera --------------- I worked on the microwave algorithms today testing various quantities of media and timing the slope for use in the firmware. Blew a fuse while testing water at 5 PM so turned it off and got ready for the opera. Libbie made soup and cheese toast for lunch then we had a lean cuisine before the performance. Left at 6:30 for the 7:30 performance. Parking was crowded because of Dora the Explorer going on at the same time. Cenerentola was delightful. The singing was amazing, the acting was quite good which we got to see up close since we were in Row C. My postcards came today in two 15 pound boxes. That's a lot of cards. Marjorie sent the Lonestar newsletter which was amazingly great. ~ February 21, 2009 opera, chain saw, microwave --------------- Listened to Cenerentola on my server while working on microwave stuff. I finished the runs of H2O and isopropyl alcohol. I think I'll add an xlow setting to the mix. Heard from Anne. She like the newsletter - she asked if either of us wants to be on the Board of Directors. I went outside to finish trimming the Oak trees next to the brick sidewalk. Didn't finish hauling the branches because I wanted to listen to the opera. Adriana Lecouver today with domingo and Borodin. Very nice. ~ February 22, 2009 CNC, trees --------------- A slow day. TRied working on the php program to build library pages but the skies cleared, the sun came out and I worked outside a little. We took a walk through Seagroves and discussed where to put a bird box. Picked up a few branches then came inside to watch the red carpe at 6 then the Academy Awards at 8. Libbie made 2 pizzas for dinner tonight. We learned the package left Raleigh last night. The microwave controller was sent Express Mail on Saturday evening. We didn't know if it would sit in the Post Office till Monday. Apparently not. ~ February 23, 2009 package, CNC, shrimp and broccoli --------------- I checked the web and the package delivery was attempted at 8:30 in Maine but no-one home. They had 17 inches of snow, the news was reporting power failures. Heard from John later that Mary picked up the package and he made some test runs. The ethanol is still overshooting but it's better now, only going over by 1 to 3 degrees. I studied CNC machines on the web. I don't think I have the mechanical expertise or tools to build one myself so I found a few kits with all the parts for assembly. These thing are driven by an open source Linux program and typically cost less than $1,000. I could use one for prototype packages. Libbie made some Trader Joe's shrimp and broccoli which came with white pepper that I used. We watched some of the Oscar fashion reviews on Extra and Entertainment Hollywood which I usuallyenjoy. It was too cold to go outside today. It was 41 but there was a stff wind. ~ February 24, 2009 Krogers, Grow Box, CCI --------------- Went to Krogers and Trader Joe's then went in search of an Earth Box. Didn't have them at Garden Supply or at Family Garden on 55. I researched them some more and found a clone at the Garden Patch for half the price, $29 vs $59 and if you order 3 they knock money off the shipping so I ordered 3 for $105. Found a nice wiki of a university, USC, that covers the Fireball V90 router they bought. It covers stepper motor sources, specs, wiring and driver boards. It seems I can save much by buying the base and going elsewhere for motors and drivers. Regarding the Earth Box, I learned of it in Circuit Cellar. A guy fixtured his grow box to detect that it needed water and added solenoid drivers to give it water. All this is monitored by a wireless handheld controller. ~ February 25, 2009 CNC, wireless, sculpting --------------- It was a nice day out but I didn't work on woods cleanup since my back hurts. I studied CNC routers some more and pretty much decided I want to get the Fireball base unit and populate it with 3rd party stepper motors and driver board. The computer is another issue that I haven't dealt with yet. I possibly may replace Manon as my main desktop and repurpose Manon as a Linux CNC machine. Took a look at wireless once again. I may build a growbox controller with moisture sensors and a wireless interface back to the house. I went to sculpting tonight for the last session. i really don't like the piece. Proportions are all off. Dinner was tomato soup and cheese toast. ~ February 26, 2009 inflation, plumbing, Graingers --------------- Went over to the greenhouse at 8:30 to cap a plumbing leak on bench 10. The pipe broke from the solenoid. While there I noticed the inflation blower was not working. Took a look and it was hot to touch and not spinning. Unplugged it and ordered a new blower as well as a Hot Dawg Fanjet fan belt spare. The current fan belt is 6 weeks old and seems to be holding up but I don't have a backup. I studied the old spreadsheets for a septic pump and then bit the bullet and spent $850 to get the larger high head pump. I will need to rewire the panel to deliver 220 volts to the septic tank. Libbie went to Graingers with me to pick up the stuff. She stayed home while I went to the greenhouse and installed the inflation blower. Installation went without a problem. Dinner was the Trader Joe's Calzone. After dinner I went over to Home Depot and picked up the 2 inch pipe fittings for the septic pump. ~ February 27, 2009 septic, wiring, BBQ chicken --------------- I went outside around 9 and started working on the septic pump. After installing the 2 inch pipe and taping the wiring to the pipe I hooked up the rope and lowered it into the tank. It went in a lot easier than I thought. Installed a 220 VAC outlet by the tank and rewired the panel in the garage but I made an error picking up the same phase for both sides of the 220 VAC. After a quick change to pick up both sides i tried again but the punp was stalled. I could hear it humming but it didn't pump. I initially thought the line was plugged so I dug a hole 100 feet up the hill and drilled a 1/4 inch hole but no water. Went further down and dug another hole about 30 feet up the pipe. Drilled another hole and also dry. Cut the pipe at the creek and tried the pump again. This was when i realized the pump was stalled and not pumping. I will have to raise it again and get it to spin freely. Dinner was Libbie's barbecued chicken with Southwestern corn. Her BBQ sauce is still good. Libbie has a bad cough today. I'll probably get it tomorrow. ~ February 28, 2009 sore, AVSA, coughing --------------- I'm a little sore this morning from the heavy pump lifting of yesterday. We are having a steady rain. Went out to Home Depot and got more 2 inch fittings and a 10 inch fiberglass irrigation control box to put under the pump. Hopefully this will keep it off the floor of the sump tank. If this doesn't work I will probably get the tank pumped. Listened to Trovatore this afternoon while working on some more of the Species audio files. Barb Pershing sent me a new credits slide for the end of the Species program. Richard narrated new credit endings for each of the sections. dinner was stuffed salmon and sweet potatoes. Libbie has a pretty bad cough this evening. Snow is in the forecast for tomorrow and also we have RLT tickets tomorrow. ~ March 01, 2009 rain, cold --------------- I went to Krogers early this morning and picked up milk and the newspaper. It's still raining and the temp was 34 degrees. It's supposed to get cold and change over to snow tonight. I didn't take a shower this morning in anticipation of pulling out the septic pump and then cleaning up before going to RLT. Didn't do that because it was raining too hard. Left for the theater at 2:15 in the cold rain. The performance was excellent, but RLT has never disappointed us. This story was gripping. I didn't know the story so was riveted to the compelling story line which was very well staged. Afterwards we picked up a pizza at NY Pizza in Wellington. It took a little longer than it should have because Libbie ordered our pizza from the wrong store. There was a teen girls basketball team celebrating a victory while we waited for our pizza to be made. ~ March 02, 2009 snow, sick, greenhouse --------------- We woke to a dusting of snow. The road and driveway were clear but there was snow on the grass and bushes. Libbie was in bad shape today so I took her to the illness clinic that Cary Medical runs every day from 1 to 3. They prescribed antibiotics which we picked up in Krogers on the way back. While she waited to be seen I drove over to the greenhouse and clipped a few loose clips on the interior house 3 to 4 divider. I also took a look at the inflation and the hot dawg fanjet fanbelt. All was well. Picked up Libbie and stopped at Krogers - the antibiotic was $18 which was the insurance rate. Talked to Anne today about the species and trailers program. ~ March 03, 2009 groceries, septic pump, Graingers, Species --------------- Did the grocery store thing. Lean Cuisinne was on sale for a very nice price. Normally 3.19, but 1.99 but if you buy 10 you get an additional $5 off. I had a 2.50 coupon for 13 or more and it was 5% off for senior day so I estimated I paid !.20 each. Libbie came home wiped out with her cold. So far I haven't had any symptoms. Town of Apex called admitting that I was double billed for water. They are crediting my bill. While Libbie slept after lunch I pulled up the septic pump and tried running it but it would only hum. Brought it back to Graingers and tried the new one in the 220VAC outlet out back and it runs fine. Now I need to put the plumbing back together. Dinner was Trader Joe's pasta. After dinner I watched American Idol then went upstairs and worked on the species program until midnight. Finished the corrections on all 4 programs. Now I need to modify the menu's for the credits and burn the DVD's. ~ March 04, 2009 disappointment, DVDs --------------- Went right to working on the DVD's. Burned a few bad copies trying to get the menu working correctly. Finally finished it all by around 1 PM and put it in the mail. Had lunch with Libbie on the back porch then tackled the septic pump. The step I tried to rig on the bottom of the pump failed. As soon as I put it in the septic tank, air in the step caused it to slip sideways away from the pump. I had to pull everything up and cut the round step loose from the wires that attached it to the pump. Lowered the pump without it, hooked everything up, plugged it in and the pump ran, shuttered and then stalled. What a disappointment. There apparently is a lot of sludge on the bottom of the tank. Not sure if I can ever get the pump to work on the bottom of the tank. This is a major setback. Received the cassette tape and went to work on digitizing it. There is a lot of tape hiss. Tried Audacity to clean up the noise but Anne said it sounded like a Science Fiction movie. Dinner was chicken jambalaya. Watched American Idol where they picked the wild card candidates for a sing off tomorrow night. Afterward I went back to working on the tape. ~ March 05, 2009 pumps, comedy --------------- This morning I hooked the come along up over the septic and pulled the new pump out of the tank. It was an easy job pulling it up. The pump is definitely jammed. I went to Home Depot and bought Drano to try clearing the pump but it seems to run through. Left it all alone for the day. I got cleaned up in the afternoon and we left at 6 PM for Goodnights comedy club in Raleigh. We stopped into Irregardless and talked to the manager about a group dinner next year. We then went into Goodnights and had dinner at the bar. I ordered a Tostada salad with sirloin and chili beans ver te top. Beforehand they served is an appetizer of chips and Queso (cheese). I had a Yuengling with dinner. Afterwards we went upstairs to the comedy club. The first 3 comedians were mildly funny but the headliner was very very good. He had a good knack for story telling to draw you into the story. From Charley Goodnights web site: Stewart Huff is an established comic known for his clever material. His high-energy storytelling style is winning over audiences in clubs all over the country. Stewart is on the cutting edge of comedy's move toward thoughtful and well crafted comedy... Huff�s unique choice of material is what sets him apart. He covers topics ranging from The Wright Brothers to the greatest job he ever had: The Dairy Queen. If that's not enough, Stewart has a bit about penguins that will change your life. Stewart�s unique, clean material, energetic delivery and comfortable stage presence make for a night of non-stop laughter. ~ March 06, 2009 Success, pumping, everything else --------------- Looked at the pump this morning. It's still jammed but the Drano dissolved some of the sludge. The pump was filled with sand and gravel. I managed to shake it out and work it out with a screwdriver. Plugged it in and it turned OK after spitting out some gravel particles. I hooked up the pump to the Home Depot flower pot (irrigation control box). Got the rig all hooked up with power and plumbing then lowered the contraption into the tank. It went down inside fairly well then hooked up a short pipe aimed at the creek and turned it on. The pump worked well. Hooked everything up but had to make another Home Depot trip to get another coupling. Ran the pump and went up the hill to watch. The sewage was bubbling up from the distribution box at the top of the hill. This is good. May have to dump root killer into the distribution box to fix the leach field. I also need to find a backflow prevention valve. I have a small problem because both places where I drilled inspection holes in the pipe are shooting sewage up in the air. I covered them both up which may not have been a good idea since the lower one is oozing out of the ground. Dinner tonight was crab cakes. We skipped First Friday because I was tired and we're going out tomorrow to Met HD Butterfly and also went out last night to the Comedy Club. ~ March 07, 2009 bird house, Madama Butterfly --------------- I put a new pole onto the birdhouse from up by our mailbox and moved it back by the edge of the field. Let's see if this works out. I plugged the pump in to see if it would pump our sewage from overnight but there wasn't enough liquid to trip the float switch. We got cleaned up and left for the 1PM performance of Butterfly at 11:30. There was a glitch at the beginning - the projector quit. They saved the opera and showed it on a 10 minute tape delay. It was a vocally stunning Butterfly. The same person, Patricia Racette, sang this last year for San Francisco. I felt a tickle in my throat during the performance - I'm getting Libbie's cold. What a bummer. Dinner tonight was stuffed salmon with Beauregard Sweet Potato and Cabernet Sauvignon. ~ March 08, 2009 sick --------------- I pretty much lost all of today. I was sick and slept all day. I Laid down on the couch at 9 AM when Libbie left and woke at noon when she came back. This pretty much shot the whole day. For dinner I had a bowl of Oatmeal and went to bed at 8 PM. ~ March 09, 2009 Not great --------------- Not such a great day either. I'm walking round like a zombie today. Went in the backyard for a little bit and notched the spetic tank for the pipe to pas through. I used the ball peen hammer and hacked away at it. Interestingly there was a metal mesh reinforcing wire that I broke through with the ball peen. The rest of the day was pretty much a washed up affair. My nose started running during the premiere of Dancing with the Stars. None of the celebs impressed me very much. Dinner was bean burgers with tomato on a bun. ~ March 10, 2009 getting better --------------- Took another Drixoral to stop my running nose. Went to the Credit Union to deposit the convention postcard reimbursement then went to Krogers for minimal groceries. Didn't feel like doing much running around so just did the one grocery store. In the backyard I lowered the septic pipe below the tank surface, dug the muck out around the tank, partially buried the pipe where it ran above ground and dressed the wires going to the outlet. I put the home made cover onto the tank but it needs to be bigger. In addition, the top of the tank is uneven leaving a good seal hard to achieve. I may look into some garage door rubber seal or equivalent for the tank. ~ March 11, 2009 groggy --------------- I'm pretty groggy today. Went with Libbie to Logans at noon to look at landscaping bushes. Still looking for pyracantha which do not seem to be a spring item. This is our last 80 degree day for a while. Mailed the postcards to Reno via parcel post. The package costed $12 to send. In the PM I wasn't feeling hungry when Libbie suggested chicken and yam for dinner but later in the PM my appetite seemed to retun. We had her yummy barbecue chicken with yams. After dinner we watched American Idol. Got a phone call at 9 from Runnels that they were shipping Aunt Helen to Overlook because she was running a fever and had low blood pressure. She seems to be bouncing in and out of hospitals and rehab in these past few months. Libbie said we may be going to a funeral soon. ~ March 12, 2009 productive --------------- I created he 16x20 for our sign and sent it off to whcc.com for delivery to Brenda. Went outside and added the additional plank to the septic cover. This is looking pretty good. Took down a gum tree adjacent to the tank. Heard from Runnels about Aunt Helen. She did not have a urinary infection. Fixed the clock on the oven. It seemed to be covered in sawdust inside. I used the shop vac to clean it out then gave the wheels a twirl. All seemed to be well. We ran a cleaning cycle this evening. Dinner was TJ's frozen lasagna and chocolate frozen yogurt. Interestingly, this monring I had incredible oain across my chest and radiating down my shoulders. I wonder what this is? It seened to be triggered by brushing my teeth. Bending over the sink? Probing sensitive gum tissue? ~ March 13, 2009 rain --------------- I finished the trailer program this morning. Another one down!!!! It's a rainy day - raining pretty hard. The grill parts arrived from Amazon via UPS. Replaced the flavorizer bars and the cook grill. The grill was filled with a deep layer of rust. I used a trowel to shovel the rust into a plastic garbage bag. Even though it was raining, I used the vacuum outdoors and vacuumed the grill out then put all the new parts in. This time I bought stainless steel flavorizer bars but a porcelain coated steel cooking grill. Hopefully the flavor bars will last longer. Libbie cooked grilled chicken on the rebuilt grill which we had with yams and Shiraz. I really didn't want the wine but drank it anyway. I did some reading of the new book from Sandra Brown this evening, Richochet. Earlier in the day Libbie and I went to the library, Home Depot for tape and a septic tank outlet cover, Office Max for a box of printer paper so it was a full day. We heard that Joe was laid off this week. This is too bad. The economy is in bad shape, jobs are tough to find. ~ March 14, 2009 PCB, Rusalka, Aunt Helen --------------- Worked a lot of today on the Burbank PCB. I had to create a few new footprints for the zigbee and some of the surface mount parts. Did all of that OK. Vicki called because she couldn't find Aunt Helen. The lady had checked herself out of Overlook and got herself back to WR. Communicated with Lynn some of today about our raffles - she wants to give away tickets to the raffles in the goody bags. Dinner was ribs with baked potato, Merlot and Cranberry Ricotta cake. Very good. It's cold and rainy outside but Libbie and I both seem to be back. ~ March 15, 2009 more rain, cold --------------- Did the newspaper thing and mostly stayed indoors today because it was a cold rainy day outside. We cleaned the backporch with the vacuum and Libbie washed the tiles with her sponge mop. I continued to work on Burbank. Libbie made her excellent pizza again today. ~ March 16, 2009 Burbank, Bonnard --------------- Finished the Burbank grow box monitro PCB. Have not finished the code. started the complementary product which is Bonnard, after the artist who features ladies dressing after their baths. Bonnard will be a zigbee to ethernet bridge with an onboard web server. I will re-use some of the Wiznet code I ported to the AVR and GCC. Even though I finished Burbank, I did not send it in. I want to wait and see if I need to add anything else to the project. Dinner was chicken over noodles with simmer sauce. We enjoyed ancing with the Stars this evening before going up to read my Sandra brown book. During the day I broke down the boxes in the garage for recycle tomorrow. We had the grill parts boxes and the septic pump box. Also finished up the septic job by putting the outlet cover over the wires and generally cleaning up the yard. This job is complete. ~ March 17, 2009 couch, Mexican dinner --------------- Went for groceries but did not do much outside. Worked on the code for the Bonnard web server. Using a Wiz module I think I can create a web server as well as the Zigbee. Went with Libbie and picked up our couch at a warehouse in RTP. It looks great. Listed our old one on Craigslst and had 9 responses. We had dinner at La Cocina and a MArgarita. The Margaritas went up to 1.99 instead of .99 on Monday and Tuesdays. ~ March 18, 2009 Bathus potato --------------- Went outside because it was a glorious day. Took my wheel barrow and moved several loads of logs onto the log pile in an attempt to clean up the woods. I even walked to the top of the hill and picked up some sticks while looking over the birdhouse. Went to Walmart to get socks. Price was much better than target and they were the Tall socks. Deposited the rent check in the Credit Union next door and met Libbie in the wild bird store where she was buying worms. We went to the Farmers market looking for shrubs and was disappointed - not a single nursery vendor. Picked up an ugly sweet potato called Bathus Potato. Google says it's an old timey yam. It was white inside and very sweet. The guy showed up today around noon for the sofa for his daughter. He had a pickup with cap so it went inside pretty easily. Dinner was bean burgers with Farmers Market tomatoes and the Bathus yams. ~ March 19, 2009 dirt, dirt --------------- Sent Bonnard off to AP circuits. UI'm going to run the whole thing at 3.3 volts which should simplify life. Bonnard has an Atmega128 with a Wiznet web server and a Zigbee. Went outside and worked on the Dogwood. The old stump had rotted and left a big hole under the dogwood. It took 2 wheel barrows of dirt then I covered all with leaves. Talked with Town of Apex today about my power bill which they didn't deduct from my bank like they were supposed to. Libbie brought dirt home for me to plant my seeds into. Then we went to the top of the hill and extended the length of the birdhouse pole. while we worked on this there was a Bluebird overhead singing. I think we'll get a bird in this box. Dinner was Trader Joe's pasta. We had a nice evening listeneing to Luisa Miller on the radio and reading our books. ~ March 20, 2009 hard drives --------------- Ordered another terabyte drive from Newegg. I also reworked the Burbank control card and sent it off to AP Circuits. Dinner was stuffed salmon and Sweet potato. I spray painted the septic pipe crossing the creek black today. It looks much better since the black conceals it. The temp got up to 68 today - horray!!! Planted the tomato and marigold seeds in the cell packs Libbie brought for me. Spent the evening reading Richochet some more. This is becoming a page turner. ~ March 21, 2009 Sonnambula, Richochet --------------- Went over to the greenhouse to get potting soil in my grow box and also filled up the tank for the opera today. Left for Sonnambula at 11:30. The theater was sold out again. I really enjoyed the performance. Natalie made the whole show. Wow, what an opera. Stopped at a very crowded Trader Joes for ribs and wine for dinner. Dinner was very nice but the ribs were St Louis, not our normal TJ's ribs. These had a fake hickory smoke flavor. It's spring - enjoyed the flowering trees on the way back from the opera. Distributed the MAAVS Memo this evening. It looks like we have a new hotel for the MAAVS convention. I finished the Richochet book tonight. This was a thriller that I enjoyed very much. ~ March 22, 2009 leaves, dirt, shade, book, --------------- Had to go to Krogers this morning to pick up milk with the newspaper. We were out of milk for cereal. Raked more leaves from next to the shed. Went over to the greenhouse for 2 garbage cans full of dirt. Libbie asked if I wanted to stay and do the shadecloth. We put one cloth up but the other needed mending because the seams had torn in many spots. Came back after lunch with the chain saw and the empty garbage cans. Filled up the cans, trimmed some of the shrubbery when Libbie was done with the mending. Put the repaired shade on house 1 which was very vey hard because I was so tired. Came home, took a shower and sat on the backporch and started reading a book Libbie gave me to read. It's a library book by a local author she liked. Dinner was Libbie's traditional pizza with some fresh tomato slices thrown in. ~ March 23, 2009 fan belts, dirt, backyard --------------- Went over to the greenhouse to tighten the fan belts. This didn't work so well - both belts on houses 3 and 4 have no more adjustment left. I found a fan belt in the garage that's 55 inches. I looked up what we've been using and it's anywhere from 53 inches to 55 inches. Took 2 barrels of dirt home from the greenhouse then worked some in the backyard. Put three wheelbarrows of clay at the base of the oak tree filling in stump holes. Walked to the top of the hill to check on the bird house - a pair of bluebirds are building a nest up there. The septic pumped this morning - there was another puddle at the base where the pipe was drilled. Dinner was chicken and broccoli with curry simmer sauce. After dinner we read our books and listened to WCPE playing the Chicago Symphony performance of Holst's Planets. This morning the Bonnard card arrived - everything fits mechanically!!!! Put the card together but did not power anything up yet. I ordered the missing voltage regulator resistor along with other parts from Digikey. In the meantime i will jump out the regulator and run the thing directly at 3.3 volts. ~ March 24, 2009 Asheboro --------------- My disk drive arrived today from New Egg while we were out. Went to Seagrove, NC to do a precon. Had lunch t the Westmore Family dinner where I had a barbecue sandwich and we split some seasoned fries. Dinner this evening was pasta. ~ March 25, 2009 Anniversary --------------- I made the traditional 8x10 picture for our anniversary. Libbie and I went to La Cocina for dinner and Margaritas. We were serenaded by a Mariachi band which was nice. Who would have thought?? ~ March 26, 2009 Bonnard --------------- Couldn't get the Bonnard Atmega to work. Changed the chip and still no love. Discovered that the ISP interface for an AT128 is different from other AVR's. Changed the wires and burned the JTAG enable fuse then I was able to debug normally. Did not need to change the chip. Dinner was Curry simmer sauce chicken after which we watched American Idol. ~ March 27, 2009 shopping, Tillers --------------- This was a busy day. Did a little debug work on Bonnard then took a look at my broken tiller. Went to Northern Tool then AgriSupply then Home Depot and Lowes. Bought a new kitchen faucet in Home Depot and found Pyracantha in Lowes. Went back after lunch with Libbie and got the Pyracantha in the rain. They will do nicely. The estimate for our new Disposal will be $150. I told them to go ahead and replace it. For dinner we had Indian Veggies with shrimp. The veggie combo was called Biryani. Before bedtime I worked on Bonnard and managed to serve a web page using the Wiznet ROM FileMaker program to compile a web page into a hex file. I will be replacing this. ~ March 28, 2009 rain, success --------------- It's a crappy rainy day. The septic pump is running and won't turn off. When it gets near the bottom of the pump it won't drain enough to shut off. I switched it off in the garage. May have to use a timer before eventually going to a sonar level sensor. Replaced the kitchen faucet - had to run to Home Depot for a pair of stainless supply connection lines. While there I got a 3/8 drive adapter for my drill and tried it on the roto tiller. It starts flawlessly. This is all I need for only using the tiller once a year. Listened to Met Opera Rheingold today while working on the Wiznet web server. Libbie and I went to Trader Joes in the rain and got ribs and wine for dinner and also some more of the Indian veggie and rice medley. Dinner was ribs, yams and Shiraz. After dinner I worked on Bonnard some more. It's now spitting out web pages with variables!!!! Much still needs to be done. Libbie asked an intersting question. What do you need another web server for? I thought you already had one. The answer is it gives me a small potentially battery operated master web server in which I will be able to aggregate via Zigbee a wide variety of information. Because this is on the net, I can potentially even send updates to an external website or even the Traviata web server. ~ March 29, 2009 rain, --------------- Got up at 6:30 and was out the door by 7 to get the paper. It was raining lightly as I went over to McDonalds but it's supposed to clear up today with a little sun and some wind. ~ March 30, 2009 roto tiller, septic, shade cloth --------------- I roto tilled near the roses then spread the two bags of mulch as far as it would go. Dug out the septic pump pipe where I had drilled a hole and put a screw into the hole. The shade blew off the end of the greenhouse. I went to Ace and got some Roundup and also eye hooks that I screwed into the end wall and tied the shade onto. Dinner was chicken caciatoria over rice. Yummy. ~ March 31, 2009 roto tiller, oil change --------------- Worked on building Burbank in the morning a little then went to Krogers for groceries on old geezer day. After lunch I roto tilled the peat moss in the backyard. I may want to planta Camelia there. Libbie called from the Post Office that the starter on the minivan quit. She had a dentist appt across the street at Beavers. Afterwards I met her at Gastons garage where she drove it and left it running but we ended up turning it off since they can't deal with it until tomorrow anyway. I drove her to the Credit Union and greenhouse. At the greenhouse I changed the oil on the tractor and put a new air filter in. Dinner was pork chops with broccoli and butternut squash. It was delicious. Soldered wires onto the solar powered LED lightand extended the LED. Drilled a hole in the wooden box holding the glass pumpkin and now the white LED lights it up nicely. ~ April 01, 2009 rain, planes --------------- A rainy day. Left at 8:30 to drop Lib off at the airport for her 10 AM Providence flight. Stopped at Brueggers on the Cary Pkwy on the way home and picked up bagels and coffee. Got a call around noon that the minivan was ready. Walked up Old Raleigh Rd because it stopped raining. The starter was $300 and was bad because it filled with oil according to the guy at Gastons. While I had the minivan I went to Home Depot and got 4 more bags of cypress mulch and 2 Camellias. The Camellias rang up as Rhododendron for 7.99. The price was OK because last year I saw Camellias for $39 in the Garden Center near Ace and then $21 at Ace. These were in 1 gallon cans which is a fine size. They probably won't bloom for a couple more years. I had a Krogers mini pizza for dinner. ~ April 02, 2009 more rain --------------- We had more rain today but I got out in the morning and planted yesterdays Camellia purchase and spread one bag of cypress mulch on the rose bed. It still needs another bag to finish the job. Rented National Lampoons Cattle Call and Nights in Rodanthe. I hated Cattle Call but really liked Nights in Rodanthe. The play between Richard Geere and Diane Lane was good. Very attractive people in a tender story. Had to return it this afternoon before 7 PM. Got some frozen dinners while in Krogers. Talked to Brenda about the Reno convention. We're going to concentrate on silent auctions. Had a frozen Healthy Choice dinner for both lunch and dinner today. ~ April 03, 2009 nice day --------------- A perfect day. I worked a little outside. Went to Tigerdirect and picked up a SATA cable for the new 1TB disk drive. Also stopped into HH Gregg in Apex. Not sure why this place exists. It had almost nothing.Fell asleep during Moulin rouge in the evening. Got up and went upstairs to bed. Dinner was cereal. ~ April 04, 2009 Roundup, Elixir, hard drives --------------- Mixed up some Roundup and sprayed the grass on the powerline. Tried fixing the Solo but it's got a cracked plastic piece. Listened to Elixir on the Met this afternoon while transferring files to the new 1TB disk drive. I'm organizing the movies and jpg files from many hard drives onto a single large drive. I will have one drive for movies, one for Music and the Western Digital MyBook for misc data files. Dinner was a Healthy choice spicy Gerneral Tsao chicken. I watched the Guitar this evening and liked it so much I screwed around with converting it to DIVX. I found that I needed to load something called SLy Fox DVD driver which removed copy protection then I used a Sourceforge open source program called DVDx which made a DIVX file of the DVD. It worked pretty good although my first pass was only 320 wide which made a blocky picture but then using 720 x 480 it worked pretty good. ~ April 05, 2009 paper --------------- Got the paper early then talked to Lib and answered eMail from Lynn. She wants an auction in Reno. Brenda and I decided not to have one. Bought a tow behind disk aerator on sale in Northern Tools for $59. Picked up the tractor from the greenhouse and hitched it to the aerator. IT did a nice job however the cinder blocks kept falling off. Went to Lowes to pick up bungy cords and also grass seed. On the same trip returned the Guitar DVD to Krogers and picked up a French Bread pizza for dinner. The bungys worked better than expected. After the pizza I watched Dolly Parson on 60 minutes then the Country Music Awards which were entertaining although I decided I don't like country music because all the songs sound the same. ~ April 06, 2009 rain --------------- It's raining pretty good this morning. The tractor is getting cleaned in the backyard. There's a tornado warning on this morning. ~ April 07, 2009 power wash, thermostats --------------- Not a bad day. It's clear but a little chilly. I power washed the tiller, mower and lawn tractor. Changed the oil in the Toro mower. Mowed the grass out by the street then used the blower to clean the tractor and the garage floor and turnaround. Mixed up some roundup and walked the hill trying to zap weeds using my Ace Hardware 2 gallon sprayer. Went over to the greenhouse late in the PM and rewired the thermostats so that house 3 heater comes on when Big Bertha in house 1 fires up. Also repaired the plastic curtain wall which fell down quite a bit. The houses are nicely inflated after I cleaned the screen inlet yesterday of the pollen clogging it up. ~ April 08, 2009 lawn --------------- Not a very good day. Everything has gone wrong. The septic doesn't appear to be pumping. There was water around it and when I turned it on and looked at the top of the hill there was nothing coming out although it may be trickling out because the tank level seemed to go down a little while the pump ran for about an hour. Tried doing the taxes. They are overwhelming. Bluebird is not in very good shape. Entered Bluebird, Stoneybrook and Schwab tax amounts. Still need to do Scottrade and that should be it!!!! I will try to ignore the K-1's this year and only use the consolidated statements although the K-1's reduce my taxes but I don't think I need any reduction. The web server in Bonnard is also acting up. I think I have some bad html because when I quit ahead of it the thing works. Left at 7 to pick up Libbie. She called me when I was on Old Raleigh Rd at 7:01. I got to the airport at 7:15. For dinner we had microwaved Carolina barbecue on buns. I previously picked up the buns in Kroger's along with sugar and coffee. At 8:30 we called Vicki o wish her a happy birthday. ~ April 09, 2009 laptop hinges --------------- It's nice to have Libbie back. This morning during and after breakfast I replaced the left hinge on my laptop. The hinge previously broke off so I used a hinge from an old R40 laptop that had a bad screen but otherwise good case and hinges. It was quite a job with all the tiny screws but I managed. Our dinner was chicken over the Curry veggies from Trader Joes. ~ April 10, 2009 lawn, septic --------------- While I dragged the aerator around on the new grass seed I had the septic pump running. I was very pleased that the liquid was coming out at the top of the hill when I lifted the cover and looked. Picked up a few branches up there and then worked on the lawn. Libbie picked up the mower at noon and went back to the greenhouse to mow and wait for a Wyatt Quarles delivery. I finished the taxes by adding the K-1's to the return in Turbotax and then Libbie took all to the post office and also picked up $150 for our trip to Reno next week. I built an adapter to power the GPS from a wall plug and also programmed the Denver Art Museum and Denver hotel into it. Dinner was peas and creamed tuna over a bed of rice. Very simple but good. I gave Libbie her chocolate bunny a little early for easter. ~ April 11, 2009 Walkure, packing --------------- We listened to the Met Walkure at noon. I earlier picked up ribs and wine at Trader Joes. After the opera we did some serious packing since we need camera gear in addition to dress clothes and warm weather clothes. It's snowing in the Sierras but is supposed to end by the time we get there. Went to bed early to get up at 4 but I had trouble getting to sleep. ~ April 12, 2009 Flying, storms, Denver, Hotel Oxford --------------- We left home around 4:30 for our 6:25 flight. Tried the new relax.com parking over on 70 because it's covered and I had a free day coupon. I liked it - the pickup bus followed us to our spot which was row I space 44 and took us to Terminal 2 for American. They wouldn't take my or Libbie's credit card which was of some concern because we had 8 days in front of us. We found later the computer was down for account maintenance. Picked up a Brueggers bagle and coffee at our gate. The flight was very smooth until we got to Dallas then we lost an hour as we went to the South in some very bumpy weather. We landed at the time our Denver flight was to take off but they held the plane for us. Very nice. The Denver flight was surprisingly smooth although Denver was socked in with some miserable foggy and dreary weather. Stopped at iHop for Easter brunch then drove to the Denver Art Museum. What an unusually weird shaped building. I enjoyed the Western Art. From there went to our hotel and checked in. Loved the old feel of this hotel. There are antique moldings and fixtures, etc. Our room is newly refurbished with modern fixtures, a Bose radio and even WIFI which I was able to connect to without a hitch. For dinner we went McCormicks fish house which is part of the hotel. I had Asahi Tuna which was outstanding with a bottle of Columbia Crest Chardonnay. We shared a chocolate truffle cake for dessert. Before dinner I returned the rental car. The trip took 2 hours although it didn't seem that long. I took the highway 20 miles to the airport, got gas at the aairport, rode the Hertz shuttle to the terminal, went in the terminal to buy a Super Shuttle ticket then went around town in the shuttle and the rain until the Oxford hotel. ~ April 13, 2009 bagels, train ride --------------- We woke pretty early, before the alarm since our bodies are still on East Coast time. Got a bagle across the street in a little coffee shop. The elevator quit part way down so I had to carry our suitcases from the second floor down. The train was waiting at the station when we checked our bags. Got on and then settled into a spot in the lounge car before taking a number for breakfast. I had scrambled eggs with bacon, OJ and coffee. It was quite good. For lunch I had a burger which I didn't care for. We sat with two students from England who were crossing the country by rail. Our dinner companions were a retired couple from MD who lived in Colorado skiing for the winter where they have an RV. They were going to Reno for gambling, etc. For dinner I had the Flat steak with Cabernet. IT was very very good. I slept well at night, rarely waking till it was light outside. We put the chairs back up at daybreak. ~ April 14, 2009 Reno, promo table --------------- We had breakfast in the train diner - I had the French toast. After breakfast we stayed in the sky car watching the last of the scenery and taking a few pictures. We stopped at Sparks and saw our hotel. Got off in Reno and took a cab back to the Nugget. We were able to check in right away at 11 AM. The hotel is very nice but the casino and lobby is very smokey. Brenda had a lot of our table set up. I made two boxes for raffle tickets for the two raffles we will have. Libbie and I went to the Reno airport to get a rental car. The only sedan they had available was a Prius. We didn't know how to operate it so Libie looked up things in the manual while I waited. We stopped at Office Depot and made some copies of our promo sheet. For dinner we went over to the Mexican place across the street with Michelle who is doing entries for MAAVS in Raleigh. She's a nice girl, I enjoyed our dinner conversation. It snowed on and off all day today and was pretty cold. ~ April 15, 2009 Nugget --------------- This morning we went to the commercial sales meeting in the sales room. The group was friendly and interested when I presented why they should come to Raleigh for the convention. I enjoyed guarding the door at 12:30 before the sales room opened at 1. I took photos of the winner of the early entry person, Laurel Goretsky along with all the commercial vendors lined up greeting her to the sales room. After that we started the photography. Because the show was small we finished early. We walked the Casino looking for a dinner idea. A lot of the restaurants were closed but we waited for a table at the Oyster Bar. It was excellent and wonderful. I had the Ciappino while Libbie had a Crab Chowder. They both were in large bowls. We got a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner. Have to stop eating like this. ~ April 16, 2009 Nuggett, Steak dinner --------------- We started with breakfast in the hotel restaurant Rosie's. I had the French Toast again. Kent Stork joined us for breakfast. Afterwards we worked on setting up our Raleigh table again from boxes in the storage room. Bill Price donated many bags of cuttings to our cause. I attended the Bill Price trailer talk which was verygood. While Libbie worked at the auction lunch I went to JC Penneys and bought some pants and shirts which I later returned with Libbie and got different sizes. We also picked up a new large suitcase. On the way back from Penneys I stopped at Wendy's for lunch. Richard donated some leaves for us to use in the silent auctions. Our table is growing in size. I took a picture of our promo tables for the web site. Inn the evening we went out with a large bunch to Washoe's in Reno. I had the best steak ever but didn't care for the fries. The bill was one of our highest ever at $115 with tip and only one glass of wine. There were 12 of us including the Carters, Davidsons and Nicholas's. ~ April 17, 2009 Promos, final show dinner --------------- Breakfast at Rosies. I had the Pancakes this time. We met Anne and Richard and talked about the applications for AVSA Board members. In the afternoon I filled out and submitted an application. We closed the auctions at 2:30 and collected all the money. Almost everyone showed up. At 3:15 we had the general meeting. I welcomed everyone and Libbie described the tours. We had a very nice prime rib dinner for the installation banquet. I invited everyone again and Richard did his skit with three "SaintPaulia" girls. After dinner we went to bed instead of going to the showroom to beg for plants. ~ April 18, 2009 Lake Tahoe --------------- There were 6 of us for breakfast. The Nicholas's, the Deutsche's, Tatiana and Vladimir and us. It was a very relaxing breakfast. We left there at 9 and went to the bus pickup for our 10 o'clock trip to Tahoe. We brought jackets but didn't need them. The lake was very beautiful. Many people were in Bikinis although it was a little cold for that kind of attire. I was comfortable in a flannel shirt but put on a jacket out on the water. My face got badly sunburned. After we got back Libbie talked to Jennifer before we got in the car and drove to downtown Reno for food. We found river walk and walked around before finding the silver peak grill which was a brewery. I had the blonde ale and a black bean chili which came with an outstanding jalapeno corn muffin. I loved watching the ultra ultra short skirts on several young girls. We cruised the strip in our Prius. It was entertaining to see how that thing kept turning it's engine on and off. ~ April 19, 2009 Tahoe, Exploring, pizza --------------- My face hurts from the sunburn this morning. After showering I used the towel to carefully blot it instead of rubbing it normally to dry it. We don't have internet access so I'm working offline. After breakfast at Rosie's where I had French toast we got in the car and headed for Carson City with our checks from the promotional table auction. I asked for an envelope at the front desk of our hotel. The nice lady gave me two business envelopes into which I put all the signed MAAVS checks along with a $700 check Libbie made out to AVSA 2010 for our cash. We mailed it at the post office in Carson City. On the way to Carson City I stopped for a Starbucks while Libbie went into Krogers and got sandwich bags for her plants and aloe for our sunburned faces. We drove up to Tahoe then went around the lake. It was beautiful. We bought a lunch sandwich and some chips at a deli on the other side of the lake and stopped at emerald Bay to have lunch. It was spectacular. Leaving Emeral Bay the road is on a ridge that drops hundreds of feet on both sides. We drove it twice to take photos. What a sight!!! When we got back we tried to scope out a pizza place for dinner later but the GPS led us to a non existant business again. When I got back to our room I purchased a one hour internet access. Found out that Richard quit the vice chair job which was good because I was wondering how to get rid of him in the first place. He hasn't done a thing. Others were expressing the same opinion to me. ~ April 20, 2009 packing, flying, WiFi --------------- Got up early and went down to Starbucks for coffee. Libbie packed our stuff while I drank the coffee and did some offline computer work. We left the hotel at noon and had lunch at Wendy's around the corner from the hotel. Afterwards we looked for a drugstore for Libbie so she could take Sudafed for her ears before flying. Our flight from Reno was ontime which was too bad because I enjoyed the free WiFi in the terminal. Changed planes in Las Vegas where we had a Cinnabon. Landed at RDU at half past midnnight. Our chuttle to the EasyPark was right there at shuttle station 9. We picked up a free water in the parking lot then paid our bill which was $45 for the 10 days which included a coupon I had for a free day. ~ April 21, 2009 dentist, tired --------------- We got in at 2 AM this morning from Reno. I was forced to get up early instead of sleeping in because of an 8:30 dentist appointment. All went well at the checkup. I spent most of the day catching up on bills, email and putting stuff away. Did the grocery run, dinner was pasta from Trader Joes. I fell asleep during Dancing with the Stars this evening. Edita wss eliminated. I'll miss her. ~ April 22, 2009 windy --------------- It's warm today but a little windy. Did some reading on LCD displays. My laptop internet connection is a little flakey this morning. Got the wireless weather station from JC Penney working on the network. Hung the outdoor sensor on the front porch column to get outdoor temperatures. Libbie added chicken to the Indian veggie mix for dinner. It was quite good. ~ April 23, 2009 LCD, AVSA, SD cards --------------- I spent a lot of today researching LCD's and how to drive them. Found the index for Circuit Cellar and did some looking at back issues. I also researched how to write SD cards using an AVR and also took a look at intercepting the picture frame to SD communications so I can transparently write the card while it is in the frame. Heard from Rich Follett, he now wants to be entertainment chair. I don't know about this. Dinner was bean burger with vidalia onion. ~ April 24, 2009 gardens --------------- Looked some more at LCD displays in the morning. Went outside and took apart the brick sidewalk on the side where roots pushed the bricks up. Also mowed the front grass along the street and did a little tree branch pickup. When Libbie came home we went out to Duke Gardens and spent the afternoon. Stopped at the CU on the way home then mailed the postcards to Brenda. Dinner this evening is Curry chicken. ~ April 25, 2009 bricks, LCD, Gotterdammerung --------------- Did some more LCD research. Loaded the trial version of Eagle PCB onto my PC so I could look at the schematics of an improvement to the CCI design contest TFT LCD. I ordered two LCD's last night from Electronic Goldmine. I will use an 8515 AVR to act as a display controller for the thing. Went to Home Depot this morning and bought sand. The parking lot was pretty crowded - it is Saturday after all. Ripped up some bricks, removed another root and then used the sand for a new bed. This time I put down felt paper which gives a smoother surface to lay the bricks on. Put down quite a few bricks but I wanted to listen to Gotterdammerung at 12:00 from the Met. After Gotterdammerung we did a grocery run foraging for food at Trader Joes. Picked up Shiraz, ribs and sweet potatoes as well as a variety of frozen fish and veggies. Dinner was a wonderful plate of ribs and sweet potato with Shiraz. I started looking at the AVR32 for a display controller. The AP7000 is on a BGA which requires an 8 layer board, however the UC3A and UC3B are in conventional packages. The clss I took gave us an EVk1001 with aa UC3B chip on board. This is the version with USB but without Ethernet. ~ April 26, 2009 bricks, dirt, bird bath, AVR32 --------------- No shower because I'll do that later after working in the yard. Went out before 7 and got the newspaper. Looked at the AVR32 some more. I think I'll code it up to interface the Sony display then go all out and configure it for the Sparkfun higher resolution TFT LCD. The Sony is adequate, the Sparkfun is awesome. I would be adopting the CCI Design contest winner code but on an AVR32 instead of an 8515. Worked in the backyard moving dirt around the oak tree roots to make it easier to mow. I finished leveling the brick sidewalk. While I was at it, Libbie and I leveled the birdbath. It was leaning to the left (downhill). Libbie mde her wonderful pizza for dinner. After dinner we wrote thank yous for all promo donations in between phone calls from Sue. ~ April 27, 2009 Makers --------------- Southwest has an airfare sale on Bay area airports. I'm thinking of the Maker Faire again. Can't believe it. Spent some more time on the LCD again. Found the EVK1101 but can't find the NGW100. Libbie was incapacitated getting ready for her colonoscopy tomorrow so i went to Krogers and picked up a Szechuan Lean cuisine. Aunt Helens doctor called today about a blood clot they found. They're going to install a filter to stop it from migrating. I was pretty tired this evening - fell asleep out cold during Dancing with the stars. ~ April 28, 2009 Interesting day --------------- Went to the Dr office with Libbie for her colonoscopy. Waited outside while they did the procedure. She was done round 11:45 from her 11:00 appt. Came home and had a chicken rice vegetable soup for lunch. Took a walk up the hill - it's a beautiful dy. They were string trimming and running a brush hog in the pond. Fired up the EVK1101 board and installed the USB driver. The USB powers the thing. Did some more reading about the GPIO reads/writes. Dinner was pasta from Trader Joes and then chocolate yogurt. ~ April 29, 2009 Gardening --------------- Did some gardening today. I almost hate to leave here tomorrow for Williamsburg but it's a one day trip so it will be easy. We had pasta for dinner. ~ April 30, 2009 Williamsburg --------------- We left at 8:15 for Williamsburg, arrived at the Woodlands at 11:55 AM. Met Judy and Adrienne in the parking lot. We stopped at a Dunkin donuts on I-95 on the way for coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. The hotel has a lot of compromises. After the hotel tour we had a business meeting in the Seasons restaurant in Market Square. I had a turkey and bacon sandwich with a Blue Moon beer. It was yummy. Got home at around 7 PM. It was an easy drive with the bypass giving us interstate driving all the way. Dinner for me was just fruit and a piece of bread since I had such a big lunch. ~ May 01, 2009 Sams --------------- First Friday. We went to Sams for dishwashing powder and $209 of other items. I wasreluctant to leave the gardening. I planted the grow boxes and the flower beds. Dinner was salmon and sweet potato with shiraz. ~ May 02, 2009 AVR32 --------------- Tried watering everything. Spent lot of time on theAVR32 getting the tool chain to compile and run. There's lots I don't understand. Dinner was ribs from Sams, Trader Joe siraz and rice and beans. Also started working on getting my MCE PC updated so it could be a media center. ~ May 03, 2009 Sunday --------------- I got up surprisingly early. I was getting the paper at the gas station at 6:45 AM. Wow. After the paper I played with the PIO some more. Finally got the thing to output onto a PIO pin. Did some more gardening. Planted the flower seeds, the remaining tomato and hooked up the electric fence again. Dinner was Libbie's excellent pizza. We took a walk around Seagrove Farm. The pool is finished and lot 67 is sold. ~ May 04, 2009 MCE, PIO --------------- Workedon the Media center a little after ordering Libbie's new PC fron NewEgg. Went to TigerDirect at noon to get a remote for the Media Center. Got one for $32 with tax which was for Vista but I found a driver on the web that worked for XP MCE. I really like the control I now have over moview and pictures. Still need something better for music. Tried mowing the grass but the mower started smoking. I think it has too much oil in it. ~ May 05, 2009 rain, tornado --------------- It rained last night which was good but we had severe weather this afternoon. Tornados were reported in several areas, the closest being on the Cary Parkway by Route 1. Dinner was Trader Joe pasta. Little Kim was eliminated tonight on Dancing with the stars. ~ May 06, 2009 gardening, PC's --------------- Planted an eggplant in the grow boxes and worked on the other gardens a little. Libbie's PC arrived this afternoon - it was only ordered on Monday. I worked on the build and had a little trouble getting the new XP install CD to boot. I ended up unplugging the CD drive, botting from CD then hot plugging the drive back in. The thing installed OK by itself including formatting the hard drive. Dinner was the Indian veggie mix with chicken on it. The red head Allison was eliminated tonight. She sang like Janis Joplin with a raspy voice. ~ May 07, 2009 software --------------- I installed more software on Libbie's new computer. This time it was MS Office and McAfee antivirus. Worked on installing the electric fence around the grow boxes. I chose not to put in a Williamsburg type garden with the thought that it would be like a trailer park garden. In the evening we went to the Carying place benefit auction for wine and nice dinner with heavy hors'doeuvres. We bid on several silent auctions and ended up spending $260 which was more than I wanted to. ~ May 08, 2009 wiring --------------- I pulled some wire today in the attic to run ethernet and telephone to Libbie's computer in Joe's old room. Went to Home Depot and picked up some staples and a box with outlet cover for the jacks. In the afternoon I worked in the yard with the chain saw. Took down some lower branches and 2 saplings on lot 67 for the Bluebird house then sliced up a pine tree that fell by the old transformer location. The tree was laying on the lawn so it needed slicing up. Dinner was crab cakes with bean salad. ~ May 09, 2009 Cenerentola --------------- I didn't feel like going to the opera today but I knew I would enjoy it. I have so much to do around here. We left at 11 for the 12:30 performance. Libbie made sandwiches - we were the first ones in the theater. I loved the performance - the lead soprano is an opera babe. She's a very pretty blonde Mezzo from Latvia. The opera was over the top great. When we got outside it was warm and windy - the car temp said it was 93. At home I cut the lawn in front by the street since it was getting long. Dinner was salmon and broccolli but without wine. We're trying to cut back. ~ May 10, 2009 Gardening --------------- Got up pretty early, picked up a paper and returned the movie at Krogers at 7 AM. After reading the paper I went outside and worked on the wiring for the electric fence around the grow boxes. I also used the chain saw on the log that had fallen on the lawn. Dinner was Libbie's outstanding pizza. ~ May 12, 2009 things --------------- I still don't want to go to Florida. Libbie called at noon saying that the violet club was meeting at Giovanni's, a new restaurant that replaced Blue Rain. I enjoyed lunch over there with the group. Got Joann hoover signed up to be chair of the information table. ~ May 13, 2009 travel --------------- I was still reluctant to go to Florida since I'm doing so much stuff around here and don't want to leave. During breakfast I pushed the button to reserve a Comfort Suites room in Jacksonville. In the morning I went to the Credit Union to get money then I went to Lowes and bought some fencing. At home I planted the marigolds and zinnias then I installed the fencing to keep the rabbits out of the flower bed. We'll see how this works. I left at 12:30 after stopping into the greenhouse to say goodbye. Felicia was there helping Libbie plant plugs. The trip was fairly good. In Savannah I hit blinding rain and whiteout conditions with the heavy rain nd the spray from cars and trucks. On the other side of Savannah it was like emerging from a cave - the sun was shining and trip was uneventful. I only stopped for gas once in Florence, SC at 2.09 but I didn't need much. Also got some McDonald hamburgers but then I got onto the wrong ramp for I-95 and headed North up to the next exit which was TV road and got turned around in the correct direction. I got into the Jax motel at 7:15. It was a beautiful place - a brand new Comfort Suites. Walked next door and had a Wendys spicy chicken with a side salad. The hotel has WiFi so I went online and did email. ~ May 14, 2009 travel --------------- Got up early and had the hotel breakfast bagels and coffee. Left and got onto 295 South but it was stopped around exit 3. Got off and got gas for 2.27 then did a McDonalds coffee. Also got 2 Egg McMuffins because they were buy one get one free. Didn't need that much food. Used the GPS and took a parallel road to 295 direct to I-95. The rest of the trip was not eventful. Stopped into Ellenton outlets for some Reebok sneakers which were buy one get the second pair for 50% off. Bought 2 pairs then stopped into the Stoneybrook office and picked up a transponder and a fitness center key card. Total was $30 on my account. For dinner I had ribs to go which was an outstanding dinner - ribs, veggies, baked potato and salad. ~ May 15, 2009 Backus, Melbourne, Rte 60 --------------- After talking with Lib I decided to go to the East coast today. Left around 8:30 and decided to take Route 60. The stretch through Brandon is bad with many many lights but once I got going it was great. It's a 4 lane road with a 65 MPH speed limit. I hit many bugs, turning the windshield into a whitewash. Found the Backus gallery. I was surprised it's a city museum located on a very attractive waterfront. The water was very pretty. Walked through the museum - enjoyed the paintings, learned a little about the Highwaymen. Ended up buying a DVD of their story. The coffee table books were $59 so I didn't bite. Stopped in a McDonalds on Route 1 before finding FL60 to get to I-95 for the drive to Melbourne. In Ft Pierce I found a self wash place and put 2 dollars worth of quarters in the machine and pressure washed the windshield to get most of the bugs off so I could see again. In Melbourne I visited Mom's brick, took some pictures then briefly toured the old Trailer Haven which is now called Tropical Haven. Found the old Twins site - there seems to be building going up there. Was quite surprised that the Melbourne Mall was nuked and replaced with a high rise hotel. Sears is still on the end however. Drove back down to SR60 in Vero and headed East around 5:30. Got back at 8:30. ~ May 17, 2009 microwaves, rookery, drumming --------------- This morning I went to DeSears ppliances tent sale. They were advertising scratch and dent sale with good prices. I bought a GE microwave for $28. Next I went to Venice. First stop was the rookery. Saw some egret juveniles getting fed by their Mom. The trees were loaded with young anihingas. The island contained egrets. There weren't many great gray Herons. Next stop was Raceway across the street - gas was 2.25 which was about 10 cents lower than most other places. After the gas I stopped into a Venice Toyota dealer to look at sticker prices. They had selling price in the windshield. I photographed the sticker with the car and the factory prices and options for my records. back at the condo I disassembled the GE. Much of the interior is the same, however the controller is different. There was a wiring diagram in an envelope inside the unit although it's hard to read. I need to hook a scope to the relay coils to determine the order of activation. There is one relay called an inrush relay. It seems to activate the Magnetron through a varistor type device in parallel with the Main relay which my mean the inrush turns on first then the main relay takes over. At 7 PM I left for drumming. It's a very clear evening with some high level clouds. Sunset is at 8:13. There was a good crowd there - lots of fine woman in bikini's, lots of drums. I stayed until around 9. Came back and had a Lean Cuisine parmesan fish. ~ May 18, 2009 rain, Ringling --------------- I worked on studying the schematic some more for the GE microwave I bought. It's really raining hard outside. I went out in the pouring rain and drove to Ringling. The rain is good for washing the bugs off the car. I enjoyed the Ringling but not the special exhibits. One was a photography exhibit with the theme of Eden and the second was called the language of the nude. The photos were weird - I liked Selby's photography better. The nudes were old brown sketches from the 15th and 16th century. Not my cup of tea. In the gift shop I found a new book of the collections which I purchased. Because it was raining so hard I ended up using an umbrella to go from the car to the museum, then rode the tram for the first time ever. The sides of the tram had plastic zippered shut to keep us dry. For dinner I had a Lean cuisine, Beef and Noodles. ~ May 19, 2009 rain, walking --------------- It started out pouring rain. The club is closed today including the grill room. The sun broke just after noon so I went out for a walk but carried my umbrella. stopped into the Prudential office and talked to the new staff there. They seem more professional than when Pat and Doug were there. Then the rain started again while I fooled around with the computer. I tuned the Soundbridge to the Maine public radio show which John will appear on. It's on slot 5, WCPE still occupies slot 1. The Roku software for the PC is pretty nice since it allows me too make changes to the device from my laptop. For dinner I went out into the rain and picked up a Chinese dinner next to Publix. It was a little pricey at $10 but was pretty good. Watched Idol final performances then switched to Dancing with the Stars before going to bed. Didn't stay up for the trophy - caught it next morning when GMA announced my least favorite, Shawn the fat gymnast, won. ~ May 20, 2009 walk, rain --------------- Did a walk again when the rain stopped and the sun came out. We've had a lot of rain this week. I had the leftover Chinese dinner today for lunch. The rice came out in clumps. I watched all of American Idol tonight - the final chose Chris over Adam. I liked Adam a little better. The show was 2 hours long and had lots of old groups - Queen, Kiss, Lionel Richie, and others. It was nice entertainment. ~ May 21, 2009 sunny, ribs, pails --------------- This started out to be a sunny day but on my walk as I walked the Stoneybrook entrance road it started raining so I turned around. By the time I got back to the condo it was really coming down. I took the disk drives out of the old Soyo computer and then tossed it into the dumpster. This computer never mde sense. It was a bargain I bought for $19 in TigerDirect a few years back. I played on the internet with security suites and got TrendMicro to do a scan of my hard drive over the net. This was rib night but I found it was bingo night. When I called the bar, Heather said they were serving ribs in the grill room so I ordered the traditional ribs to go along with baked potato and salad with raspberry vinagrette dressing. Earlier I stopped in Walmart and picked up a pail wider enough for the sponge mop and also a Lean cuisine on sale for $2 for tomorrow. ~ May 22, 2009 Packing --------------- Did a nice walk then came back for cleanup time. Filled my pail with water then found out I had no Pinesol. Went to target and got Pinesol, Swiffers and hair shampoo. Washed the floors then took the camera out to the pool at 7:30 and stayed on a lounge chair until 8:15 looking for bats. No luck! Came back in and took a shower and washed my hair with the new stuff. Finished the cleanup and packing ready for the trip tomorrow. ~ May 23, 2009 driving --------------- Got up at 4:30, packed the car and was pon the road at 5:07. Traffic was very light until the 2 lane stretch in Georgia. Stopped for breakfast just before Kissimmee on I-4 then got gas and more coffee in Ormand beach. Gas was 2.39. Filled up again in SC for 2.29 and also picked up a hamburger. Listened to Debbie McCromber 20 wishes which I enjoyed thoroughly. Didn't finish it. Had on and off rain through SC. No rain in NC but it poured shortly after dinner. We had ribs with rice and beans and Shiraz. I got home this afternoon at 4:11 PM. Not bad. ~ May 24, 2009 catchup --------------- Got up at 6:15, went over to Krogers and got a Sunday paper. Did some eMail catchup, went through the postal mail, the NC state refund check came. The day went quickly. We had Libbie's traditional pizza at 7 after a walk through Seagroves to check on the new building. It rained pretty hard this evening after pizza. ~ May 25, 2009 Memorial Day --------------- Not as planned. Libbie called at 9:00 that a fan relay was stuck. Rounded up all my things and went over and rebuilt the relay for Fan 1. The contacts are bad. Now I need an MOV device to suppress further pitting. In the meantime, Fan 3 was hardly turning. Went home, got a new belt and installed it. It was the same 4L550 that it already had but the old was apparently stretched with no more adjustment left. At home it was pouring rain so I went to Kroger's for a watermelon before replacing the fan belt. After the belt went to Ace to get oil to mix with gas for the string trimmer. Cut down the saplings growing over the septic field. Libbie came home and we had Nathans hot dogs with Vidalia onion and beans and rice. Took a walk back up the hill after lunch to show Libbie the cutting and also to investigate a truck we heard back in the field. Bought a 4L540 and a 4L550 belt on eBay. ~ May 26, 2009 groceries, pathways --------------- Back to the grocery store today after a few week absence. IT's raining again but I managed to go up the hill with my trimmer and do a little cleanup. Next I took the mower and made a path along the creek reaching the septic field. Up there I proceeded to mow the field about halfway. Couldn't cross over a dead tree that was down. Dinner was beanburger with Vidalia. ~ May 27, 2009 septic bed --------------- Took the mower and made a new path to the Glembocki Oak along the creek bed. When I got to the septic bed I mowed all the sapling stubs so the field is completely cleared. I may take the tiller and look for the gravel beds to identify the drain field. ~ May 28, 2009 mower --------------- I mowed the backyard today which was a tiring experience. Had to refill the mower tank once. Dinner was the Indonesian rice with chicken chunks. ~ May 29, 2009 wipeout --------------- I spent most of the morning up on the hill working on a downed tree on the Septic bed. Later I found that the rabbit ate two of the Dahlias. I went to Home Depot and got some 1 inch mesh poultry netting and lined the inside of the fence. I was really tired. Dinner was yams and stuffed flounder. No wine! ~ May 30, 2009 videodb --------------- I essentially took today off. I re-organized the 2004 images. These images contain the Cape May pictures and I wanted them in the correct date order using my new way of identifying pictures. Discovered a program on Sourceforge called Videodb. This nice program accesses the imagedb database for your movie collection. I entered all my movies and had the program look them up. The smaller opening fence seems to work - I have a video of the baby bunny trying to get through the fence. Dinner was salmon and yam. ~ May 31, 2009 grow boxes --------------- After reading the paper I went outside and worked on finishing the rabbit fence and string trimming the yard. Planted the gardenia and mulched with the additional bag of mulch purchased when I got the gardenia. Built ome trellises and tied up the cucumbers, tomato and egg plant. An overall satisfying day! I worked on finishing the VideoDb and analyzing some image php programs. I want to display my pdf collection using a php script. Dinner was Libbie's super pizza. Afterward I watched the MTV movie awards. some of the ladies are wearing pretty short and tight skirts. I didn't really like the show. ~ June 01, 2009 Outdoors --------------- I worked a little in the yard today. Had to bring the checkbook and some squirt bottles over to the greenhouse for Libbie. Used the blower and cleaned off the brick sidewalk. Left home at 5:30 to take Libbie to the airport for her Providence trip. ~ June 02, 2009 --------------- I'm alone today. Got up early as usual (6:15) and took the garbage can and recycle bin out to the street. I'm hoping to start dieting todsy. Will take a walk at noon. I really like the Traviata server. I'm looking at building a php application for my pdf collection which contains playboys and many other magazines. ~ June 03, 2009 mowing --------------- Worked in the back mowing some more. Use the mower and cleared the second path on the septic beds then tried using the mower to cut a path back to the Glembocki Oak. The mower ran out of gas before I finished. I had several tick bites doing this task. It's disconcerting because I don't find them until they're biting and I'm always not sure if I found them all. ~ June 04, 2009 Ollies --------------- Took a trip to Ollies in Cary and looked at portable A/C units. also took a look around the store. Tried out the home A/C and do not like the upstairs performance. Made an appointment with Tom Herner for tomorrow morning. Dinner was beanburger and vidalia. ~ June 05, 2009 A/C ducts --------------- Tom Herner measured our pressure this morning - all was well he said. The air output is low from the upstairs unit. I looked in Graingers and also took apart the furnace to look at what is in there for a blower. It is severely undersized. Dinner was a bean burger and Vidalia. ~ June 06, 2009 rain --------------- It's a rainy day. Not much to do outside so I worked on the LinPHA database. Added playboy issues to the database on Traviata. I also started a separate Linpha database for Art. This is far superior to the Gallery program I previously was using. ~ June 07, 2009 telephones --------------- Slept in a little today. Got the paper but before finishing it Libbie wanted me to bring some invoices to the greenhouse. It turned out Jennifer never went over there. Took a newspaper coupon to OfficeMax and bought a new phone for downstairs after cheking on phone prices in Target. The economy is supposed to be bad but there was a line waiting to get into iHop and Target had lots of people. I'm doing good at cutting back on eating - lost a few pounds. Took a walk around Seagroves to check out construction progress. Enjoyed the view by the pool. Dinner was a lean cuisine pizza. Afterwards I watched the Tony awards. Pretty nice cast numbers by West side story, Hair and others. ~ June 08, 2009 shopping --------------- Went over to Ollies to look at A/C units and also shop for a refrigerator for the greenhouse. The 8,000 BTU portable unit is $249. They didn't have refrigerators. Next stop was Best Buy for a GPS case on sale plus I had a $5 coupon. The case is a little big but will do. Went to Home Depot - no refrigerators there. Next was Lowes - bought a rescue Hibiscus but I found Libbie has four of them. Oh well. Stopped into Trader Joes and picked up some fruit and Indian rice. Dinner was a beanburger with Vidalia. Love these things and I'm losing weight! ~ June 09, 2009 outdoor work, bug killer --------------- I did the groceries today, put the garbage out last night including the greenhouse garbage. Outdoors I fertilized everything with some Osmocote I brought home yesterday. Went to work on bug killer - mixed up 2 gallons and heavily sprayed every baseboard in the place and also swiffered the dining room and foyer. Tomorrow I'll wash the kitchen floor and probably also vacuum the downstairs. ~ June 10, 2009 floor cleaning --------------- After breakfast I got busy cleaning the kitchen floor. started by using the swiffer then brought the shop vac in for heavy duty dirt. Filled the pail with Mop and Glow and proceeded to sponge mop the kitchen floor. The sponge broke off the holder - it seemed to be glued on. I completed the mopping and made a mental note to replace the sponge in my next shopping trip. It rained pretty hard last night so I don't have to water anything outside this morning. Setup my creative writing Disney Trip on google docs instead of using ultraedit. Google Docs is pretty good at this. Worked until about 4:15 then left for the airport for Libbie's 4:40 flight which was 12 minutes late according to tracking. Waited in the Sheetz parking lot until Libbie called. Despite the call I still had to circle the terminals 3 times before she got her suitcase back. At home we added the finishing touches by vacuuming upstairs and dusting. We had Trader Joes pasta for dinner. After dinner i listened to Tuesdays with Morrie some more. ~ June 11, 2009 Hilton --------------- We did more cleanup this morning. libbie really worked hard. We left at 11:15 for the Hilton. all were there in the Starbucks except for Laurene who was lost. We had to start the tour without her. Tina bought us lunch in the Hilton which was nice. We found Michelle and Betsy were on a diet so the wine and desert I bought at Trader Joes after the Hilton meeting were not necessary. At the Hilton I had a Cuban while in the evening we went to La Cocina where I had a "Tommy Salad" which was filled with beef, chicken and shrimp. Excellent. We stayed up talking with Betsy and Michelle afterwards until almost 11 PM. ~ June 12, 2009 Disney Trip --------------- Today I spent a lot of the day writing my "Disney Trip" which is an imaginary story about a student and teacher who visit Disney World. This evening I distributed the MAAVS eMemo but had trouble with Yahoo putting an hourly limit on my messages. This sucks. I switched to Google who I'll use in the future. Walked the hill - they have the roof framing on Lot 67. Dinner was a beanburger with Vidalia. ~ June 13, 2009 christening --------------- We got up at 5 and out the door as planned around 5:20. We parked at the Relax and Park over on 70. They gave us afree paper and got us to the terminal on time. We were already checked in on Southwest and we carried our luggage so we went straight to the gate. The flight went well except they had to slow us down enroute because of traffic in Philly. We got to the terminal at 8:30 and by 8:42 we were in a Silver Toyota Corolla from Hertz. I had the GPS hooked up to take us to Our Lady of Angels which was right on mile 9 of the Garden State. We got off an exit or two beforehand looking for a diner for Libbie but we found a Dunkin donuts instead. I had a plain bagel with coffee. I bought a cup of coffee in Terminal 1 this morning which was the worst coffee I ever had - it tasted like instant. We got to the church around 10 which was outstanding. The baptism was very nice. We next went to McGlades which was right on the ocean. I ordered a crab salad platter which was crab cake with fruits and potato salad. Yummy!!! Next we checked into the Angel then went to Jessicas for a family party afterwards. We missed tea and wine/cheese at the Angel. Afterwards we met Arlene & Rich at the Lobster House. We had a very nice seafood dinner on the docks next to the fishing boats. It was cold and a little misty. Libbie was out from under the shed and thus got a little wet. She was wearing a sweater Arlene gave her which was Mom's at one time but is now Jessica's. We had a pitcher of beer with the seafood. My plate besides slaw and baked potato had scallops, crab, fish, shrimp and deviled crab. Didn't care for the deviled crab. We went back and readily fell asleep. ~ June 14, 2009 biking --------------- We had a leisurely morning. Coffee on the porch then breakfast at 8. I had pancakes with cinnamon and nuts. I'm not a fancy breakfast person. My preference is shredded wheat and milk. Arlene and Rich came over at 10 and we wen biking with them. It was a lot of fun being on a bike for the first time in a long time. The weather was threatening so Rich went back home to Piscataway. Lib and I walked an arts and crafts festival in tents on the board walk. We had lunch at McGlades. I had a crab cake sandwich. Arlene biked over in the afternoon and we biked back with her until the crow got heavy so we turned around and came home. We enjoyed tea and pastreis then had wine and cheese at 5:30. Walked the beach after the guards went home at 4. Went to sunset Beach for the sunset at 8 and then to the Lobster House again for seafood dinner on the dock again. We bought a glass of Chardonnay to have with dinner then back home and to bed. ~ June 15, 2009 flying --------------- We got up our usual time, around 6:30. We went downstairs, poured some coffee and sat out on the porch of the Angel facing the Ocean watching the mocking birds chase blackbirds and listening to a song bird. It was a most pleasant morning.Breakfast was a little late but I didn't mind. I had French Toast on a layer of Bananas Foster. It was good but I'm not a fancy breakfast person. We then rode bikes on beach towards town. When it got a little busy we turned around and stopped at a few fenced in gardens that I photographed. Takeoff was planned for 10 which we did OK. I bought Libbie a piece of jewelry from the display case next to the desk. We took the Parkway for $1 and the Atlantic City Expressway for $3 without incident. Had to pay $4 on the Walt Whitman bridge to get back into Philly. Had a little trouble finding airport gas - a lot of the stations weren't there anymore which was surprising. Got to Hertz OK, we had one minor incident in that our wheel cover was missing. We told Hertz we left the terminal without the wheel cover. They didn't charge us for it. Found out our flight was delayed 30 minutes on the board. We enjoyed the brand new Southwest terminal. They have lots of security screening stations. Our flight ended up being late one hour due to storms in St Louis. They claimed the airport there was closed for a while. The flight was smooth except for the last 15 minutes. We had to descend through some thick clouds which was very bumpy. Waiting for the shuttle took a while. Our shuttle took 15 minutes - when the shuttle finally arrived it was full. We had to wait for the next one. Got home around 5 PM. All was well except we left the door to the garage open and left the kitchen light on. My dinner tonight was veggie pizza bu lean cuisine. This is a nice 300 calorie dinner. ~ June 16, 2009 stories --------------- Did the grocery thing. Today is a very dark, rainy glum day. It's not even hot. Researched bicycles and also went to Walmart late in the day to look for a Next Avalon Comfort bike on their website. They hardly had any bikes. Picked up “Daddys Girl” at the library on this trip. This book was on the rack at the Philly airport yesterday so I'll try it. Worked a lot of the day on my Disney story. I was disappointed to see Google say that it was written at the fifth grade level. I opened an account on ASSTR but it takes a while for an admin to assign me a directory and password. Dinner tonight was the pasta I picked up in Trader Joes. ~ June 17, 2009 weight --------------- I'm recovering somewhat from our trip of overeating. When I got back I was over 250 but this morning the scale read 249. I'm getting back down and hopefully it will be 240 by the Gesneriad trip. I spent some time today reading some of the author writings on asstr. Because my own Disney Story was rated at 5th grade level I tried some of the other authors. They were in the 1st to 3rd grade levels so I don't feel too bad. I'll have to try some of the professional authors. I took the hot tube apart because the new 20 amp fuse I bought didn't do the trick. The motor is still stalled. Emptied it and it started working but as Libbie started filling it with our new cut off garden hose it stalled again. I'll have to pull the motor. Dinner was corn on the cob and bean burger with vidalia. ~ June 18, 2009 weight still, Literotica --------------- I stepped on the scale this morning and I'm still holding at 248 which is good considering I snacked a lot yesterday in between meals. Will do better today, may even take a walk if it's not raining. Tried pulling the pump this morning but I need a wrench with 3 1/2 inch jaws to get the pump intake loose. Visited Sears to look at tools. Bought an oil filter wrench which has large jaws. did not buy the socket set but I was tempted. Also stopped at K-Mart and looked at their tools and bikes but let empty handed. Surprisingly Ace hardware was gone. It's a hole next to K-Mart. Took the spa pump out - the filter wrench worked perfectly. This will be useful for oil changes. Tried repairing the starter mechanism in the motor but so far no love. I found a writers contest on Literotica with a nude theme. I started writing my entry which has a new couple moving to a housing development and the homeowners decides to have a nude welcome party. Worked outside a little on the grow boxes. I will need to put in the bigger stakes. Dinner was cucumber salad with bean burger and the dwindling Vidalia. After dinner I worked on my contest entry. Entries can begin June 20. ~ June 19, 2009 writing, weight. --------------- Good news this morning, I am 247. It's amazing that when you gain a few pounds it becomes permanent and a part of you forever. I have gained over 10 pounds since the wedding and I have to work on getting rid of it one pound at a time. At least the weight is going in the correct direction. I spent most of the day working on the hot tub. Got the motor to start but it kept tripping the GFI. I bought a new external GFI in Home Depot to see if the GFI was bad. The new one tripped just like the current one. I'll take it back. Dinner was cucumber with bean burger. After dinner I started researching hot tub pumps. I sent an eMail to a guy with a $300 pump on eBay. He said it was a single speed but that's incorrect for that model number. ~ June 20, 2009 weight, hot tubs, gardening --------------- Weight is still holding at 247. Studied hot tub pumps. To replace the Jacuzzi with a Waterworks will take adding an adapter because the Jacuzzi has a custom connection. I have found much lower prices on non Jacuzzi pumps. Mowed the backyard and then Libbie and I took a walk in Seagrove Farm. We went as far as the pool. After returning I tried pruning the rose bushes. It was 100 today and I began hyperventilating. I had to crawl back to the porch and chill out. We then went to Home Depot looking for Dahlias. I had to return the GFI. Bought Malathion because whitefly and mealies are eating plants in the backyard. Will use it tomorrow. Dinner was quite bit of food - cucumbers, corn and tuna steak. The corn from Krogers was the best we've had this season so far. ~ June 21, 2009 weight, Cabaret --------------- Went early for the paper. Noticed that the downstairs A/C is continuously running. Felt the vents and they were warm. This isn't good. Turned it off. I think it ran all night. Mixed up some malathion and did the backyard after I finished pruning the roses. Libbie saw bugs behind our headboard today so I sprayed te baseboards upstairs with Conquer. Some online research shows that for indoor pest control I want Demand CS instead of Conquer. It costs twice as much but seems to be more powerful according to reading the labels and marketing hype. Went to Home Depot and bought 2 4x4x8 posts to replace the fence posts on the barbed wire in the backyard. Pulled one post and re-dug the hole then installed a new post, leveled it and put the fence on it. I got my account at ASSTR today so I uploaded the first 4 parts of the Disney Story to it this morning. Got cleaned up and left by 2 for Cabaret. Walked a little in the Rose Garden before entering the theater for our 3 PM performance. Cabaret was dark and made you think after somberly leaving the theater. It starts out happy with singing and dancing but the mood turns somber and dark before the break as Nazis infiltrate. Libbie made an excellent pizza with fresh tomato. This was her best ever or I'm hungry. Weight this morning was a very satisfying 245. I still can't believe I'm this high and trying to come down from this level. ~ June 22, 2009 pissed off --------------- I spent the morning recreating the withdrawals from our home equity loan. I'm pretty pissed off that Libbie has been using the house as a credit card and not paying the equity back. I may need to close the account which will hurt me because the reason I got this account was in case of emergencies but this can't continue. The balance owed by Bluebird is in the $7,000 category. Bad, bad news. I finished the Literotica story late at night. Didn't lose any weight today - presently stuck. Late in the PM I replaced one fence post of the two I'm going to replace on the back line. Dinner was corn, bean burger and mango medley for dessert. Earlier we went to Trader Joe's for Mangoes but they were out. Stopped by Kroger's for a Watermelon and cucumber and discovered the corn which was delicious, ~ June 23, 2009 Stories, fencing, yummy corn --------------- After the grocery run this morning I went to Walmart in Holly Springs to look at bikes they didn't have. I did buy four Dahlias from their rescue table for $2 each, Submitted my Gone Too Far story to the Nude Day contest. I think it turned out well. Replaced the second rotted fence post on our property line this afternoon. It was easier than yesterday. Dinner was crab cakes with tomato and fresh corn from Krogers. Yummy. ~ June 24, 2009 weight --------------- I thought I was happy with my weight this morning at a nice solid 246 but when I looked back a few days ago I reported a weight of 245 so it would seem no progress but I don't think so. Will take a walk today to help. Went to Walmart and K-Mart in Garner. Ended up buying a comfort bike in Walmart for $75. Just the basics, one speed with coaster brakes for Sarasota. Libbie and I tested it on Downing Place then took a walk around the lake from Krogers. Dinner was blueberry pancakes using the many blueberries that Joy gave us plus the ones I bought on Tuesday. My story was rejected today because of incorrect punctuation. I reformatted the quotes after reading the writers guide and resubmitted it. ~ June 25, 2009 walking, weight --------------- Weight still holding at 246. Need a good kick in the ass. Walked the lake today from home. Also went to Lowes and picked up 3 bags of brick chips and one bag of mulch for our gardens. Fixed it all up nicely. I think I'll write another story but this time for the July monthly contest. Walked to the lake and down this side of it from home, about 3 miles total. I want to lose weight. I think the iced tea is killing me. Checked the news to read about Farrah's death and found out Michael Jackson had died. some time later Janet Castiglione had sent an eMail announcing that Helen Mahr Nicholas had died. We talked to Anne and Richard yesterday about Helen's fall. This was a tragedy. When she fell she broke her nose and lost her vision in one eye because the lens was torn out. Earlier today Laura had sent her list of wedding pictures. Dinner tonight was blueberry pancakes again. Excellent!!! ~ June 26, 2009 computers --------------- I got on the scale and was disappointed again as the balance beam showed 245.5. It's hard losing excess weight, it has become a permanent part of me. Need to keep trying. I ordered the NewEgg computer - a quad core AMD with 4 gigs of memory. GMA this morning has devoted the whole show to Michael Jackson although they are running a concert with the cast of Hair as part of their summer Friday concert series. Last night Libbie and I wrote a sympathy card for Helen and also made a donation to the Tinari endowment fund. Later in the day we got the Helen Mahr obituary and the family requested moneys go to the scholarship fund at TWU rather than flowers. We didn't mail the Tinari check. Dinner was blueberry pancakes again. We went to Walgreens to pick up 3 5x7's of copies of the Cortelyou house that Libbie photographed on the wall of her Mom's house. ~ June 27, 2009 weight --------------- Page views of my Gone Too Far story have reached 13,400 with an average rating of 3.24 out of 5. On the scale this morning I weighed in at 244. This is good, yesterday I cut back on iced tea. I only had one glass. We measured our standard glass and found it was 14 ounces. I did a full 4 miles today. Beforehand I bought a 33 ounce bottle of water. I'll use the bottle for future walks. After the walk Libbie and I went up the hill and walked through the lot 67 house. I then drove 10 foot poles into the ground to stake my tomatoes in the grow box which had overgrown the 5 foot poles. Dinner was excellent - we had fresh corn from Kroger's and bean burger with tomato and the last slice of Vidallia. ~ June 28, 2009 weight --------------- I got up at 6 this morning and got on the scale. My weight was a disappointing 244. I'm getting obsessed with knocking this down. I was at McDonalds at 6:38 and the paper machine was empty. Had to go to Krogers and picked up a paper and also some cocoa powder to make some roach bait. Worked with Libbie on a tour timetable on google docs. I also had to water the grow boxes again today - one of them was completely dry and the squash and cucumbers were wilted. Did another complete 4 mile walk, Libbie joined me from Krogers. It doesn't seem as hot today although they said it was 94 on the news. Interesting, this morning Libbie and I talked about pitchman Billy May and this evening we found out he died overnight. I previously read the Playboy article profiling him. We had Libbies excellent pizza again. She had a frozen crust and spiced up the sauce with fresh tomato wedges. ~ June 29, 2009 Joe, --------------- We checked Google Latitude this morning and saw that Joe is at June Lake in Yosemite. Yesterday we tracked him through Las Vegas. Tried bicycling this morning but my legs were so tired I turned around at the front entrance. Did lots of gardening next. Weeded and hoed the tomatoes, tied the tomatoes, moved the hibiscus, extended the cucumber trellis and did some light weeding. Took my 4 mile walk - it was difficult. I used almost all of the 33 ounces of water. Weighed myself at home and lost 1 pound on the walk. In the afternoon Lib and I did a Trader Joe's run but they were out of almonds. Dinner was pasta with mangos for desert. After dinner I really got into reading Daddys Girl. It's quite good. ~ June 30, 2009 weight --------------- In what's beginning to sound like a broken record, I got on the scale and lost 1.5 pounds last night. I'm now at 242.5 which is shocking because this is the weight where I started out in 2004 when the doctor said I was pre hypertensive. It's amazingly easy to gain weight, when you put it on it's permanent and becomes a part of you then it's really hard to lose it but I'm committed!!! I got on the Wii just to confirm it. Wii says I lost 2.5 pounds since 3 days ago. Whoopee! I did the 4 mile walk in the warm but not very humid air. Came back with lots of water left over. Checked my weight and it was down another pound. We left at 6 today for Willow Springs via I-40. Got off at hwy 42 and looked for Stephensons barbecue. It was an old fashioned country style barbecue joint with sweet tea, hush puppys and plywood tables. Cash only! Libbie had to come up with a $20 bill. We came home via 1010 - it didn't seem too far from Tony Avents for the tour next spring. At home I had some of my frozen Mango and then laid on the floor and read my book, Daddys Girl. I have become engrossed in it. ~ July 01, 2009 weight again --------------- Jumped on the scale and was a little worried after the hush puppies and pretty full meal at the restaurant yesterday which included 2 glasses of iced tea. The good news was 241. If I can hit 240 I will move from the obese category to overweight although I did some online research and different web sites classify obese with different BMI's. One of them declares it at 260, I'm going for a BMI of less than 3.0. as the definition of Obese. It's a column on the fat ass chronicle spreadsheet I created on google docs. This afternoon we left at 12:04 for Asheboro. Got to the Heritage Diner at 1:40 and ordered a BLT. Our server was wearing a tght tee shirt and denim short shorts. She was very pretty. Most of the people in the diner were bubba and the boys. Afterwards we talked with the owner then went upstairs and peeked at the Motorcycle Museum which was getting a new floor. Pointed the GPS to the Petty Museum and drove over to it. Academy Street was torn up so we went around the block and found the museum. It was very bright and modern in an attractive brick building. The staff was friendly and let us see the movie and tour the museum for free. Afterwards I found some gas for 2.49 and set the GPS for the aviation museum. This was 2 hangars at the Asheboro airport. I didn't think it would be interesting but it was very good. Everything was well labeled and roomy. We went home via 64 and found a produce stand by Jordan Lake with tomatoes, plums, peaches and corn. Dinner was bean burger with vidalia onion and tomato and the fresh corn which was yummy. When we got home the pump and the new computer parts had arrived. ~ July 02, 2009 computers, hot tubs --------------- I worked on assembling the new computer and also worked on the pool pump. The computer came right up so I installed Win XP while I went for my walk. I'm using the 500 GB drive from the defunct MyBook. I moved all the MyBook data to the data drive in Mazeppa for now. I looked at the amperage of the new hot tub pump and it is correct. The box also came with two unions. Dinner was a beanburger with vidalia and Bushs Grilling Beans, bourbon and sugar flavor. The weight has gone up a bit since eating at restaurants two days in a row. Went to the CU with Mom's estate check. Vicki said this is the last of them. After the CU I picked up all the plumbing parts I think I need to change the hot tub pump. ~ July 03, 2009 plumbing --------------- Spent the day adapting the Waterway hot tub pump to the Jacuzzi plumbing. Everything went well after I made a run to Ace to pick up a can of PVC glue. When I plugged it in it tripped the GFI breaker which was a disappointment. Don't know what's wrong but it's not correct. Dinner was the Indian rice and chicken dish which was delicious. We watched Revolutionary Road which was a free rental from the Krogers machine. Had a little trouble getting the DVD player to go. It wouldn't respond to the remote. Need to replace this thing. Weight is still flat lined at 242. Finished the Daddys Girl book. It was quite a twisted turn of events, even in the end when her supposed boyfriend is arrested by a sting operation she set up. ~ July 04, 2009 computer, walking --------------- Independence Day! Worked a little installing more software on my new computer, Manon2. The netwrok neighborhood is now working again after being missing in action yesterday. I need to put so much stuff on this machine. My weight was down to 241 this morning. Only one more pound and I'll be fat instead of obese. How did i get here? It was easier to get obese than to lose the lardness. Took a 4 mile walk, the weather is very dry and surprisingly not as humid. Did a little research on the Highwaymen this morning adding this category to my Art Server. Mixed a batch of Malathion but I think I overdid it because I didn't know the number of oz in a tsp. It's 0.16 so I should have used 4 x .16 = .64 ounces per 2 gallons which is the recommended 2 tsp per gallon. Took a shot at one of the fawns with my 22. Of course I missed but more importantly, I needed to bring the gun inside for reloading. Out of bullets. For dinner tonight we had grilling beans and a BLT. Afterwards we watched the fireworks on PBS then switched to Macys in NY. The NY music was trashy but the fireworks were over the top. At 10 PM the best music was Neil diamond with the Boston orchestra and Keith Lockhart. While waiting for the evenings performances I hooked up a 110v line directly to the hot tub bypassing the GFI. The pump ran OK. ~ July 05, 2009 weight, computers, newspaper --------------- Got the paper at 7 AM which was later than normal since I went to bed at 12:30 last night installing software on the new computer. It picked up a virus from an ISO which trashed the system causing it to play rap music and slow down inexplicably. I formatted the hard drive and stayed again this time with antiVirus software installed first. Jumped on the scale this morning and was only at 241 but it was solid, possibly .2 of a pound under 241. It was a rainy day so I chose not to walk. Worked a lot of today putting software on the new computer. I also diagnosed the hot tub. I found out that the element was leaking to ground which caused the GFI to trip. Ordered a new element from spa warehouse for $20. Dinner was a great pizza from Lib with her homemade salsa sauce. After dinner I worked some more on the computer and went to bed after 11. ~ July 06, 2009 weight --------------- Still holding at 241. Installed Photoshop CS2 on the new computer then found out how to save my old actions and load them into photoshop. Walked the full 4 miles today - it was overcast and only in the 80's. Dinner was fresh corn on the cob from the Farmers market with bean burger and vidalia onion. ~ July 07, 2009 groceries --------------- Worked on the new PC today some more transferring the AVSA pictures over to the new PC. I did the 4 mile walk again today after the grocery store run. I also went to Trader Joes today - lots of little kids running around. Dinner was beanburger with fresh corn again. ~ July 08, 2009 panic --------------- Weight still holding at 241, boooo! I had a panic moment when I discovered half of the AVSA pictures were not on the new PC. Looked at Manon and Mazeppa but no luck. Checked Traviata and had a real panic when I everywhere I looked I couldn't find the pictures. Finally I took the shoebox out of the closet and discovered that one of the CF cards was not downloaded. I downloaded the card and breathed a sigh of relief. I have also slowly been scanning and uploading the tour sheets to a web site for Nancy Carr. Dinner was a BLT and also roasted beets. I never thought I would like beets this much. What a treat. Stayed up late and finished scanning all the papers and postcards that Libbie has given me but there is still more to do. ~ July 09, 2009 disk drives, netpc, weight --------------- Went to Tiger Direct this morning to get a Compact Flash and LCD Monitor for my Atom Barebones PC that arrived via UPS this morning. It looks like a pretty nifty PC for $119. There wasn't much in the way of docs or anything else but I didn't expect it to be so barebones. The fire department was there when I got to TigerDirect - apparently the fire alarm went off so I waited for them to signal the all clear. I bought a 4 gig CF card for $48 with tax. I'll return it because CF cards on Newegg are less than $20. I took the 500 gig drive out of Mazeppa and put it into Manon2 to transfer all the files off the drive so I can format it for use by ubuntu in the new PC. Need a name for the PC. My weight this morning was 240 which is just under the obese label. Whoopee!!!! Dinner was pasta tortellini stuffed with pesto. ~ July 10, 2009 Tiger again --------------- Returned to Tiger Direct to return the Compact Flash. while there I bought a keyboard and a DVD drive. The keyboard was what made the MSI take off. It would not boot without it. Used a USB stick and installed ?Ubuntu. It sucked big time. It was bloated, did not load as quick as I would like and worse, it would not stream with the existing MP3 player. I nuked it and installed Win XP. Had some trouble getting it to boot on it's own but after editing the boot.ini, all was well. I only had a cucumber for lunch today. Tried the watermelon that Lib bought but it was awful. It was white inside and not ripe. Had a peach instead. Dinner was crab cakes with baked beans, the Bush barbecue style which had peppers and a little bit of zing. I loved it. After dinner I worked on my XP installation some more. I need to get XP to start Firefox automatically with the Music server set as the home page. It seems to play music OK and work on the net just fine. ~ July 11, 2009 heat elements, weight --------------- The heating element is supposed to come today. I removed the old element which seemed to be OK. I'm writing this after mowing the front lawn and the element still has not come. Tracking said it's on the truck, I'll be surprised if Fedex delivers on Saturday. I weighed 239 this morning. That's another half pound drop from yesterday. Little by little I'm getting healthier. Let's hope this continues although I know there will be periods of seemingly no progress in the future months. I did a lot of weather research on the net this morning looking at various hardware to collect weather data. I want to gather temp, humidity, etc and archive it on a website. I think I also will build a temperature logger. My device will collect one wire data and store it in an SD card. The card did arrive on a Saturday, hooray Fedex. It arrived at 3 PM and I soon had it installed and the motor wired up before putting the covers on the motor and the control box. I put some water in the tub then tried the motor - Eureka! Filled it the rest of the way to the top and put the outside skirt back in and watched the temperature slowly rise at about 2 degrees per hour. I do believe it's fixed!!! Dinner was BLT and Bush's barbecue beans again. Yummy. ~ July 12, 2009 sleep, weight, neighbors --------------- We slept a little later - the alarm was on and Libbie got up first which she never does on Sunday. I was going out the door at 6:50 for the newspaper when the phone rang. Watchung Ridge was calling to let us know Aunt Helen had fallen again. Maybe old people need training wheels to keep them upright. Maybe they have them - it's called a walker. I read about weather server software this morning then when Libbie came home we walked around Seagrove Farm. We met Bonnie and Oliver, owners of Lot 67. He's with Fidelity and just graduated from Univ of MD. Also did a little gardening today - the tomatoes in the Grow Boxes needed water and everything needed tying and a light weeding. Weight this morning was another surprise since I clocked in at 238.5. After a tiring walk around the lake I lost another pound down to 237.5 before gaining back a half pound by eating watermelon. Dinner was Libbie's yummy pizza again. Good stuff. ~ July 13, 2009 newsletter, weight again --------------- Only have 2 paragraphs so far for my Lonestar article. Need to step it up! In the meantime I received a nice surprise this morning on the scale. I dropped 1.5 pounds.Spent most of the day in avoidance behavior. Ordered an anenometer for the AC ducts. While I was on the Amazon site I also ordered a replacement cabin air filter for the Corolla. AAA said it was bad but they wanted $75 to replace it. I also went to eBay and won a Highwayman painting by Charles Wheeler. He's one of the original Highwaymen but it's not a vintage painting. Later in the day I finished the Lonestar article but then was informed by Kathy Lahti that Ruth is expecting me to put an article in AVM about the convention. Started writing that one as well and finished it in a few hours. I had to install Office on my new computer to send the pictures with captions even though I will be sending the original pictures later to Ruth. Dinner was beanburger with vidalia. ~ July 14, 2009 weight gain, --------------- Got on the scale this morning and I gained half a pound. It was expected since I dropped 1.5 pounds yesterday which was too much. Today's activity is to work on the Reno pictures. Did the grocery run but first went to Tier Direct and returned the not needed DVD drive. I picked up another 2 GB mini Sd card for my music player while there. Dinner tonight was a bean burger with Vidalia. Tomorrow is my cholesterol check so I didn't want a BLT tonight although we have all the ingredients. ~ July 15, 2009 cholesterol, AVSA pictures, reading --------------- Worked on quite a few of the AVSA pictures late into the night. Did an 8 hour fast from 10 AM until my Krogers cholesterol test at 6:45 PM. I was a little hungry wishing I could have an apple or some cherries but I knew i wanted good reading tonight and also the fast would be beneficial to my diet. Still did my 4 mile walk. While I was out the HVAC anemometer came in. This thing measures CFM as well as temperature and also IR temperature with a laser pointer. I'm going to check the air flow of our home as well as compare it to the Florida condo. Preliminary results shows 130 CFM in our bedroom vs only 95 CFM in the playroom over the garage. Our upstairs system needs help including a duct redesign. Went to Krogers at my appointed time and got a very good blood test and helpful analysis from Michelle the pharmacist. My levels are outstanding - low cholesterol, low triglycerides. Blood Pressure was not great but with weight loss it may come down but I'm not so sure. Will keep trying. In the evening I continued to work on pictures - am now up to number 46 but quite a few numbers are missing. I'm also in the last two chapters of Clyde Edgerton's Bible Salesman which I think is outstanding. So far it's a good read. ~ July 16, 2009 backups --------------- The Newegg disk drive and compact flash arrived. Spent some time trying to get an XP install image on the compact flash. I just found that the max was 2 gigs supported. I hooked the 1 TB disk up inside Manon2 and started backing up some of the files on Manon2 to the drive. I will eventually mount this into the external case I purchased and use it as backup. Dinner was a beanburger with Vidalia. ~ July 17, 2009 Compact flash --------------- Instead of walking I mowed the backyard. Got stung by a nest of yellow jackets in one of the old stumps in the backyard. This ended the mowing. I wasted a lot of time today installing XP on the Compact Flash card in the Atom CPU system. The CF is too slow to be useful as an easy to boot system for my stereo system. Dinner was chicken Briyani. ~ July 18, 2009 Yellow jackets, Chico Wheeler --------------- Earlier today I tied the zinnias and dahlias to stakes. After my 4 mile walk I tried the gasoline trick on the yellow jackets. An hour later they still were there so I mixed up some Orthene and sprayed the zinnias and roses before using the rest of the tank on the yellow jacket nest. This seemed to bring them down. Every time a few would fly I would spray the stuff over them and the nest would settle. The Orthene seemed to do them in. The highwaymen painting came today - I knew it was dark but I really really like the palette knife technique. I even watched a Youtube video on painting with a palette knife. The Highwaymen painting I have was primed with white paint first. You can see the remnants of the paint on the back of the painting. Painting is by Charles Chico Wheeler. Dinner was stuffed flounder with steamfresh vegetables. Weight today was 236 which is super!!! I had to check the fat ass chronicle to see if this was a loss - it was a 1/2 pound loss. ~ July 19, 2009 weight, photos --------------- With some luck I'll drive to Florida on Tuesday but before I go I need water hooked to the grow boxes and all the AVSA pictures completed. Weight is 236 this morning which still matches my 2.5 pounds a week loss. We went to Home Depot to get parts to build a header for the watering system for the Grow boxes. Tonight's pizza was with wheat graham flour. IT was different, had texture but was very good. We'll do this again. Libbie added some tomato pieces to the sauce and it worked out pretty good. We had a pretty good rain today, need lots more like it. Finished the AVSA pictures today and created contact sheets. Sent the sheets to Marjorie and Anne. ~ July 20, 2009 photos, water, weight --------------- This is a busy day. Marjorie sent another episcia photo which I added to the mix. Now we're only missing two. Installed Breeze Browser and HJsplit on the new computer then used Breeze Browser to build html pages for the library. Uploaded it all to MAAVS. The library photos are done for another year with the exception of the missing two pictures. Turned my attention next to the watering. Had to go to Walmart to buy a new male end for the hose. Also picked up a timer. When the thing went off for testing it flooded the yard. 15 minutes is way too long but it is the minimum time for the Walmart timer which is too long. I resurrected the old Hydro Rain and tried to get it to work. Got it all set up but didn't hear the solenoid activating so I disassembled everything. I was premature since the shutoff outside was in the off position. When it's like this the valve doesn't make noise. Will try again tomorrow. Dinner was a bean burger with Vidalia. Researched palette painting on the web and downloaded some samples. Weight today was the same as yesterday - 236. Ruth wanted photos for the article so I ran half a dozen through Photoshop and sent them to her. I also was in touch with Williamsburg about menus. Had trouble getting hold of Sarah and when she finally responded she sent Kings Arm menus instead of Shields. I have a bad feeling about this hotel. As if I didn't do enough today, Libbie came with a pile of stuff to be scanned. Worse, she mixed up the stuff I already scanned with other papers not scanned. Ahhhggh! Finished this stuff late and uploaded it to the tourdocs web site. ~ July 21, 2009 birthday --------------- Today is Libbie's birthday!!! She had her cholesterol checked at Kroger yesterday and it was as good as mine. My weight this morning was 235. I'm afraid it won't be going down because of our upcoming trip to Florida. I need to make a card this morning. Made the card and went over to Walgreens at 11 AM and it wasn't printed yet. We left at 12 noon without the card. Stopped for gas and Libbie's lunch in Florence then our next stop was the Florida visitors center in the late afternoon. The center closes at 5 PM and we got there a little after 5 but we used the bathrooms anyway. Hooked up the GPS and it led us to Singletons Seafood Shack in Mayport, also called Atlantic Beach or Jacksonville. It was a very eclectic place right on the water. We ate next to the windows looking out at a fising boat. We got to see the cargo ships going in and out of the channel. The food was outstanding. I had deviled crab and scallops with cole slaw and black beans. They served us chardonnay in little plastic cups. Afterwards we used the GPS to get us back to our hotel, the Comfort Suites on Commonwealth. The hotel was very nice and new. Our room was $76 with all taxes. After checking eMail we went to be around 10:30. It was a long day driving. ~ July 22, 2009 driving, fruit, --------------- Got up at 6:50 which is late for us. I slept soundly after the drive yesterday. Had the waffle for breakfast and some juice and coffee before hitting the road. Got gas at 2.41 before getting on i-295. Stopped in a place called Palm Coast for coffee at a McDonalds. It was a very nice town, well landscaped, no signs, fancy street lights. A miniature Cary! We stopped at Celebration on our way because Sue said housing is getting reasonable and Celebration allows you to walk everywhere. Houses were around 1,000,000. which we don't think is much of a deal. Made it to Sarasota around 2. Visited Yoders but they were gone. Did some looking around and finally found them in the Mall next to Penneys in a very nice modern store. They don't seem to be getting the traffic they used to but the store looks promising. Also did Publix for ice cream and laundry soap. At 6 we went over to pub night in the grill room. We both had Salmon over Linguine with a glass of Chardonnay. They served a salad family style. Jeannie and Mike were at the next table and came over to talk with us after dinner. I thought that was Jeannie but Libbie didn't think so. ~ July 23, 2009 Walmart, Hillman, prime rib, --------------- We took a short walk to the front entrance then went to Walmart for my watermelon and also purchased a painting kit to experiment with oil paints. Later I took a long 4 mile walk out to the back of Stoneybrook by the junk yard. The walk took 1 hour and 40 minutes, it was long and I was sweating pretty bad but I enjoyed the walk. At 6 we went over to rib night. We ordered the prime rib with salad and glass of Shiraz. Very hot rolls were included with dinner. afterward I came back and basically passed out on the bed until the phone rang. I seemed to get a second wind after the nap did some financial looking online. Hillman announced they were going to pay the dividend with interest which comes to 1.49 per share, a very nice check. All other stocks seem to be doing OK. Even MWE has recovered nicely to the low 20's. The message boards seem positive toward the stock although I'm glad I unloaded half my shares at $29 almost a year ago. It may be time to buy them back, mainly to get the dividend. ~ July 24, 2009 Backus --------------- After breakfast we got going at 8 for the East Coast. Stopped at the outlet mall in Vero for kitchen stuff. Bought mugs and silverware plus a casserole dish for home. We also stopped in Gibsonton for gas at 2.38 and Mulberry for McDonald's coffee and sausage and egg muffins for 2 for $1. Reached the Backus around noon and found they were closed for the season. Stopped into the Chamber of Commerce and couldn't figure out why they were in existence. They did guide us to a nice restaurant, Uncle Carlos down the street overlooking the river. We shared a turkey Ruben panini which was excellent. Stopped in 2 galleries in the arcade which were pretty expensive. Next went to Peppermint Patties then down the street to talk to a guy selling art under a tent. He was quite a character and a lot of fun. On the way out of town we stopped at Treasure Island antiques in a very nice air conditioned house. It was very neat and clean. Headed home and made it back to Sarasota around 7 PM. Libbie picked up a couple of crab cakes for dinner from the clubhouse. ~ July 25, 2009 walking, painting, dinner, stocks --------------- Did an early morning walk before breakfast which was unusual for me. Studied stocks for some of the morning then went on my long walk for one hour and 45 minutes, this time I went the other way down the rr trail coming out at a parking lot on McIntosh. It was a different walk but I wished I had a wide brim hat. Came home and got cleaned up then played with painting before we went out for dinner. Dinner was fantastic. I had the Asahi tuna over a mitsu noodle base. The saices were fabulour with a ginger base. I had a glass of Shiraz with dinner. Libbie had the grilled salmon with 2 glasses of Shiraz. Came back and saw Big Al swimming in the condo pond. Had not seen him this trip yet. Did some more studying of financials this evening. It looks like I may be able to buy ATPWF on Scottrade which eliminates the need for the Schwab account. There was a spectacular sunset tonight. ~ July 26, 2009 rain, walking, Panera --------------- It was a rainy day on and off. After walking the loop around Stoneybrook I went out and got a newspaper. Still 1.75. Left around noon and did a super long walk out to the junkyard on the legacy trail. It was cool on the way out but the sun came out back. The walk took 2 hours. Later in the afternoon we went out to Panera but stopped at a car lot first to look at Toyotas and Honda's. The Matrix is pretty ugly but the Honda Fit may be a good choice followed by the Toyota Prius. At Panera I got a chipotle chicken and french onion soup. We got home dry but later it really started pouring. ~ July 27, 2009 stocks --------------- Found out this morning that I couldn't buy ATPWF on Scottrade but would have to call a broker for a $27 fee. I bought 1000 shares of ATPWF on Schwab and tried transferring money back to cover the 8300 cost. Next I will try to transfer the Schwab stocks over to Scottrade and close the Schwab account. Will probably have to wait until next week to do this in order to allow credit for the shares in my account. Also bought 100 shares of CEG-pa to round that up to 1000 and also picked up 300 shares more of SZG, Selective Insurance, which rounded that one up to 800. Not sure if I should go for 1000. Did not walk this afternoon but went over to the pool with my book while Libbie swam. It sprinkled on and off while we were over there. This morning we went to Selby and enjoyed the gardens and the art in the Selby house. After Selby we had lunch at Marina Jacks. I had a half Cuban with a bowl of seafood chowder. All was excellent. I enjoyed the legs of the girl at the next table. She had on a miniskirt covering a bikini bottom and sat with her skirt open and legs up on a chair. Nice site! Researched Matrix and Prius when we got home. Wonder if Internet departments at some dealers are worth anything. ~ July 28, 2009 Going Home --------------- We got up at 6, I was too tired to get up but rallied. Packed the car, had cereal and coffee and were on the road by 7 AM. Stopped in Kissimmee McDonald's for biscuits and coffee at 8:30. Traffic was pretty light and it was a nice day for driving. Our next stop was in Brunswick for gas at 2.29. Libbie got us a turkey sub at Subway which we split. Our next stop was in Florence for gas at 2.23 which was 8 cents higher than a week ago when it was 2.15. We got home somewhere around 6. Noticed that the exit onto 1&64 was backed up for miles so we got off at the Cary Mall exit and went home via Lake Pine. The skies opened up when we got home and it poured rain. Our timing was great. Dinner this evening was a BLT. ~ July 29, 2009 Cash for Clunkers --------------- I went driving around to car dealers today. Started with Mark Jacobson where I found they sold 29 Prius's in 3 days. Did not like this lot. Next stop was Fred Anderson because I saw they were getting a Gold Prius on Aug 3. They looked it up and said yes it was coming on Monday. I gave them my credit card for a $1,000 deposit to hold the car. We got a call that the car was unloaded from a truck in the PM and was available. We tried draining the gas from our old clunker but had no luck. We drove the old minivan to Fred Anderson at 7:30 and they did the deal. We paid list price plus a $500 dealer fee which was a rip off but we like the car and like the deal. The clunker program gave us $4500 for our minivan which was worth about $2500 if it was in good shape. It had an oil leak, sticking accelerator and transmission linkage, and bad ball joints causing the car to pull right and wear the tires unevenly. In addition, the power windows didn't work. Dinner was Briyani. ~ July 30, 2009 garage clean up --------------- This was garage cleanup day. I tried scrubbing the floor with dish detergent and cat litter but when Libbie came home we got out the pressure washer and hooked it up. Had to first get gas from the McDonald's then started blasting the grease off the floor. While I sprayed, Libbie pushed water out. We hooked up the big fan to dry the floor. Had to dash outside at 5 to gather up everything before a thunder storm hit us. We let the fan run all evening to dry the floor. Dinner was bean burger, corn and not Vidalia but a fake version of the onion which was way too strong. ~ July 31, 2009 photos, learning, getting wet --------------- I organized our vacation photos this morning and also spent some time on Scottrade and Schwab studying issues. Ended up buying BAC with money I didn't have since I expect a divvy check of $1700 from Hillman today or tomorrow. I tried my walk at 3 PM but caught in a thunderstorm on the other side of the lake. Ended up running for the building in front of the pool. When it looked clear I resumed my walk but Libbie picked me up next to Krogers. She went there to get ingredients for Eggplant Parmesan. We watched the Prius DVD before dinner while the Eggplant baked. It was yummy. ~ August 01, 2009 No divvy --------------- I was disappointed this morning since the Hillman divvy was not credited to my account although the ATPWF divvy was credited to my Schwab account. Downloaded LastPass and installed it on my new computer Manon2 to replace Roboform. Did a complete 4 mile walk today without getting rained on. Worked on Lifebits a little collecting some articles on clunkers and investing. Read Investor Village to get some ideas for high yield investments. Learned about some of the so called stapled securities which is a stock with a common portion and a bond such as ATPWF. The note usually pays high interest typically over 10%. Dinner was leftover eggplant parmesan. Discovered this afternoon that Fred Anderson Toyota charged me the 1,000 holding money for the car on my credit card. This should not have happened. I called the finance guy and the salesman, Ryan. Ryan returned the call at 10 PM and said he would reverse e charges Monday morning. ~ August 02, 2009 paper --------------- Went into Krogers this morning to get my paper because I wanted bread and marmalade. We got up late this morning - I didn't wake until 7:05 AM. Wow, what a sleep!!! It rained this afternoon so instead of walking I worked in the flower gardens trying to tie everything up to stakes. Ran out of stakes. Libbie made another fantastic pizza this evening, after dinner I worked on assembling pictures for the AVSA slide show. Marjorie sent some substitutes and I made another collage that I don't like. ~ August 03, 2009 gardening --------------- This morning I went to AgriSupply for more stakes but they only had 18. Bought them all. Did a 4 mile walk this afternoon, I really want to lose this extra pound or two. No snacking or extra fruit this time!!! After the walk I worked on tying up some more of the flowers but still did not finish. Was discouraged that the divvy froom Hillman did not show up yet. Wrote Scottrade and they said they can't post it until they receive it. The Toyota dealer has not reversed my 1,000 charge either so it hasn't been a good day. The BAC I bought continues to go up as does the entire account. Dinner was Trader Joe's pasta. Finished the Clyde Edgerton book this afternoon after my walk and shower. Libbie wants to read it next. ~ August 04, 2009 divvy, weight --------------- Happy day this morning. I dropped half a pound! I checked my Scottrade account this morning and theHillman divvy was credited. The divvy included the cumulative dividend so it was over $1700. I was concerned about buying some BAC last Friday and the account was over one thousand dollars in the red. It was re-assuring to see the dividend was finally credited wiping out the negative balance. Did the 4 mile walk in the heat and didn't snack on extra fruits. When I weighed myself I was 230 which is great!!!! Christa's plane was over an hour late so we left at 7:10 and met her at 7:40. We then had dinner at Johnny Carinos in Briar Creek which was pretty good. I had the eggplant parmesan. ~ August 05, 2009 weight (again) --------------- In a long winded dialogue that's beginning to sound like a broken record, I lost weight when I weighed in this morning. The total is now 231 which I noted in the Fat Ass Chronicle. This included eating Eggplant Parmesan last night for dinner. The finance guy at Fred Anderson called this morning. He's finally getting around to refunding my $1,000 on the Visa card. He also said they are doing 40 clunker deals a day since the program started. So over all, everything is going great. I'm losing weight, my portfolio is earning 10%, the Hillman divvy was properly credited after a 6 month wait and the car dealer is going to refund the $1,000 dollars to our Visa account which should not have been charged in the first place. Did my 4 mile walk and met Joe on the way back when I reached Downing Place. He was just getting in from Tennessee in a rented Suzuki. I took a shower while the sky grumbled and Lib went to Etc along with Joe and Christa. They also hit the grocery store and got too much food, my opinion. Dinner was barbecue chicken with baked beans. After dinner I hooked up the A/C in the back bedroom because it was getting hot downstairs. ~ August 06, 2009 Visa, weight --------------- Checked my Visa and the $1,000 credit still was not there. May have to call the car dealer today. Stepped on the scale and it's back to 232, not unexpected since I had a big dinner and also a BLT for lunch. Have to cut that stuff out. Worked in the garage on the breadboard for the microwave. Took it upstairs, hooked it up and it's still alive!!! Worked on the rest of the microwave testing it out. All is well so I packaged it up and with Lib's help we went to the Post Office and mailed it to Waterville for $34. Amazingly it showed up instantly on my online visa account. For dinner tonight with Christa and Joe Libbie made her barbecue sauce recipe on Barbecu chicken which we had with Bush's Grillin Beans. ~ August 07, 2009 fan belt --------------- Weight is still flat lined at 231. Went over to the greenhouse this morning and tightened the fan belt on house 2. Found out that the fan belt on house 4 was beyond adjusting and worn down to only about 1/4" thick. Went home and fetched a new one and replaced it with a 4L540. I also have a 4L550 but put the 4L540 in instead. This gives me future adjusting room. Did the 4 mile walk today, Christa and Joe went to Topsail to rent paddle boards. We checked their location on Latitude and saw they were on the way home around 6 when we were leaving for First Friday. We called them from the car on our way downtown. We had 8:00 dinner reservations. I stopped into Nicole's gallery first because I wanted to talk to Rocky about palette knife painting that she teaches. I signed up for her Thursday afternoon class this coming Thursday for $75. We talked about painting palm trees. I had a glass of wine and some goodies before going over to City market. Used the parking deck near Cafe Luna and walked down to Visual Arts and Artspace. Had another glass of wine in Visual Arts where they seemed to be having an exhibition of painted chickens. ~ August 08, 2009 good news --------------- Checked my Visa account online and the $1,000 to Fred Anderson was finally credited to my account. I weighed in this morning and I was at 130.75 which wasn't bad considering we went to First Friday last night. Hung out on the back porch this morning with Joe and Christa. Even though I already had breakfast, I had some of the blueberry pancakes that Libbie made for breakfast. They were great as usual. While Joe and Christa went shopping I did the 4 mile walk. It was supposed to be hot but I didn't think so. It felt cool to me. Came home, took a shower, weighed myself. I'm at 129 after the walk - woo hoo!!! Took the big A/C unit out of the shed and hooked it up in the dining room for pizza making this afternoon. The Pizza's took all day, Joe was done at 5 PM which was an hour late for dinner at Josh's house. Lib and I sat down and were deciding on dinner for us. We ordered a pizza at Cabarras, the Rustica which has eggplant and sausage. It was yummy. Price was 9.50 plus tax and tip. ~ August 09, 2009 weight, walking, pizza, paint --------------- We got up at 5 AM this morning to see Christa off for her 7 AM flight. Joe drove her to the airport and then came back here to pack his stuff for his trip to Mark's and then on to TN. I went out at 6 AM while he was gone to buy a paper at the McDonalds newspaper machine. The paper is now up to $2. Worked a little on the Dining Room wallpaper. Libbie finished the job with the rest of the wallpaper. I did a 4 mile walk in the heat although it didn't feel too hot. There was a nice breeze. Joe called in the morning from Mark's house. They rode bikes for an hour, he wanted the Lapworths phone number to let them know Christa's plane was late. After my walk I was down to 229!!! Libbie and I went to Home Depot to look at paint. We wanted a slate gray color for the walls. I think it will look elegant. Dinner was leftover pizza from the party last night. We had pesto, bbq, ricotta, and sausage pizzas. I went to Trader Joes today but they were out of Mango so I ended up with Mangolicious which is a mix of Mango of berries. ~ August 10, 2009 weight, paint --------------- Got up and stepped on the scale after peeing. My weight is now 229 officially on the Fat Ass Chronicle!!! Did the 4 mile walk this afternoon, it's supposed to be 100 today but I don't think so. It felt fairly comfortable walking the lake. The second apartment pool had a bikini fest of lots of nice looking women. We spent the rest of the afternoon prepping the dining room walls with spackle, sanding and masking tape. Did not get the paint out. We stopped before all was taped. Still have the crowns to tape. Dinner tonight was pasta with some of Joe's spaghetti sauce that a little bit of heat in it. ~ August 11, 2009 weight at 227!!! --------------- Still at 229. Hit the dining room with the tape and finished taping the crown moulding. Went out for groceries to Krogers but first ran over to Walmart to pick up my microwave. It took a long time to find someone back in the Customer pickup area at the back corner of the store. Did my 4 miles today in the 100 degree heat. I had trouble getting around today - I was a little exhausted. Got home and was surprised that my weight was now 227. After a shower and a little rest I popped open the paint can and started rollering. I like the look of the slate gray in our dining room. It makes the room look a little more elegant. Stopped at 4 PM for an iced tea break. Started up again when Libbie came back from the pool. Instead of jumping into the painting she instead ran out to Home Depot for another can of paint. I did a second Krogers run tonight, this time for batteries and bins. Dinner was a BLT and then some of the fruit I picked up instead of Mango because Trader Joe's was out of frozen Mango. ~ August 12, 2009 228 --------------- 228 this morning!!! I was 227 after yesterdays walk so I expected a nice number. This is great. I'm averaging 3 pounds a week since June 1. Did not do a full walk because it was lightly sprinkling. Went down this side of the lake for an estimated 2.5 miles. I had a BLT when I got back. Heard that Aunt Helen is having problems in NJ. She's back in the hospital again. Dinner was a beanburger. Spoke with Vicki this evening. She didn't get my eMail. ~ August 13, 2009 AVSA, Oil Painting --------------- Worked on the AVSA photos this morning then got cleaned up and gathered my stuff to go to painting class. I picked up a case in Lowes ad also a two pack of S56 chains for my chain saw. I got to Nicoles at 1:15, they said I was early but I really wanted to get there early to get settled and not waste time. The lesson went very well. I really learned a lot, I want to go back next Thursday and do it again. Maybe I'll learn to paint clouds. For a beginning lesson I leaned to mix paint to draw the sky then painted some water and a sandy beach. I added grass and a palm tree. It really worked well, I was pleased. Dinner was Beanburger which I really like but Libbie is bored with. Aunt Helen is remarkably doing much better. Anne and Richard recorded 4 more segments which I added to the show before going to bed. Will work more on this tomorrow morning. ~ August 14, 2009 ProDigital, Jerrys Artarama --------------- Worked on slides all morning, renumbering and adding the number in the lower left corner. Finished the thing up and uploaded everything to Pro Digital for slide making. cost will be 1.19 each plus 5.95 shipping to Anne. So glad this is out of here. When Libbie came home we went to Jerry's Artarama and bought some oil colors by Lukas as well as a palette knife and palette paper. After this we went to the Farmers Market where I got an outstanding watermelon for $6. When I got back it was too late for a walk so I chose to mow the front grass instead then took a shower. Dinner was crab cakes with lettuce and tomato on a bun. I had watermelon afterward for desert. ~ August 15, 2009 DVD player --------------- Weight this morning is still at 228. No loss in the past few days. Worked on hooking up the DVD player which came yesterday. Using the component outputs it looks like herringbone so I used the composite. The problem with composite is the sound from the TIVO on s-video is hooked to the channel. Maybe if I kill the sound during DVD playback and use the Surround sound audio instead it will be an acceptable solution. Did the full 4 miles today. While out I was studying the sky and clouds for a potential painting. I like the Alfred Hair painting in the front of the Gordon Highwaymen book. I may try to replicate that. Watched the Bob Rankin video lesson on mixing colors on the palette then I watched a second one about the color wheel. Studied some of the paintings obtained from Google Street view then I studied Google street view imagery. Dinner was frozen salmon from Trader Joes along with steamfresh peas and, oh no, 2 glasses of Shiraz. The shiraz is a huge no no on a diet. Will atone for my stones early this week. ~ August 16, 2009 228 again (just barely) --------------- Weight this morning was on the high side of 228 after the wine last night. I was looking for 227, but I'm not going to get there this way. Went to Krogers at 6:45 for the paper, a loaf of bread and a 9v battery for our clock. It was flashing yesterday after the power went off for 5 minutes. The generator started but Apex came back pretty quickly. Did the 4 mile walk and came back in time for a thunderstorm. Libbie made a great pizza. I was tired so went to sleep after dinner. Talked to John Glembock who called during our pizza. He had privacy concerns with Glembocki.info. I'll look into password protection. ~ August 17, 2009 Jerrys, mowing, MAAVS --------------- Went to Jerry's this morning and got more paint and some palettes and palette knifes that were on sale. Stopped by Trader Joes on the way back. Still no Mangoes. Did not walk today - cut the back lawn instead. Dinner was pasta. Had a lot of responses on Facebook to the AVSA 2010 convention pages. worked on a promo for the MAAVS Memo. Wrote the promo for the MAAVS convention to be published in the MAAVS Memo. I have it on Google Docs for others to contribute. ~ August 18, 2009 228 again --------------- Did the grocery run this morning. Still weighing in at 228. This is a long flat line. Did a 4 mile walk and took it easy on consumption today. No snacks, healthy or not. Watched an Opera show featuring Dr Oz and the Eat This guy. The feature was obese kids. Some of these kids were almost 400 pounds and were only 11 years old. They showed the horrible diet these kids ate with no exercise. Dinner tonight was Eggplant. Found an almost disaster with the slides - I thought they were all screwed up but it turns out only 3 of them were out of order. ~ August 19, 2009 busy, ProDigital redo, 227 and 226! --------------- Renumbered the MP3 files then built a new MPG movie file with new pictures and new MP3's. Started over with everything. Also sent the 3 slides to ProDigital after changing the numbers in the corner of the slide. This is the easiest way of dealing with the misnumbering. Redo the slides and don't mess with anything else. I weighed in at 227 this morning which will be the official weight. After the 4 mile walk I weighed 226. This is great news. Dinner was reheated eggplant Parmesan which was excellent. Nice meal!!! ~ August 20, 2009 226 today, Nicoles gallery --------------- I was happy to weigh 226 this morning. It's been a long time stuck at 228 but things are finally falling in place. Built the slide show this morning then picked up my Highwaymen scans from Walgreens. I was very happy with the result and took them to Nicoles with me. Did a 2.5 mile walk instead of 4. I cut it short at the lake going down this side instead. Arrived home at 12:35 after leaving at 11:31. Took a shower then went to Nicoles Gallery. Rocky really helped me paint the clouds and sky in my painting. The key was knowing which colors to mix. She has an eye for it. Worked until 4:30 then took it all home including the palette. The big news of the day was my weight after the walk. I was 224 which won't last until morning. I'm hoping for 225 in the morning. Dinner was a BLT. We have lots of garden tomatoes so it was very appropriate. Done up on wheat toast, it was also very good. I was hungry of course. My other food today was an apple and slice of watermelon. ~ August 21, 2009 225.5 today, car inspection, corn --------------- Today when I weighed myself this morning I was 225.5 After my 4 mile walk it was 225 even although I don't think it will be this good tomorrow morning but I'm happy. Worked on the DVD today - installed the software then got going in earnest. Built the main menu then started putting shows together. We got a call at 2 PM that our car was never inspected. Went over to Fred Anderson and had the thing inspected. This dealership is bad news. I hope I never buy another car there again. It seems to be screwup after screwup. Dinner was bean burger and some really nice corn we picked up in Krogers on the way back from the car inspection. ~ August 22, 2009 DVD --------------- Worked all day on the DVD. Did not walk, it was raining in the PM anyway. Dinner was scallops over pasta with Sauvignon Blanc from 2 buck chuck. Pretty nice. I finished the DVD this evening but need to do some touchup tomorrow. ~ August 23, 2009 225, RLT, finished DVD --------------- I weighed 225 this morning which was good. A nice solid number despite the wine for dinner last night. Finished up the DVD project. Marjorie looked at it and didn't like the zooming in designs but it's too late to fix, my opinion. I did my 4 mile walk and got back in time to get cleaned up for RLT. It was a relatively cool 77 degrees. This is unusual for this late in August. We saw "Lost in Yonkers" which was a nice play about 2 young boys having to live with their strict grandmother and wacky aunt Belle. So sad and such a nice characterization of a family. Dinner was Libbie's outstanding pizza. After dinner I packed up the DVD and Cd and dropped them into the self serve kiosk priority mail to Denton. ~ August 24, 2009 225, finished DVD, RLT first season --------------- Went over to the greenhouse in mid-morning to repair the shelves. Took the two lower shelves down and got them level then extended the lower shelf with a double wide for dandy boxes. I used the old sewing room closet shelves to make the new shelves. Did not need any new materials which was good. Heard from Joe last night - they are looking at a house that is priced at $700k. He said they need another $15k to avoid PMI. We can lend them that from either interest earnings or a line of credit. Not sure which is more advantageous. Went home for more materials and had lunch then worked some more on the shelves. Finished up at around 4 PM. Went home to take a shower and had a nap. Very relaxing! Dinner was my favorite bean burger with Vidalia. I put the new 65 gallon recycle can at the street today. We filled it with lots of stuff from the greenhouse - cardboard, papers and bottles. It was overflowing out at the street. Also did a greenhouse garage cleanup to fill up th regular trash to overflowing but at least the greenhouse garage is nice and clean and now needs organizing. ~ August 25, 2009 groceries, BJ membership --------------- Went over to BJ's in Cary and joined since I needed dishwasher soap and laundry soap. On the way home stopped at Trader Joe's and Krogers for the normal Tuesday groceries. Walked 4 miles but it seemed a little cool today. Dinner was bean burger with Vidalia onion. Today I put together a timeline of Dad's military service in table form on Tom's Life bits. I retraced some official documents as well as the dated army pics and created the timeline. ~ August 26, 2009 225 --------------- Weight is still flat at 225 to 226. This is disappointing. I had a BLT for lunch today then Libbie made scallops and pasta for dinner. Very very nice. ~ August 27, 2009 army scanning --------------- Did some scanning today of Dad's Army book, book 2. I decided to scan the whole page intact at high resolution. It seems to work OK. Weight is still flat. Did the 4 mile walk today, also picked up lettuce and Broccoli on sale at Krogers. I also got some AAA batteries for my recorder to record the coroners testimony in the Denise Lee trial. I tried doing this via the computer but no luck so I hooked up the recorder in front of the speakers. This worked OK. Dinner was pork chops, apple sauce and Broccoli. ~ August 28, 2009 225, BJ's --------------- Did some reading about the Denise Lee trial, heard the verdict at 2 PM before going on my walk. He was guilty of killing her. Good, I hoped he didn't get off the hook. After my 4 mile walk I went to BJ's with Libbie. Picked up some frozen fruit and salmon for dinner. The Salmon was excellent, we had it with Broccoli from Krogers I picked up the other day. Weight has been stuck at 225 but after todays walk I saw 223.5. This is good news. Today is Mom and Dad's anniversary. I never really celebrated the day in the past but I thought about it today because of research I did on Dad for Jessica's sake. ~ August 29, 2009 obits --------------- While reading the email this morning I clicked on a Classmates email I regularly get. Randomly I read a story about William Barry retiring as an accountant then opened my eyes when he stated he was married to Joyce Morrissey who passed away. They divorced in 1985. I did some online searching and found her obit where I was even further shocked. Her spouse is a woman!!!!! Whoaa. I spent the rest of the day moping about. Even though I haven't seen Joyce in 45 years, there was always this hope that I would run into her again someday. Now she's dead. So sad. Dinner tonight was salmon with Broccoli and Shiraz. Very very nice but the sadness over Joyce remains. ~ August 30, 2009 222.5, Joyce --------------- Went into Krogers today for bread, cheese and the paper. The cashier helping me was very pretty. I liked her tight white jeans. I'm still a little listless over Joyce, Scanned a few yearbook pics of her and then found her partners name, address and phone number. Need to get over this because she was just 3-4 years of my life and it was 45 years ago!!!!! She and I have had so much more of a life since then. Wow, it's amazing when I think of all that happened in the past 45 years. Moving to Ninth St, going to FIT in Melbourne, summers on the railroad and the plastics factory, deaths of grandparent, parents, aunts and uncles, graduation, sisters weddings, Libbie coming into my life, 38 wonderful years of marriage, Owego house building and farming, Rosecommon in Cary then Downing Place, my IBM career, retirement, consulting. So much and more. My weight today was 222.5, a new record. Even WII agreed when I stepped on. It said I lost 5.5 pounds since 11 days ago. Tried walking today but got a ride back with Libbie so I only did 3 miles. Updated the MAAVS History on the web site. Libbie made her excellent pizza as is usual on Sunday night. Still in a Joyce funk. If she were alive she wouldn't even know who I was. Got to stop this. ~ August 31, 2009 Time Flies, Schwab card --------------- Where does time go. It flies by too fast. Received my Schwab card so I started transferring all my online bill accounts to the Schwab card. It pays 2% cash back so I'll use this one and see how it goes. Did more research on Joyce today. Did not uncover too much additional info about her. She doesn't have much of an online presence. Dinner tonight was leftover pork chops, apple sauce and more broccoli. I'm glad to see that we're getting more greens into our diet. I could do without the meat and just have the vegies. ~ September 01, 2009 More Joyce, groceries --------------- Did the grocery runs today - went to Trader joes then Winn Dixie. Afterward I walked the full 4 miles. Need to keep working on the weight. Finished a story for Ruth for the AVM. I was going to work on the MAAVS web site and convention but got derailed. Joyce is still very much on my mind - it's so sad. I fully expected to see her again some day and now I never will. Dinner was the pasta I picked up in Trader Joes today. ~ September 02, 2009 Eat this, Timex --------------- Finished scanning the army books and one family book today. Good deal. I'm rolling along on this stuff. Tried more Google searches for Joyce but no luck. Researched picture frames today. I would like a frame tethered to my computer that I can update over USB or Ethernet. This evening I ordered a new Timex watch from Amazon along with the eat this not that book. Dinner was salmon and broccoli. ~ September 03, 2009 224, php, no Joyce --------------- Weight is at 224 this morning. I'm going to work on getting rid of the extra pound or two today. Started my day by researching using a PHP function to compile my musings blog. I want a PHP script to collect all the individual daily entries into a single text file for each year. I'm going to move on from Joyce starting today. There's no looking back. I'm looking forward to weighing less than 200 by the end of the year but doing the Math, I realistically will be 210. It would be 24 pounds in 17 weeks or 1.4 pounds a week to reach 200. Less than a pound a week will be 210 in 17 weeks or 3/4 pounds a week. I'll keep what I'm doing and see where it leads. Exercise along with reduced intake should help. ~ September 04, 2009 schedules, playboy, First Friday --------------- A nice day. I have a lot to do today so skipped the walk temporarily today only. Worked on the MAAVS schedule and put it on Google docs for review by the group. This was a big deal since I had to call the Woodlands to get details on the banquet and cash bars. I also transferred a lot more of my files off the old Manon. I believe I'm done transferring files and data. I worked on organizing the playboy centerfold collection using LinPha on the server. This program works better than expected for displaying art or playboy. We left at 6 for First Friday. It was also Friday night of Labor Day weekend. I-40 on the way downtown was stopped in several places. We got off at Saunders instead of Gorman because of the congestion. Parked in the Public garage near Caffe Luna then walked to first Visual Arts where we had wine and crackers with crab dip then toured some of Artspace. Voted for a Rocky Alexander painting as our favorite then worked our way over to the restaurant. We had a nice table in the corner in the window. Libbie had just remarked that we never sat in the corner by the window. I had grilled tuna with veggies. We shared an Irish Bash desert which was chocolate encrusted cheesecake with chocolate syrup drizzled on. Afterwards we walked back to City Market to listen to the band but they were on break. Got home at 9:40. ~ September 05, 2009 cutting trees, salmon --------------- Another nice day. It's getting a little warmer. I spent some time this morning organizing music and magazines on Traviata. Went outside and dropped the dead pine next to the driveway turnaround. I let it fall with the help of the come along next to the row of bayberry bushes, half of which are dead anyway. Did a few wheelbarrows of logs moving them to the pile in the back on the other side of the creek. Kept working until exhausted then I took a shower and got dressed for dinner. Tonight we had salmon and veggies with a single glass of Shiraz. We're getting better. ~ September 06, 2009 More tree, RBC condos, --------------- Went into Kroger's for milk and a newspaper early this morning. The nice girl in tight jeans was not working today. After the paper I did some MAAVS convention stuff then went out to cut up more of the felled tree. Hauled all the logs and a few of the bayberry bush branches down to the pile. This completes the side yard tree. Still have a big tree laying down in the front yard that needs clean up. After taking a shower, Libbie and I went to an open house downtown at the RBC tower. The condos are beautiful but no birds and yard. The floor to ceiling glass and decorator furnishings look like something out of a magazine or movie. We met an old gentleman who was from Manhattan and has lived here for 4 months. Libbie made her outstanding pizza again. She also photographed my portrait in the front yard for the AVM. After dinner I completed a bio for the board of directors listing in the AVM. ~ September 07, 2009 MAAVS, Vladimir --------------- Today was MAAVS day. I spent the time updating the web site and communicating with people. The event schedule is finally on the web site along with the hotel info. Still don't have speaker info and we're missing a third speaker. I also wrote the convention article for Vladimir and sent him half a dozen pictures to use with the article. It was a full day and hard to believe so little can require so much. Dinner was TJ's frozen eggplant Parmesan. Libbie cleaned the house today because violet club is meeting here tomorrow. ~ September 08, 2009 no response --------------- Surprisingly I have not heard from Vladimir overnight. He must be busy somewhere. Today is a disaster for eating. I had some donuts in Krogers then when I got home Libbie had the violet club here. The meeting was nice but I had a cheese danish and a large lunch with many glasses of sweet tea. The eating binge continued in the evening with another danish and two helpings of bean salad. Whew. I fine tuned the MAAVS web site today, need to check on room availability tomorrow since a few want to start working early. Did not walk at all today - no time. Will have to make up for it tomorrow. ~ September 09, 2009 tree cleanup --------------- Did not walk today but I cut up and moved the fallen tree in the front yard. It fell while we were away in Florida in late July. Hauled the logs down to the creek. I wanted to eat lite tonight so dinner was a BLT. ~ September 10, 2009 pictures, Carinos, hd tickets --------------- I worked on organizing pictures and folders on Traviata which has been in a messy state. Libbie and I walked up to Seagroves. Lot 67 has sod and a nice steel fence separating it from the pond. This gives us a nice walking space without trespassing however part of the pond has a steep slope. Tried to get opera tickets at Brier Creek but they were all sold out. Found out that someone purchased $5,000 worth of tickets in one buy. They are totally sold out. While at Brier Creek we used the rest of our gift certificate to get dinner at Carinos. I had eggplant Parmesan, Libbie did also. This wiped out our gift cert, had to add $10 more which included a tip. When I got home I was able to get tickets to Tosca and to Hoffman at North Hills online. ~ September 11, 2009 MAAVS, Julia --------------- Heard from Judi. Dale is going to fly to Norfolk and speak at our convention. I asked Richard for a sentence on each speaker but no dice. He said maybe he'll send something Sunday. In the meantime, the Woodlands gave us a sign in web page for making reservations at our $99 rate. We went to Julie and Julia this evening in Apex. I really liked the movie. I find it hard to believe we have a stadium theater here in Apex. This afternoon Chem Dry through Home Depot came and cleaned the carpet on the back stairs and the Playroom. It didn't look too bad but I want to take care of it properly. Dinner was sliders using bean burgers and the Hawaiian sweet rolls from Tuesdays Violet club meeting. ~ September 12, 2009 carpet --------------- Had breakfast in the kitchen this morning because the carpet is still damp and we don't have the furniture back in there yet. When Libbie came home we moved all the furniture back into the room. I did a 4 mile walk then we went to Frsh Market and picked up Hawaiian Salmon and a Shiraz Zinfindel blend wine that they were sampling from Toasted Head winery. Later in the evening we watched Doubt with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams that I rented from Krogers earlier. ~ September 13, 2009 Seagrove, Sunshine Cleaning --------------- I went to Krogers today to return Doubt and rented Sunshine Cleaning because it had Amy Adams. Not a bad movie, not the greatest either. We were left hanging at the end. Earlier in the day we walked around Seagroves, went all the way out to 1010 and back in at Vintage Grove before cutting across to Seagrove again for a 2 mile walk. We met Bonnie and Oliver again. They said closing is Sept 25. Libbie made her super pizza again this evening. ~ September 14, 2009 Fat Ass, Trailer Hitch --------------- Did the whole 4.4 miles today. I'm trying to get back on track for the weight loss since I've been flat for 2 weeks and went out to a few restaurant meals and had wine many times. Wake up Fat Ass!!!! Ordered a trailer hitch for the Corolla. Found one on eBay for a reasonable price that just bolts to the frame. The frame already has holes and welded nuts. Amazingly, I got a tracking number later in the evening. Dinner was pasta and TJ's Marinara sauce. ~ September 15, 2009 groceries, Northern, --------------- Did the groceries today as well as all the rounds. Went to the DMV to find out about Libbie's registration. All is OK. Next stop was Northern to look at framing nailers and trailers. Meantime, Libbie found a trailer at Agrisupply for $399 but we don't pay tax there so it wins!!!! I researched nailers and compressors online. I decided on a Northern framing nailer and a Hot Dog compressor by Makita. The Makita is $120 plus $50 shipping refurn online or 220 plus 8% tax at Northern. I may just get the nailer and compressor from Northern unless I can get it 0% interest at Home Depot. Dinner was rotisserie chicken, sweet potato and left over wine from Saturday. Nice meal. I'm looking for mypreferreds to pay today - should be around $1500 from CEG, PHR, SGZ and BAC. ~ September 16, 2009 divvy day, orders --------------- The divvy's I was expecting paid off today. I took in over $1500. UPS delivered my trailer hitch. It was well wrapped in bubble wrap. I used a box cutter to unwrap but not ding the black enamel paint covering the bar. IT seems to be sturdy and well built. It came with screws and lock wahers but not regular washers. I went to Lowes after dinner and picked up 4 large 1/2 inch washers. Dinner was a yummy eggplant Parmesan that Libbie made today. After dinner I went to the previously mentioned Lowes then started reading a new library book. ~ September 17, 2009 rain, hitch --------------- This is a rainy day. It's also dark and gloomy but warm. Crawled under the back bumper and installed the trailer hitch. I used the hydraulic jack to hold the hitch up while I installed the screws then tightened everything with my new socket set. I noticed the new set did not include drive extensions so I used my old ones. Tried the Cranberry Vanilla yogurt for lunch today. It was delicious but I'm trying hard to reach 220 by Oct 1 so did not have anything else. I went walking in the rain at noon - it was a light mist so I carried the umbrella but did not use it. Did the full 4.4 miles in the misty rain. Dinner was the last of the eggplant Parmesan. Listened to a classic Ruocchio Dutchman on CPE tonight while reading my new book, Who Slept on My Mattress by Gemma Bruce, an authors alter ego. ~ September 18, 2009 222, cassette tape --------------- I weighed in at 222 today. Walking in the rain yesterday and not snacking turned out to be worth it!!!! It's been a long time since I had a loss. This morning I retrieved the Condon tape from the garage for Libbie and I'm digitizing it as I write this. Earlier I dug up my trailer ball and oiled the nut so it turns freely. I'm going to use it when I buy a trailer if it fits. Newegg had a special on the Slingbox Pro. $228 speaks to me so I ordered one. We'll see if it's possible to redirect Comcast TV to Downing Place from Stoneybrook. I don't want to spend anymore money this month but the price was compelling enough to go for it. Dinner was seafood sausage and Broccoli. I liked it but of course Libbie didn't like it. I read my book some more this evening. ~ September 19, 2009 Still fat --------------- I had high hopes for this mornings weigh in but I's still a very fat 222. I wanted to get down to 221 but it didn't happen. Need to make it happen tomorrow morning. Lots of eMail today. Linda Owens agreed to host the Presidents reception. We now have speakers but no topics. Richard is a royal pain in the ass. He quit again this morning according to Judi. Kathy Lahti wants directions to the hotel which I'll work on today. I started studying the software that makes this blog work. I'm going to add a function to compile a years worth of entries into a file. While playing with the php blog I found the Blog Backup Menu item that will serve as a model for my compiling. We went to Krogers and got chicken, whole wheat linguini and cheese for our dinner fixings. Libbie cooked the chicken breasts in the TJ's Marsala Simmer sauce which then went over the Linguini in a fantastic meal. I added shaved pasmesan to my meal, Libbie added provolone and mozarella to hers. after the meal we watched the Visitor on DVD. ~ September 20, 2009 A new day, 221!!! --------------- I achieved 221 this morning. The light eating the past few days combined with a 4.4 mile walk each day did the trick. This is happiness. Not much time to walk since we had to leave at 1 for a 2 PM Swan Lake. We got there early so we enjoyed sitting out by the fountain with a view down Fayetteville Street and the capitol in the background. There was a large group of young ballerinas getting their picture taken in front. The weather was perfect. I really enjoyed the performance, especially the ending water scene. It was a spectacular effect. afterward I walked to Krogers to return the Visitor DVD we watched te night before. Libbie made her outstanding pizza once again. We watched the Emmys in the evening, especially the red carpet fashions. ~ September 21, 2009 holding --------------- Still holding at 221 which is good because we had BLT lunch yesterday and then pizza last night. Nice to see the weight hold, it was not a flash in the pan. I visited the printer this morning and learned about their color copier. Sent in a JPG of "the once and future violet" and they made 25 color copies for $1 each. Lib and I picked them up - they are gorgeous! I went home and made up a bunch more signs for the MAAVS convention. Dinner was yummy. Libbie put the remaining Marsala chicken breast over some whole wheat linguine. After dinner we watched the Pete Seger birthday and then Dancing with the Stars. ~ September 22, 2009 nail gun, groceries --------------- It was pouring rain when Libbie put the garbage and recycling cans out. I was happy because the scale reads 220.5 this morning. This is a new and satisfying low. I want to be under 220 by Oct 1, whether it's 219 or 219.9. Northern called that my nail gun is here. This is dumb. It costs $159 in the store of $99 online with free delivery to the store. I'll pick it up when I go out to get the groceries this morning. Picked up the nail gun. They ended up giving me two. I tried protesting but the clerk was insistent. I left with two. Bought gas at BJ's for 1.39 on the way to the grocery store. UPS will come with the air hose and pneumatic stapler tomorrow. Fedex is bringing the compressor tomorrow. UPS delivered the SlingBox today. I'll use this to transmit Sarasota cable to Apex. Watched Dancing with the Stars tonight. It wasn't too bad although I was hardly interested. Dinner was Tortellini with marinara sauce. ~ September 23, 2009 compressor --------------- The compressor, the air hose and the stapler arrived today. The compressor is heavy. I filled it with oil, installed the air filter and briefly ran it. I need couplers for my air hose since it doesn't have any and none came with the compressor. Home Depot orLowes should fill the bill. Wall Street is doing great. All my preferreds are performing above par. Net portfolio is at a high. Now it's time to sit back and collect the divvy's. Did the 4.4 mile walk today and finished the Gemma Bruce book. I looked this author up and found her bio. Former dancer with Thyla Thorp turned writer. Dinner tonight was spinach lasagna. Watched the elimination show on Dancing with the stars tonight then watched the opening of the NY Philharmonic. They have a new conductor, alan Gilbert. I wasn't too keen on Renee Fleming's choice of songs. My weight is holding. with luck I will see 219 by Oct 1. I hated the AVSA web site tonight. Still have nothing but crap for the convention. ~ September 24, 2009 Lowes, fence, weight --------------- Went to Lowes this morning to get nail gun nails and air hose fittings. Met Coleman there when i was checking out. Dropped the wood off at the greenhouse and found all the spotlights were broken. Need to repair the fencing and put a second fence up in the front to keep people out. Hooked up the compressor and hoses then tried the air stapler. It worked well. Later I fired a couple of 8d nails using the framing nailer. I may get a trim nailer to work on the house fascia and soffits. Weight after the 4.4 mile walk was 220. This is finally good news. The bad news is that September has not been a very good month, I'm only down about 3 pounds for the month. Dinner was crab cakes with tomato and lettuce. I'm pretty disappointed that we're not eating veggies but instead all this other gunk. ~ September 25, 2009 220, MAAVS web, trailer, salmon --------------- The 220 from walking yesterday held this morning!!!! My morning weight, which is the one I record in the fat ass chronicle, was the same as my walking weight from yesterday. There may be a chance I drop below 220 this weekend. I sure hope so. I need to get to the greenhouse and repair the fence this morning. Updated the MAAVS web site with the latest convention info. Got the descriptions of the presentations and entertainment which I added to the site. Afterward I went to the greenhouse and fixed the barbed wire fence across the pipeline. They cit both strands of wire which I repaired and supported in the center with some electrical pipes. This seems to be a good repair. Tried killing some fire ants along the foundation of the garage. Lib brought the Ambrol home and we walked up the hill to try zapping some up by the birdhouse. Next step was to go to Agri Supply for a trailer. I didn't like that the new trailer was 5 feet wide instead of 4 but it will do. I had to buy a 2 inch ball, then borrowed one of the tools in the store to loosen the old 1 7/8 ball. I hand tightened the new 2 inch ball and hooked up the new trailer. Bought a new pin for the receiver because I didn't trust the old pin. Used the clip from the old pin to hold the hitch latch in place. Did not have lights for the trip home in a misty rain. We stopped at the Farmers market on the way to AgriSupply and got our produce for the week. Dinner was Silverbrite salmon from Krogers along with broccoli and sweet potato. As a diet buster I had a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. At least it wasn't half the bottle. Before dinner I drove to the lake and walked around once then went to the library and picked up a new novel by Elizabeth Adler, "There's Something About St Tropez", a 7 day rental. Much reading to do. ~ September 26, 2009 219.5, grass seed --------------- Went to Home Depot and picked up a ratchet tie down stretch strap. Hooked up the trailer and picked up the garden tractor which went easily onto the tilt trailer. I won't need the aluminum ramps anymore. Mowed the front and back and then hooked up the aerator with cinder block weights strapped on top. Dragged it around the yard and tore up the backyard pretty good. Went with Libbie to Lowes and picked up grass seed and also daffodil bulbs for fall planting. Sprinkled the grass seed in a light rain which was excellent. Next I took a 2 mile walk around the lake at 3 PM. It was a little gray, misty and chilly but I wanted the exercise. I weighed in at 219.5 this morning which is my Oct 1 goal. I wanted to be under 220. Libbie and I went to Krogers, tasted wine of which we bought a Turning Leaf Cabernet then bought a pork chop for dinner which we had with a single glass of wine from last night and beets and roasted red potatoes. It was a perfect dinner. Afterward I read some more of the St Tropez novel which has to go back in less that 7 days since it's a library new novel. I think I can make it. ~ September 27, 2009 218.5 --------------- Quite surprised by my weight this morning. It was 218.5. I'm pleased but expected it to spike up a little due to the wine. Not bad. I eagerly fired up my computer to log this new poundage into the Fat Ass Chronicles on Google Docs. I started cleaning the tool closet in the garage so I can store the air tools and compressor in one side of it. While we were having chicken salad lunch on the back porch, Libbie found that the Galaxy was playing La Boheme. We did a quick up Seagroves and then got cleaned up and left at 2:30 for the 3:00 movie. Turned around at Krogers because we didn't have cash and I remembered that the Galaxy doesn't take credit cards. We got to the heater at 8 minutes of. I was correct, no credit cards. We enjoyed the performance with Anna and Rolando. It was a film instead of a stage peformance. We stopped by Trader Joes on the way home and tried their frozen Mergerhita Pizza. It was very good, probably the best frozen pizza I have eaten. Afterwards I wanted to read my novel since it's a 7 day loan which means 60 pages per day minimum but I struggled with Roadrunner and the MAAVS eMemo. ~ September 28, 2009 218.25 --------------- A big weigh in this morning, I'm at 118.25 which means the 118.5 yesterday was no fluke. Late last night I emailed the MAAVS eMemo which was difficult to do because Roadrunner was not cooperating. I did the walk thing which was not a good idea because after lunch we went over to the greenhouse to cover up the sidewall. I ran out of energy and needed to stop many times. I was weak and tired. The pneumatic stapler and nailer worked well with little effort to tack down the strip on top and nail the firring strips on the bottom. Came home, took a shower and crashed. I went late to Krogers for roasted chicken, they were out at 7:10 PM. I bought a cold one and the nice lady in the deli counter gave me a microwave bag to reheat it. We had that with potato salad except Libbie had Macaroni and Cheese. I read some more of the book - I really like this author although it looks doubtful about finishing in 7 days which is up Friday. After the greenhouse work I weighed 217 but it doesn't count. I only track morning weigh ins. ~ September 29, 2009 groceries, MAAVS --------------- I updated the event schedule this morning. We had a conflict between judging and show start. Studied my portfolio and am thinking of making some changes. I wanted to lighten up 200 shares on the lower yield XCJ and redistribute the money into ATPW and BAC-W. ATPWF had a spike this morning so I may wait for that to settle. I have to wait for XCJ to pay a divvy first before I consider it safe to sell. Divvy is scheduled for 10/1 but will wait and see. Did not walk today!!! After yesterdays debacle, I decided to rest up today. Cut the plywood for the soffit in the back and also bought a finish nailer from Home Depot using a 10% off coupon. It came with a brad nailer as well. I only wanted the finish nailer. Lib cut up the chicken and simmered it in curry simmer sauce with brocolli. In the evening I made a serious debt in the St Tropez book since it's a 7 day rental due this Friday and it's a 400 page book. ~ September 30, 2009 118 --------------- Last day of the month. I officially weigh 118 poinds. I thought it was the 1st because I looked online for my divvy's from XCJ, HLM and ATPWF. I did get a statement from Schwab for the new credit card. Now I need to fill in the online forms to get electronic payments enabled. I don't want to mail a check. I'm working on the Elizabeth Adler book, need to finish 400 pages by Friday. I'm up to page 300. Did a 3 mile walk today. ~ October 01, 2009 nails --------------- Answered an eMail from Anne about the wedding album. Worked on the heater a little bit. Removed the fan and took it home. We have a new one on order from Gorrell under warranty. The old motor is dead. Dinner was Briyani. I did a 3 mile walk - up one side of the lake only from Home. Met Coleman in Home Depot when I was looking at galvanized finish nails. I bought a package of roach bait traps, the liquid kind based on our success with the initial package. I think we're winning the roach war but it's too early to tell. Dinner was scallops over whole whea Linguini. ~ October 02, 2009 First Friday --------------- Did the Starbucks taste test today with the instant vs real coffee. I liked the real thing but the instant was passable. Next I went to Home Depot this morning and picked up some finishing nails for the finish nailer. I found that the 18 gauge nails did not work in the finish nailer. I had to get 16 gauge nails. I also went to Lowes and got some .113 galvanized nails which I tried into a 2x4 at home. Most of the nails bent before going all the way in which was dismaying. Downloaded the Nicholas pictures and printed the list before working on the Dec-C++ compiler. Got it to compile a "hello world program" as well as some sample windows menu programs. Left at 6 for First Friday. Nichol had a performing arts theme at the Capitol Plaza bank with wine and a very nice buffet. We then went to Artspace and Visual Arts. I had a grilled tuna at Cafe Luna before heading home. We parked in the Moore station garage which was convenient to everything. It's right at Caffe Luna. The other side of it is near Capitol Bank. ~ October 03, 2009 sleep in --------------- We slept in this morning until 7:30. I don't like doing this. Started working on the Nicholas pictures this morning. Tracked them all down and put them into a directory so now I can chronologically build the pages. Did the full 4.3 mile walk. It's a nice day today, airly warm. Libbie went with me to Kohls where we bought a jacket for me. I needed a lightweight fall and spring jacket. This fits the bill. It was $59 and Libbie had a $29 gift card so it was great all around. Supposedly list price was $100. Dinner tonight was grilled chicken with baked beets and baked white potato wedges cooked in olive oil. This was a very yummy dinner. ~ October 04, 2009 weight, walking, pizza --------------- Weight has stabilized. Went into Krogers for my newspaper because I didn't have any quarters for the machine. Surprisingly a woman had a cart full of groceries in front of me at this early hour. It's a very nice day. I worked on the egret program which compiles this block into annual books of entries. One book covers an entire year. The program is fully functional at this point. I may expand it in the future to combine multiple years, for example 5 or 10 years at a time. I was supposed to work on the wedding photos but very little got done. Tomorrow I'll hit it full time. We walked up to 1010 and through Surrey for our walk on this beautiful afternoon. Libbie made her excellent pizza again for dinner. Last week we had the Trader Joe Margherita pizza. Wikipedia says that Margherita is a type of Italian pizza that is a basic crust, tomato sauce, basil and spices and slides of mozzarella. ~ October 05, 2009 rain --------------- A rainy day. I took my umbrella and did the full walk, all 4 miles. Dinner was pasta in Trader Joes marinara sauce. I put a big effort into Laura's album today. Heard from Stephanie Hunter. Tom passed away unexpectedly Sept 9, she's 4 months pregnant. What a tragedy. I couldn't help thinking about him. We pulled up their wedding pictures and went through them. They seemed such a happy couple but her life is now turned upside down. Libbie and I found his obit on the web. He was 30. ~ October 06, 2009 rain --------------- Surprisingly it's still raining. Worked on some more album pictures before we left at 12:30 for the zoo. Arrived there at 2:00. There was a light misty rain all the way. The Violets at the zoo were spectacular. Couldn't believe how many there were in the display house. We got home near 6 PM and went striaght over to dinner at La Cocina. It was Margarita night so we each had one along with a shrimp, chicken and beef Quasedea. Very nice but I was finished for the night with all the food. ~ October 07, 2009 hot dog fans --------------- I finished the first half of the album today and sent a PDF of the results so far to Laura and Brian. My verification deposits went OK into Scottrade. I used the new money link to pay the Visa bill on Schwab. I previously used the Moneylink to the Credit Union to transfer $1900 to help with my purchase of ATPWF. I now have 2300 shares which I own for the dividend to pay the condo quarterly fee. There's still a little rain around. I went to the greenhouse this morning and replaced the Hot Dog fan motor. The new one came from Modine as a Warranty replacement for no charge. Dinner was the Sausage Calzone that has been in the freezer for some time. It was pretty good but we don't eat those fatty foods anymore. ~ October 08, 2009 beautiful day --------------- It's a beautiful day. I set the ladder up in the back and took the soffit down. I found the rotted wood went further than first thought. The entire header board needs replacing under the fascia board. I worked on tearing it all down then took a break for a BLT lunch that Libbie fixed for us. Went back out and got the rest of the header down. Tried fitting the license plate to the trailer but the trailer bracket is too small so I'll see if the Fred Anderson bracket can be repurposed. Dinner tonight was a nice light shrimp and vegetable medley. 70 calories per serving, 2.5 servings per container. While the news was on tonight I did some web searching for Prius oil and oil filters. ~ October 09, 2009 0w20, soffits, ribs --------------- At 9:30 I went over to Walmart and bought socks, underwear, a shirt and looked at oil. They had 0W20 but not in the jug size. Next I went to Lowes and got the 2x6 needed for the headers. Spent the afternoon framing in the rotted headers and soffit supports. Libbie was at a violet sale in Goldsboro. Finished by adding the soffits but not the corner piece because the corner bead is rotten. Need to replace it. For dinner tonight I went to Krogers and had their ribs along with Turning Leaf Cabernet Sauvignon and Sweet potato. It's been a long time since we've had ribs. I hope I'm not on the path to getting obese again. The stock market is doing nicely. I spent some of our divvy earnings by transferring 2400 from Scottrade to pay our Visa card. It had the charges for the trailer, trailer tow bar and nail compressor and nail guns. It took some time and effort to get the moneylinks established between the CU, Scottrade and Schwab so that I could transfer money back and forth at will. Used the CU money to buy ATPWF on Schwab. Used Scottrade to pay the Visa bill. ~ October 10, 2009 Tosca, salmon --------------- In the morning I fixed the halogen landscape light that went out and also looked at the corner bead in the back to determine if it needed replacing. It doesn't, but some flashing down by the roof edge would help to keep water off. We scrambled around to get ready for the 1 PM opera of Tosca from the Met at North Hills. When we got there we found out that tickets were now available for some of the other performances. We bought Aida tickets for North Hills and decided to think about what to do about the Danville tickets Nov 7. On the way home we stopped in BJ's and picked up a salmon for dinner which we had with butternut squash and Shiraz. ~ October 11, 2009 Rheingold, wine tasting --------------- Went to Lowes after reading the Sunday newspaper and bought the 12 foot fascia boards. they stuck out the back of the Corolla but not much of a problem. Libbie painted them leaning against the trailer. I bent a bracket and climbed the ladder to put it in place to support one end of the board when it's attached. We left for the opera at 2:30 for the 3:00 performance. What a show!!!! Rheingold as I never saw it before. It was very artsy but the music was very powerful. The pretty girl was doing a wine tasting once again. Very pretty in a black top and jeans with blond hair. I enjoyed talking to her. Afterward the opera we had Libbie's homemade pizza which was fantastic. ~ October 12, 2009 fascia --------------- I worked all morning removing the rest of the fascia boards over the shop and then put up the newly painted boards. It started raining around 1 PM before I put up the last two boards. The job cane out pretty good. When Libbie came home we went over to Trader Joe's since I ran out of apples. Picked up pasta and some Indian dishes. Once again, a pretty girl told us about how her husband liked the butter chicken so we bought some. Dinner was the Trader Joe pasta with tomato sauce and Parmesan. We watched Dancing with the Stars after dinner. Very sexy dances with the lambada being performed. I liked swimsuit model Joanna and Derek. Weight was holding today at around 117.5 ~ October 13, 2009 fascia, blood pressure --------------- I did the grocery run and then cut up the remaining pieces of fascia board for the back. Finished the fascia job except for the corners and the metal drip edge. Finished the first pass of Laura and Brian's album. Mailed it to Laura and copied Anne. I heard from Anne via telephone right away. She's back from NYC and loved the album. Blood pressure was good today, 121/80. This was better than last time which was 141 and caused me to seek online blood pressure medication. ATPWF took off today because they said they are seeking to be listed on the NY Exchange. Once there they will be able to significantly increase their price since currently many institutions are not permitted to own pink sheet stocks. Dinner was the Indian chicken dishes we picked up in Trader Joe's. After dinner I read my book a little then watched Shakira on Dancing with the Stars. The wrestler Chuck Liddell got kicked off tonight with partner Anna. ~ October 14, 2009 rain, busy --------------- It was a rainy day today. I started looking at the keyboard and LCD for the new version of Kahlo. Needed to transfer some more files onto my new computer to use Orcad with the old libraries. Libbie and I went to the new Walmart in Apex and bought new windshield wipers for the Corolla and 5 quarts of 0W20 oil for the Prius. The store was nicely stocked. After that we decided to find pansies at the Farmers Market. Dinner was the TJ's eggplant cutlets baked into a caserole. This was yummy. Worked on the fruit and wedding picture for Laura. Heard from Adrienne that TAVS needs a full page ad for the souvenir book. Lots to do. ~ October 15, 2009 cold, AVM, Orcad --------------- I was very cold last night. I even got up at 3 AM and turned the heat up. It was cold even though outdoors it was only 48. Brrrr. This morning I found I needed to write an article for the AVM about the convention. The deadline was Oct 1 but I sat down and did the op ten reasons to visit the AVSA convention. Worked on the TAVS ad and sent a PDF to Adrienne of the final product. Next I spent the rest of the afternoon doing Kahlo parts on Orcad. I created all the new parts for the controller. Today I purchased 100 more shares of ATPWF at a price that was a little too high - 9.82. The price kept going up. I also made a series of purchases in the IRA account of KMP, EPD, and BAC-W. We had the rest of the eggplant tonight for dinner. The firelog seems to have a problem in that it shuts down all by itself when it gets hot. I opened the external air intake on the right side near the gas valve and restarted the thing. Hopefully the fresh air will keep the valve cool. It seemed to run the rest of the night on low without incident. ~ October 16, 2009 PCB --------------- Worked on laying out the Kahlo 4 controller. Didn't finish the wiring. Dinner was salmon and brocolli that Libbie picked up at the Farmers Market yesterday. ~ October 17, 2009 Picasso --------------- Finished the Kahlo 4 layout. Trying to wire it now. Ran out of time since we had to get cleaned up for Picasso ballet tonight. Left at 7. It was very cold this evening. Libbie made tuna sandwiches for us before we went. I enjoyed the ballet thoroughly. Never have I enjoyed a dance so much. The ballet was a blend of modern and classical ballet. I spent some time today updating the playboy mag pictures on Traviata. We came home from the Ballet in rain about 10:30 PM. I really liked the performance. ~ October 18, 2009 Altar Boyz, Mounting Holes --------------- After the Sunday paper this morning I went upstairs and worked on the Kahlo controller some more. I added the mounting holes and spent some time adding "keep out areas" to the area surrounding the pads to keep out routing traces. I got the whole thing finished today but noticed some extra power and ground files in the output. I went into the preferences and saw why these were being generated and changed the options to eliminate the files. Didn't get to run it again since we had to go to Altar Boyz at RLT. Altar Boyz was an irreverent musical that was too loud but very enjoyable. I liked yesterdays ballet much better than the RLT performance. It's a cold day here but snowing in New England today. ~ October 19, 2009 117.5 --------------- The weight loss is back on. Dropped half a pound since yesterday. The goal is 210 by Nov 6. Finished up the Kahlo4 controller and uploaded the files to AP Circuits in Alberta. I expect the cards to be here later this week. I went over to the greenhouse to get the garbage and also patched a hole using poly patch on the roof. Will come back for the bows and plastic renewal. Dinner was chicken and broccoli in simmer sauce which was delicious since I was starving. We watched a very good Dancing with the stars. All seemed to do well although two dancers had the flu. Stocks are going out of sight. My port value was 185,300 a new record. ATPWF closed over 10. ~ October 20, 2009 117 --------------- A new low this year - 117. The loss continues. I worked on an RS485 hub for the greenhouse. I need this to gather sensor data and uplink it to a packet radio. It's finally getting warmer. I bought some shirts at Kohl's that I liked. They were flannel in an LT size instead of XLT. Great news!!!!! Blood pressure is not so great. I measured over 150 in two different readings and 145 in a third. I need the hydrazine that I ordered offshore. Stopped into Lowes and picked up a 2x4 and the metal drip edge for the fascia project. Came back home and started working on the schematic for the AVR hub to be called Walkure. Dinner was spinach lasagna in a phillo dough from Trader Joe's. Unfortunately, it's a 4 serving package and we ate all 4 servings. After dinner we went back to Kohls looking for a fall jacket for Libbie but they were heavy on winter coats which she doesn't need. I exchanged the XLT shirt for an LT flannel shirt. This was their last one on the shelf. Libbie tought I should check back later in the season. ~ October 21, 2009 PCB --------------- Weight was 116.75 this morning. I was hoping for a half pound drop but at least it't on the light side of 117. Fedex arrived this morning with the new controller cards. Started the assembly process. Had to look hard for some of the parts such as the DC-Dc controller. The boards look great and mechanically all seems well. Installed the drip edge and the last of the soffit in the back over the garage. The nailer made the flashing go on easy since I just poked it under a shingle and then pulled the trigger. The job is now complete except for paint and of course the fascia boards on the adjoining side. The house badly needs painting. I climbede on the roof and looked at the fascia on the peak. It's in bad shape. Dinner was scallops and pasta. ~ October 22, 2009 library, State Fair --------------- Worked on the controller cards some more and complete them except for LCD and keypad. I went over to the library at noon and returned the Elizabeth Adler book. I picked up a Sibley tree book to look at and also a book inside Sergey and Brin's brain. This is a book about the two Google founders. We left at 2 for the State Fair with our 4 cans each of Foodlion food. At the Fair we parked at our usual spot next to Carter Finley and began the many miles of walking. We ran into Jennifer at the ATM at the Fair entrance. We toured the gardens and flowers but the Flower show was closed for judging. Next it was the Village of Yesteryear. We stopped at the pottery wheels and then made the complete circle before leaving the way we came in. Stopped into the building with crafts, sampled "American Fudge" but bought half a pound of peanut butter chocolate fudge from "Amish Fudge" for $5.20. It was good, Libbie and I shared it while we walked. Visited the cows then walked through the rooster barn. It's amazing there are so many varieties of Roosters, making all kinds of crowing sounds. NExt it was the education buildings where we sampled peanuts and talked to TechShop of Durham. This is a membership facility that features a machine shop at RTP including a CNC machine. I'm interested!!! Viewed the cakes and quilts before leaving and going to the Scott building where Libbie got her milk. We looked at the paintings, including one by Rocky Alexander, my oil painting instructor. We went down the midway eating a very fresh Funnel Cake for $5. before leaving. Artisan bakery was demoing bread baking in a tent where we sampled some very good pumpernickel raisin bread. Our exit was smooth and uneventful but traffic on the beltline was heavy and creepy crawley. We got home at 5:30 but decided not to go out for dinner because we were tired and I wasn't hungry. Libbie fixed some chicken soup instead. I researched CNC's in the evening before reading a little of the Google book before bed. ~ October 23, 2009 busy --------------- This was another busy day. Went to South Hills to the train shop to get brass tubing for the microwave. This was painful. The moron running the cash register was painfully slow and blind. He needed a magnifier to see anything and overcharged me for the brass tube. It was supposed to be 4.89 but he charged 5.20. I complained but it would be too painful to have him check the price on the display. I won't be going back there anytime soon. From there I went to RTP and took a tour of TechShop. This place is too expensive for what they have. In addition, the Shopbot CNC seems to use their own proprietary CAD program. I would rather use some open source software to lay out the panel. The bottom line is I decided it would be cheaper to buy my own CNC or better yet, find the company in St Pete that does this. I came home and went over to the library for a 2 PM program called the Deadly Diva's, which was a panel of 5 mystery writers. I enjoyed the program and got some new insight into their writing craft. This was an interesting bunch of women from all over the country. Dinner this evening was turkey with all the fixings including stuffing, mashed potatoes, and lima beans. I forgot to break open the cranberries. Thank goodness there was no wine in the house. I started the blood pressure meds today and surprisingly I think I'm seeing results. Have not really experienced side effects yet. Blood pressure readings several times during the day was in the 120's. Wow, this is a miracle drug. ~ October 24, 2009 booklet, blood pressure, kidney pain --------------- I took the second blood pressure tablet this morning. This stuff is really working. My BP was 123/78 which was amazing and agreed with the two or three readings yesterday which had it down in the 120's. I'm going to start the booklet for MAAVS in earnest today. We leave for AIDA in HD at 11:45 for a 1 PM performance. Aida was perfect. We really enjoyed the backstage stuff as well. Libbie made turkey sandwiches which we had at intermission. We sat between two bozos. The guy next to me emptied a whole box of Milk Duds into his mouth one at a time rattling away and chewing loudly. Libbie's guy had an enormous drink in the drink holder and kept tapping his book on his shoe during the performance. What a bunch of losers. We bought tickets for the January performances of Rosenkavalier and Carmen. Dinner was the turkey dinner and fixings from yesterday. My right kidney killed me after dinner - I also awoke during the night in pain. The Blood Pressure med is causing this I'm sure. ~ October 25, 2009 215, Sunday Morning weight loss show --------------- We actually slept in today until 7:30. What a late start for us! My kidney pain is gone this morning and better yet, my weight is 215. Watched a special on sunday Morning covering weight loss and the obesity epidemic. It featured Valerie Bertinelli which I enjoyed. We took a walk around Seagroves today - found the cinder block house on 1010 is going for $190k. Wow. My BP is now 121/75 which is excellent. I had a turkey sandwich for lunch without incident. Worked a little but not enough on the MAAVS booklet. I was able to organize several years of the 60's in the eMags database. ~ October 26, 2009 booklet, Classmates web site --------------- Started working on the VBasic program that formats the addresses. Did all three groups, the commercials, the individuals and the affiliates. Got them all placed in the book. Now I need the welcome letter which I will write during Dancing with the Stars tonight. Dinner was the last of the leftover turkey, stuffing, potato and cranberry. I joined Classmates today and after looking through some of the profiles I couldn't see before, I decided it wasn't worth it. Did not write the welcome letter, too tired so I surfed the web and watched Dancing. I enjoyed tonights competition, especially the group dance Mambo tag elimination round. Swimsuit model Joanna has a very nice body. We think Maya got screwed by Len the judge since he only gave her a "7" for too much intro to the dance. ~ October 27, 2009 blood pressure, DASH --------------- It's lightly raining today. I did some research on Blood Pressure based on a mention of the Peoples Pharmacy website on GMA. They were talking about generics but I researched Hydrochlorothiazide since I wanted to see if People's had anything to say about it. Found out the doses go from 12.5 to 100 MG. I'm currently using the 25 MG product. Also looked at and downloaded the government pamphlet on the DASH diet which emphasizes whole grains, vegetables and low salt in the diet. ~ October 28, 2009 booklet, SS, loans --------------- I pretty much finished the booklet today except for AVSA 201 and the awards. Dinner was a chicken Gonzolla caserole from Trader Joes. I did accounting of the Bluebird loan today. Libbie wasn't happy that I did this but since the SS check came today and I credited the loan, I needed to do it. We are clueless as to where we are. ~ October 29, 2009 Pig out --------------- Today was pig out day. I had a can of chili for lunch and apple pie (two pieces) for desert in the evening. I went to Sears to look at Scroll saws and blades. Bought a kit to convert my saw to a no pin design but it didn't fit well. The bottom blade holder hit the casing. Returned it and bought a plain package of blades. Tried one on the plastic box and it fell off the saw. Ended up cutting the first hole, the one hidden by the keyboard, by hand, Dinner was pasta I picked up in Trader Joe's earlier today. The first Opera News arrived today. I resubscribed after a few years lapse. I saw a trip to London and Paris that included 7 operas and ballets from Dailey Thorpe travel. I sent them an inquiry for pricing. I also looked online at the Opera houses in Paris and London in order to plan this trip on our own. ~ October 30, 2009 lighting --------------- The light in the back foyer was blown so I went to Home Depot looking for an energy efficient solution. I bought some kitchen under the counter flourescents to try out. I stopped in Krogers and bought a mini CF 60 watt bulb which fits very nicely into the fixtures. I'll replace the others with 60 watt CF's and get more than twice the light for half the power. Finally heard from Richard today. He said he will have the awards list tomorrow. We'll see. When Libbie came home we worked some more on the breakfast area wallpaper before going to Home Depot to pick paint colors. We bought another package of under cabinet lights which means 6 more. The first 3 added some nice lighting to the counter although at the expense of looking like an ad on. We also went to the Body Works store and got packages of hand cleaner. Explored Apex driving through the Orchards of Apex and the Villages of Apex amazed at all the construction that has totally stopped. Endless rows of streets and stop signs with curbs and street lights but no houses. Drove through downtown Apex and stopped at the bookstore we didn't know was there. Bought a $1 bag of books. ~ October 31, 2009 plaster --------------- It's a beautiful day outside but I finished the plastering of the kitchen walls after wallpaper removal. It looks pretty smooth. Worked some more on the MAAVS booklet. So much to do. I also cut the holes for the plastic box so I can mount the keyboard and display for the microwave project, Kahlo 4. ~ November 01, 2009 Killz --------------- We used the Kilz and painted the primer on the kitchen walls. I did a little more light sanding before taping the trimwork to protect it from the paint. It was a tiring job. After this I worked on MAAVS some more. Dinner was Libbie's fantastic pizza. ~ November 02, 2009 not much --------------- I pretty much shot most of today putting the MAAVS book together. Received the awards from Richard which I formatted and put in the booklet. Judi informed me she was sending a letter. I added her page and renumbered everything. Now I just need locations. Libbie went tot he Apex garden club where she talked about Violets and showed the Reno DVD. Pat Knight had me change the website and eMail the membership that the designs deadline has been extended. Dinner was a can of Trader Joe's organic chili. Too much to eat once again. ~ November 03, 2009 finished book --------------- I finished the booklet today after Laurene sent me the registrants and their states. Put it up on google docs and sent out the link to the team. Quilting cowgirl called saying the quilt was on the frame. Libbie and I went to the voting place where I voted. She voted previously. Next was the quilt place to see the quilt being sewn. It was pretty exciting seeing this. Lastly we went to Home Depot and picked up the paint but did not put it on. Too late in the day to start. Heard from Ken that one eMail address was wrong. Fixed it and found that I can't upload a new file over the old. The link I sent everyone changes! Went out after the polls closed and picked up 10 political signs for use as backing material for the convention posters. ~ November 04, 2009 Paint --------------- Today we painted the breakfast area orange. It's an entirely different look. The woodwork was previously taped. After a few hours we stripped the tape and started putting the room back together. Dinner was the whole wheat ravioli from Krogers yesterday. Libbie didn't like it but I did. ~ November 05, 2009 Convention booklet, Cabinet lights --------------- Went to PIP in Cary earlier and set up the booklet print job. I previously emailed the files to them. They printed a proof while I waited which was nice. I worked all day drilling the cabinets and concealing the wires to run the under the counter lights. Libbie came home in the PM and painted the remaining wall. I picked up the muted slate color earlier from Home Depot. We'll use the same paint in the front Foyer. At the end of the afternoon we were both tired and went out to eat at La Cocina. I had a Margarita with the quasadilla. ~ November 06, 2009 First Friday Birthday --------------- I started the morning with wiring the under counter lights in up over the sink. Went to Home Depot looking for a plug in outlet for the light strip. No luck so I bought a conduit connector which was most difficult to install because of location. Late in the PM I realized I had a Will Call at Graingers for a new inflation blower for house 3&4 so I went out at 4 PM and picked it up. Traffic was stop and go on the way home as expected. Libbie made a Lemon Meringue pie while I was gone. We left at 6 for First Friday. Went to Nicloes and talked to Nicole and Rocky, had some avocado dip and red wine then went to Artspace. Lots of shapely young woman in boots and miniskirts as well as painted on jeans. It was a nice site other than the art. Had some wine at Visual Art but did not like the oddball exhibit they had along with loud DJ music outside the place. Walked through Artspace where I liked the salsa supplied by a restaurant. At Cafe Luna for our 8 PM dinner it was crowded. We sat in mid room and I had the Lobster Ravioli special in cream sauce which was yummy. Libbie had her usual Farfali. As we were going to the parking garage, the Imax theater got out so we had quite a wait in line getting out of the garage. I had lots of nice greetings on Facebook. Opened presents and got a book, "Blink" from George and Mary as well as chocolate pmegranate candy from Arlene. At Caffe Luna I was given a Hagan Daze ice cream with a lit candle. It was a nice evening. ~ November 07, 2009 Turandot --------------- I started taking the laptop apart to replace the hinges which came Thursday. Can't seem to get the top off but it was 11:20 and time to change clothes to go to the opera, leaving home at 11:30. We attended the HD performance this afternoon and loved it. We had a problem with sound dropouts but the Nessun Dorma was intact. The singing was wonderful even though we knew Maria Guiligiana was getting over a cold. Patricia Racette was the interviewer and it was truly a delight with her as host. Th interviews seemed natural and interesting instead of a game of 20 questions. I loved the interview with the Met Brass players about their new CD. There were many many buses waiting for the old geezers outside the theater. Stopped at Harris Teeter on the way home and got shrimp and Orange Juice. ~ November 08, 2009 leaf cleanup --------------- After the paper today I worked a little on the microwave project. I started building the probes for the temperature. In the PM Libbie and I raked the yard, spread pinestraw and blew off the driveway. Dinner was the usually excellent Libbie pizza. ~ November 10, 2009 groceries, Disney, backup --------------- I did the grocery run this morning and picked up the fruit cake ingredients along with everything else. Did not get too much stuff because we travel this week to Williamsburg. Did some last minute counting of meals from the latest list provided by Laurene. Worked on my Disney Story for unknown reasons. I'm going to write a story for the Winter Holidays theme for the same website I wrote earlier in the summer. The theme back then was "nude day". On my PC I got the backup program backing up my PC to the external drive as well as the Udrive on Traviata. The Udrive contains all the Linux related php info of Toms Lifebits, the art and pb databases and the music server, but not the music collection itself. Dinner was Briyani over spaghetti. We watched Dancing with the stars while I worked more on the Disney story. ~ November 11, 2009 rain --------------- The greenhouse got flooded by the broken sump pump and unrelenting rains. I have everything done for Williamsburg. Took time out and dug a trench by the tanks to let the water drain from the pipe better. I next punched a hole in the blocks to drain the garage and dug another trench from the block to a hole I dug down to the drain pipe. The cars are packed and we're set to go but it's not going to be fun - lots more rain predicted tonight and up there. Dinner was chicken over pasta. ~ November 12, 2009 driving --------------- We left after breakfast today. The drive was horrible. At times we couldn't see on I-95 as the rain was blowing sideways and winds were over 50 MPH really blowing us around. It was so nice to finally get to the conference center but it continued pouring a cold rain. The little conference center elevator was inadequate for unloading but we got the job done. We went out in the storm for dinner. I thought we were going to a nice restaurant but ended up in the chain restaurants part of Williamsburg and had ribs at Red Hot and Blue. Not what I expected. ~ November 13, 2009 MAAVS --------------- Breakfast this morning was crowded with an eighth grade class. We survived and had our cereal at a table next to Brenda and Mahlen. I bought 16 bottles of wine at Trader Joes and some cheese and crackers. Felicia and JoAnne cut up the cheese and helped me set out the food for the party. Everybody showed up at 6 and then just before 7 we headed out for the restaurant. We drove and the Texas crowd drove as well, getting to the restaurant before everyone else. The food and service was fantastic. Ann-Marie and Lenny showed up this afternoon and started the photography ~ November 15, 2009 drive from williamsburg --------------- We got going at 6:40 today. Headed over to the breakfast room but the room had a line of kids waiting to get in. This has happened many times this week. Of course they didn't have the keys at the front desk like Sarah said they would. We finally got somebody to open the conference center but the lights were not on in the building. We did use the kitchen elevator because the little one up front was broken. Libbie had to pick up Dale at 8 at the lobby to take her to the airport. She got going and I finished loading up. Got to the greenhouse before noon and into our front door shortly thereafter just as Libbie called. I unpacked then repacked the car. did a Krogers run for coffee and dinner. Sorted pictures and backed up my files then updated MAAVS.org. All set to go in the morning!!! Dinner was California Pizza Kitchen thin crust pizza mergherita. ~ November 16, 2009 travel to Sarasota --------------- I woke naturally at 4 AM and hit the road by 4:30. Fog was pretty thick in NC and some of SC. Traffic was light or non existent. I made pretty good time. Stopped to top off the tank in florence and picked up a couple of sausage and egg biscuits in Mickey D's at 2 for $2. Next stop was the Fla visitors center to pee. I listened to Rheingold and then the 125th Met gala which I enjoyed. I stopped in Volusia county at McDonalds and the Raceway across the way. This is the exit with Ray Price Harley. I like the McDonalds - it has an outdoor deck for the entryway. This is just before I-4. I-4 was heavy through Orlando as usual. Saw a spa place to the left on I- West called "Crawford Construction Co.". I thought of Uncle Fred. Arrived in Stoneybrook at 3:15. sally was sweeping glass by the dumpster and Peter was walking across the driveway. It was nice to be greeted by everyone. Picked up some frozen yogurt and Boca burgers in Publix along with the paper. I had a Boca burger for dinner. ~ November 17, 2009 Meetings --------------- Slept well this morning. Got up at 6:20, had breakfast, went outside and took the bike out of the car and put the handle bars on then did a test ride around the pool before going to the sequence of meetings for the commons, the homeowners and the board budget meeting. Afterward I went out and bought oil at Walmart for the bike and took it on a 5 mile journey down the Legends trail to the Scherer park. It was a nice trip. For dinner I had the Boca burger again since I was too lazy to go to the clubhouse. ~ November 18, 2009 internet --------------- Worked this morning on the computer then went out to the library and got another Karen robards book, Maggys child which I have not read. It's an old 1994 book. I had to renew my library card again. Next I went up Tamiami to Best Buy and Publix. Got some bananas and Lima beans. The router at home was out so I called Libbie to reset it which made Traviata accessible again. This is pub night so I ordered the potato crusted Haddock with veggies which was yummy. No salad even though if I ate in the clubhouse a family salad is included. ~ November 19, 2009 rib night --------------- Picked up a dummys book on Joomla which I also have in pdf format. It seems to be what I needed to get started in Joomla and understand the concepts. I did the rib night tonight. I ordered a half rack and received a full rack. I ate the whole thing and also had some frozen yogurt for desert. Way too much food!!!! ~ November 20, 2009 bike ride --------------- I did a long bike trip today to Venice. I went to mile marker 899 on the trail. My bottom was pretty sore as I rode back. Dinner tonight was a bowl of cereal;. I was too lazy to fetch anything else. ~ November 21, 2009 vents --------------- Today I cut the hole in the ceiling of the closet after buying the wrong vent intake at Home Depot. I bought a 20x20 but I needed an 18x18. Also picked up some Mollys to screw the replacement grill into the ceiling. This is a compromise situation. I'm still not sure why I want to mount the Sling player in the ceiling when the closet should do just as well. However, I do want to vent the closet a little better so this will do. I still want a grill on hinges so this is really a compromise. Got the Sling Player up and running. It seems to work. This should be interesting trying it on the Internet. It works over the internal network without a problem. Dinner was a BLT from the clubhouse but it was too salty for my tastes. Earlier in the day I ordered an Angus Burger. I may do that again tomorrow for dinner late in the day. While at Home Depot earlier today I observed a young woman in a white tube top and little short shorts that also looked like a "tube bottom". I had lots of success today with the new MAAVS web site. ~ November 22, 2009 packing --------------- Got up early this morning and picked up a paper at Publix along with some fruit for my trip tomorrow. Checked the weather and found the rain should be out of here except for Raleigh late tomorrow. Found that sunday GMA comes on at 7 AM around here. It's the same show at 8 back home as verified by talking to Libbie. ~ November 23, 2009 driving --------------- Woke naturally this morning at 3:18. The alarm was set to 4:00 just in case I slept in. Turned on the coffee maker then got dressed and had breakfast before locking and leaving at 4 AM. It was 74 degrees and foggy out. Water kept condensing on the windshield for the first few hours. There practically was no traffic. Did a pee stop at McDonalds in Ormaond BEach but bought nothing. KEpt right on driving in misty fog. Hit stop and go rush hour traffic at 8 AM in Jax. Temp there was 66. Tried listening to the Sandra BRown book, Mirror Image but I couldn't concentrate so I put on music a lot of the trip. Finally up in SC I switched to the book and really got into it. I took a badly needed dump at the GA visitors center then at the same stop without getting on I-95 I filled up on St Mary Rd for 2.52 per gallon. Next stop was to top off in Florence at 2.39 where I also bought some Popeyes Fried chicken. It was nice and spicy and hit the spot. Got home at 3 PM. I had misty rain as I approached Raleigh. Lib made chicken with Marsala over pasta. ~ November 24, 2009 groceries --------------- This was a busy day. Went to the Hilton to take pics of the lobby, then stopped at Trader Joes and finally at Krogers. Both stores were incredibly busy. In the late afternoon I remembered the $500 check from MAAVS so I ran to the credit union and deposited Libbie also wanted me to pick up one gallon freezer bags for the leftover turkey. The turkey I bought was .39 per pound with a $25 purchase which I easily made. The Scooba arrived today - I promptly charged it and started cleaning the floors. The battery didn't make it to the end. Dinner was Pasta and marinara sauce. I enjoyed Dancing With the Stars finale tonight. They pick a winner tomorrow. I was disappointed today in my 401K return which was only 2.8%. I need to make some changes in the investment mix. It only made $7,000 last year and I need $15,000 for my SEPP payments. ~ November 25, 2009 scooba, IRA --------------- The Scooba recharged overnight but it didn't help. It still stopped before cleaning was done. I called support and they suggested several deep discharge cycles. They also registered my machine and sent me a coupon for 15% off in the iRoomba store. I ordered 2 cases of cleaner and another virtual wall. I also did a 125,000 rollover into an IRA today. I talked with Fidelity and did the request over the phone. Preferreds are tearing up the turf. My portfolio went up another $1,000 today. Unreal! Lib and I did another grocery run for missing fruit cake items including cheesecloth. ~ November 26, 2009 Thanksgiving --------------- Libbie stayed home today. It was a nice day. I worked on the controller card after watching the parade on TV. Didn't enjoy the parade as much. Libbie fixed a nice turkey dinner with everything. We opened a bottle of Cabernet and had one glass before capping it. ~ November 27, 2009 Black Friday --------------- Today is Black Friday. Watched the madness on TV then went outside and did some yard work. Mowed the back and picked up sticks with the wheelbarrow. Next I scoped out the taillight wiring on the Corolla and wired a trailer hitch connector for the brake lights. That's all that's wired - the brake lights. The turn signals are separate lines from the brakes in the Corolla so I couldn't wire them up directly. We took the trailer to Home Depot and picked up a Christmas Tree. It was easy - dropped it right on and tied it down with two bungie cords. The tree price was $32 for a 6-7 footer. I was happy. Earlier in the day I participated in Black Friday by calling the Van Wezel box office and purchasing 50% off tickets to the Vienna concert on Jan 1. It took several redials and a 15 minute wait to get through but I had success. Dinner was left over turkey dinner with all the fixins. ~ November 28, 2009 401k --------------- I spent some time building a hypothetical 401k portfolio with my rollower money. I constructed a spreadsheet for this purpose showing yields, percentage allocations and bottom lines investment and yield percentage. I am able to get to 8.2%. Looking at CU numbers I found that a 5 year CD pays 1.7% which is awful. I can borrow for less than 4% and get 8% in return with my stock account. This afternoon we went to Target via Kohls. I got two flannel shirts for $50 and $10 Kohls bucks back. We then went to Target for Libby juice glasses and ribs for tonight. Dinner was Lloyds ribs, squash and one glass of Cabernet. ~ November 29, 2009 busy --------------- Went for the paper late today, about 8 PM. This is a busy day. So much to do with the controller card and then the MAAVS website and my car. I changed the oil on the Corolla. It was 1500 miles overdue because of the Florida trip last week. I got the heartbeat working on the controller but still can't get the LCD to function. Don't know what's wrong. We used the Scooba to clean the porch floor, both sides. I moved the xmas tree onto the table inside. Dinner was Libbies fantastic pizza again. We heard that Helen fell over night and cracked her pelvis. ~ November 30, 2009 LCD --------------- I spent most of today trying to get the LCD on Kahlo4 to work. No such luck. I did find that the AVR chip was not soldered on one side but this was not the reason for no display. Can't figure this one out. Went over to Rite Aid and got my free Gillette razor. Dinner was the leftover ribs and squash. The rollover check did not come today. I did some more portfolio studying and feel I am now ready to deploy the funds when they get here. The Scooba juice arrived today. I need to call iRoomba about my battery which is not performing. ~ December 03, 2009 deposit --------------- The check came today while I was working on the case cutting openings in it. I went to Scottrade and deposited it in the IRA account. Amazingly the office had 5 people in it, 3 brokers and 2 counter people doing nothing. ~ December 04, 2009 Kahlo case --------------- Cut the case and mounted the board into it. Powered it up and no luck - dead. No LCD, nothing. Did a lot of buys today in the IRA account. Called the broker and did an assisted trade of Atlantic Power. This is a big hassle. It will be nice when Atlantic gets listed on the NYSE. We went out to dinner tonight at La Cocina. Had the usual Quesidilla with a Margarita. Did not do First Friday because we were tired so we went out to dinner instead. ~ December 05, 2009 Tree decorating --------------- I got good news this morning from John Benziger. He doesn't need the controller by Dec 13 which is what I was shooting for. It doesn't work packaged in the new box. So disappointing. I walked up the hill and found our biggest tree fell down. I measured it at 12 feet in circumference. This is too bad. IT came down right on the fence. Libbie made soup for lunch then we worked on the Christmas lights and decorating the tree. Dinner was salmon with broccoli and rice. We did have egg nog but did not have wine with dinner. ~ December 06, 2009 Sunday morning --------------- IT was a fat paper this morning. Did my Krogers run and got the paper, OJ and milk. We may have had our first frost last night. It was supposed to be 31 outside but the geraniums and marigolds in the backyard are still blooming. I cleaned the driveway and garage while Libbie took care of the back porch. We're having a party Tuesday so lots to do. ~ December 07, 2009 cleanup --------------- We vacuumed and finished cleaning up for the party tomorrow. Dinner was the Trader Joes Caneloni. ~ December 08, 2009 xmas party --------------- Spent the morning doing a little Kahlo 4 debugging and did some newsgroup browsing on the totty forum. Using the newsreader I can go back 6 months whereas using the web interface I can only go back 4 months. I turned the heater on the back porch at noon, a half hour before the party. It was cold and rainy. We had a nice turnout of the violet group. Lots of nice food - salads and cranberry breads, sandwiches and deserts. There was a Chinese gift exchange run by Sylvia. Dinner was some leftover sandwiches and salad. Libbie made her pepperidge farm ham delights but they were burned a little on the bottom and weren't up to snuff. ~ December 09, 2009 day after --------------- It's the day after our party. I got the controller card working and mounted in it's plastic housing although it's not needed right away. Dinner was Trader Joe's frozen chicken with peppers. Libbie didn't like the peppers but I loved them! It was a tasty dish. ~ December 10, 2009 pics --------------- Sent most of the pics to Ken today for the MAAVS Memo. These are the convention pics I took as well as the ones from Lenny and Ann-Marie. In the afternoon I went over to the greenhouse with my nail gun and put a new piece of plastic on the end wall by the propane tanks. My hands were freezing as I did this job. We used the heat from the Hot Dawg heater to warm our hands. Dinner was Salmon and Broccoli but no wine. ~ December 11, 2009 tiny trak --------------- I ordered a TinyTrack with built in 2 meter radio today for communicating with the greenhouse. It cost 250 with the antenna but is self contained. I'll pair it with the Venus project now renamed Mars for this purpose. Mars has an Atmega128 along with a 232 port and header for the OneWire interface. I will use it for greenouse monitoring and packet control to the TinyTrak device. Dinner was cheese and crackers and some of the ham delights which were originally going to go to Jennifer but she was sick today so Libbie brought them home. ~ December 12, 2009 joomla --------------- Worked on Joomla most of the day. Found a gallery application for the CMS system, Phoca Gallery after initially trying several other gallery programs that I didn't like. In late afternoon after the first Met broadcast of the season Il Trittico, I went outside and pulled the tall but dead Marigolds. I planted the daffodil bulbs in freezing temperatures. It was really cold but it's supposed to rain so I wanted the job done. I was waiting for frost to zap the marigolds which happened last night. Dinner was baked potato and boiled shrimp with a bottle of Shiraz. I communicated with some guy on the TinyTrak group about terminal programs. He seemed clueless. ~ December 13, 2009 catchup --------------- We both got up early today. Libbie was done sleeping. I went out to get the paper. It's not too cold, around 40, and it's raining. Sunday Morning this morning was qquite good. They had a nice story about Paul McCartney and also the Pnocchio illustrator. The house 2 heater had a CO2 leak in the chimmney. I bought a new stove pipe elbow from Home Depot and installed it in the afternoon. It went in pretty easily. The whole thing needs replacing with a heavy duty metal instead of the light gauge stuff I used. I hope it doesn't leak anymore. I need a sensitive CO2 detector. Dinner was Libbie's excellent pizza. ~ December 14, 2009 MARS --------------- Today I worked on the software for Mars since the Byonics APRS radio is on it's way. I'm going to need something to periodically beacon status out onto the APRS network and want to have it ready by the time the device arrives. I borrowed the LOGE one wire routines because it was made to handle multiple one wire buses with DS1820 temperature devices. I also want to use it to monitor power and the generator. APRS has a telemetry frame that I want to employ for this purpose. I wanted to work on the MAAVS website but never got around to it. Spent a lot of time reading about the APRS protocol. Dinner was Briyani which was yummy. Watched the Disney holiday lighting special on HGTV again. I want to get over to Disney World this holiday. ~ December 15, 2009 conference call --------------- Did the grocery run and also listened to the conference call with Aunt Helen's therapists. They have no release date. The DVD recorder arrived. I immediately started recording the old VHS tapes onto. The process is working very well which is surprising. I had hoped that this was not going to be a gizmo relegated to the closet. Dinner was grilled chicken and the Polonta veggies which were excellent. ~ December 16, 2009 packet --------------- Worked on setting up the packet TNC to a radio to see if I could monitor radio traffic. Dinner was chicken over Briyani. Loved it. ~ December 17, 2009 DVD --------------- Worked on making DVD's most of today. Did a little bit of work on Mars but spent much of the day on the old VHS tapes. Arlene called wanting to know about Aunt Helen. She thinks she's going home. she didn't hear the conference call correctly. We went to Walmart to get tires, left the car and went cross the street to Charleys for lunch. I had 12 spices noodles and chicken with a house salad. Libbie had potato soup and a half grilled sandwich. When I got back to Walmart I found they didn't have my tires. Took the car to "Just Tires" and waited for almost 2 hours while they put four new Kelly tires on for $390 bottom line with taxes, etc. Dinner was Crab Cakes on toast. I layed down after dinner to watch HGTV but fell asleep. ~ December 18, 2009 snow --------------- This is the day of the big snow - forecasts from a trace to 2 inches. More to the West. I went to the grocery store for milk. What a zoo. It was like the day before Xmas at the mall. Later Libbie wanted triscuits and egg nog so we both went over after some yummy soup. It was 54 on the back porch so we stayed indoors for our soup. I hooked Mars up to the Jtag today. All is working. Byonics did not come so I'll keep writing software. Dinner was shrimp and veggies. IT rained instead of snowed this evening. ~ December 19, 2009 Hoffman --------------- It was a wet night but it stayed above freezing. Anne Nicholas called about the snow and things. We had clear sailing to Hoffman today at North Hills. Waited in line with Jim at the theater. The shopping center was pretty busy and beautifully decorated for Christmas. We left home at 11:45 and stood in line for auditorium 8, the one on the right. The production was spectacular. It was clearly the best Hoffman I have seen. Standouts were Olympia the doll played by a little Korean girl and the Muse played by Kate Lindsey. I looked her up when I got home. she's well on her way to being a superstar. We stopped at Trader Joes on the way home and got wine for dinner along with Pasta for next week and almonds. Libbie got tons of boxes. Afterwards I enjoyed reading the reviews of people attending the HD version around the country. Good stuff. I hooked up Hoffman in my MP3 player which I downloaded yesterday. It was the Dec 3 premier. Dinner was shrimp with veggies. We enjoyed listening to hoffman during dinner. ~ December 20, 2009 paint --------------- We slept late today. After reading the newspaper we tackled the foyer. Got everything ready then went to Lowes to get ceiling paint. We did this because we wanted to mail the batch of Christmas Cards at the Post Office. The mailboxes were full. I carried the letters inside. I painted the ceiling in the foyer. It ended up getting damaged since I made a second pass on wet popcorn ceiling which took some of the popcorn off. I also sanded and spackled the walls. Libbie made her usual yummy pizza which we ate during 60 minutes. This was a very tiring day. ~ December 21, 2009 Heaters --------------- Today didn't work like it was supposed to. Libbie called that the big heater in House 1 was not working. I did a lot of diagnosis taking things apart before I found out that the vent block switch on top of the heater tripped. I think it was affected by water dripping on it while it was hot. It tripped at a false temperature. It requires a manual reset so the heater was dead. I forced the Hot Dog to come on and take over with a jumper wire. I guess I need an emergency override. The system is built to switch the control out and use the big heater but not the other way around. In the meantime we smelled bad exhaust in house 4. The flame was rolling outside the box. I ended up cleaning a mud dabber out of 4 of the orifices on the burner to stop this and restore the flame to normal. While there I also replaced a section of bench top under heater 2 which was destroyed by crawling around on top of the bench. Dinner was pasta. I didn't paint in the foyer but I did sand the spackle job from yesterday and second coat a few areas with spackle. ~ December 22, 2009 Furnace flue, Christmas lights --------------- After GMA I went over to the greenhouse to see how the heater was doing. It still was stinky in there. I looked at the exhaust and noticed it was tilted. I went home to change clothes and also to do groceries. Had to take a bad dump as well so it was good to go home. After groceries I went to the greenhouse and raised the flue which was leaning downwards. This broke the supports off the chimney outside. After calling around for a new flue which is 7 inches in diameter, I decided to rebuild the old one. NB Handy which is out Poole Rd has the 7 inch in 26 gauge which is the heavier flue pipes. I took the burner down and cleaned the rust off it and also inspected the heat exchanger with a flashlight. Used some electric fence wire to support the flue so that it rises. I also took apart the flue to see if there was anything blocking it but it was clear. Tested it and then went home for lunch. Picked up some big washers at Ace and repaired the flue then went to the greenhouse and installed it. I also ran the generator for 5 minutes. I also verified that the greenhouse smelled OK. Left the furnace set for Big Bertha to come on tonight. After a dinner of Currey chicken over noodles we went back out at 7:30 PM. All was well with the heater. There were no fumes. We went around and lloked at Christmas lights afterward. The winner was the one on Penny Road. He has added a snow machine this year. We enjoyed the lights in downtown Apex and also behind the post office where there was a ob scene and actually a line waiting to see "Santa". ~ December 24, 2009 christmas eve --------------- We took a walk in the back today to look at the Oak tree which was cut up and moved to the street. In he morning we had a Christmas gift of the Wii Fit plus which we later played. The new games are interesting. Dinner was cooked shrimp in the shell and veggies. Lorraine called today saying she got our card amd would come to Sarasota for lunch on Dec 26 with Tommy and Ann. We saw the weather was going to be rainy on our drive. Packed our suitcases and got the car ready for the morning trip. ~ December 25, 2009 Christmas driving. --------------- We got up at the usual time and had breakfast. All the restaurants are closed today so we need to bring any food with us. Hit the road by 6:50 AM. The roads were surprisingly dry. I-40 was crowded but once we got on I-95 it was light. We didn't hit rain until Florence. I stopped at Florence and topped off for 2.35. The rain then got heavier and pretty bad as we headed South. I was expecting us to leave the rain at Savannah and we did. The sun actually came out before it began raining again. OPur next gas stop was in St MAry at GA exit 3 where I got gas for 2.45. Not a great deal but Libbie had to pee. We continued on our way in the rain. We saw a few SUV turnovers with the only traffic slowdown in Orlando near the downtown area. We saw a truck with a flat tire and a little further there was another turnover on the exit ramp. When we got off the highway on Clark Rd we stopped at a 7-11 and picked up some Chardonnay to toast the sunset which was going on. We were finally south of the storm. Arrived at the condo at around 6 PM as the sun was setting. Mark next door seemed to have several family members renting the unit on the other side of them and they were preparing a Christmas ham dinner. In the evening I set up the scooba and had it wash the kitchen floor. It did the job but I expected it to be cleaner. Dinner was frozen chicken gargonzola dinner from Trader Joes and organic veggies, all of which we brought in the ice chest in the car. ~ December 26, 2009 Musnicki --------------- I had to go to Publix this morning for coffee because I forgot the can of Krogers. We got cleasned up and straightened up the house. Lorraine, Ted, Tom and Ann arrived around 2. We watched the Musnicki DVD segment of Doris's communion then went to the clubhouse for lunch. It was our treat and very nice. I had the Angus burger and fruit. Libbie had some nice sweet potato fries. After Tommy left, Lorraine and us went back to the condo and chatted a little about Ted's retirement and our families. We went to Publix afterward and got cheese, crackers, wine and soup for our pantry. Dinner was chicken pot pie soup. I have gotten into reading my Sandra Brown book, Mirror Image. ~ December 27, 2009 paint, Selby --------------- This morning I got the paper and was happily reading it until Libbie discovered that a paint can in the linen closet had exploded and leaked paint all over the floor. I threw all the old paint cans away covered with paint they were sitting in. Used a whole roll of paper towels to sop up paint that ran into the hallway. I will let the rest dry before attempting to clean it up. We then left for Selby and walked the garden. They were all set up for Christmas Lights which I took many pictures of. The forms were pretty cool. We came back to the club and had lunch. It was sports sunday and there were a few tables of morons in their team colors cheering ballgames. I wonder why this stuff is so exciting. I certainly don't get it. There was a spectacular sunset which we toasted with wine and cheese. We finished the evening by turning on WCPE and reading. ~ December 28, 2009 late sleeper --------------- We slept late this morning then got up for breakfast and GMA. I hooked my laptop up for the first time since we got here. We then took a walk out to the natural area in front. It's a spectacularly beautiful day with crystal clear skies and pleasant temperatures. We may go to Disney tomorrow instead of Wednesday. We went to the Audobon Rookery in Venice this afternoon but there was not any activity. We saw 3 Herons sitting on nests. Picked up some gas at 2.61 at a Mobil station then took a long drive on Casey Key going North. We were amazed at the huge McMansions on the Gulf. We got to the clubhouse at 3:15 and found they stopped serving lunch at 3:15. For lunch instead we then went to Ryans where I had a Cuban. We next went to the Mall next door and picked up 2 belts in Penneys and ordered fruit in Yoders fruit store in front. For dinner we had soup and crackers and cheese during the sunset. ~ December 29, 2009 Disneyworld --------------- We got up early and left at 6:50 for Disney. It was a frosty 46 when we left. There was clear sailing all the way to the front gate. As we were paying the $14 fee Jennifer called that she smelled propane. We called the propane company to investigate. We wlaked up Main st and saw a High school marching band then wandered over to the Pirates. Talked to Jennifer again after the Pirates of the Caribbean. No trouble found and at least we were re-assured but the service call cost $95. We went to Small World but found the wait was 90 minutes. Picked up some hot cocoa from a 75 year old lady and walked towards the castle where we saw a bride to be. Took a picture of her and then the lights on the castle. We'll come back after dark to see them lit. Made it over to Tomorrowland and enjoyed a talking moving robotic garbage can. We learned the Carousel of Progress was still there and there was no line so we walked in and enjoyed the nostalgia. This attraction is 46 years old, first debut was the NY Worlds Fair! Walked towards Main St and got caught in a crowd watching the Christmas parade. Enjoyed it and made our way down the street to the exit. Took a monorail to the Polynesian where we had lunch at Kona's. It was enjoyable. I had grilled chicken with Mango mayonnaise and crisp onions. Libbie had the coconut curry soup. After lunch we took the monorail to the next stop which was the Grand Floridian. This grand hotel had a walk in gingerbread house and a huge atrium tree. Went outside where they were serving roasted chestnuts and hot spiced cider. Yummy. Got on another monorail and changed trains at the ticketing center for an Epcot bound monorail. Epcot was very crowded. We got an express pass at the Land and then enjoyed a nostalgic ride through the Carousel of Progress which was updated for 2009. The land was spectacular as usual. I photographed lots of the hydroponics exhibits. We then went up to China and watched the reflections surround movie of scenes from China. After a bathroom stop it was time for the bus to the Hollywood studios. We had dinner reservations at Mama Melroses which we ate dinner at after seeing the nearby Osbourne Family christmas lights. The lights were over the top. They were originally 2.3 million but now are at 5 million and are coordinated with music. Dinner was excellent - I had sausage over rigatoni and cheesecake for dessert. We had a glass of Copolla Shiraz with dinner. After dinner we waited for a bus back to the ticketing center where we took a monorail to the Magic kingdom again. We were able to see the fireworks from Main St in front of the castle then went to the back of the park to find Small World. There was no line at Small World. We enjoyed it very much then had hot chocolate since it was so cold. On the way out we took a seat on the side near the train station we drank our chocolate and watched an electric light parade before boarding a freezing ferry ride back to the parking lot. Dragged ourselves back into our car in Daisy row 28 at midnight and started the 2 hour drive back to Sarasota. We got back at 1:30 which was a half hour quicker. What I would take away from our day in the parks. Strollers and people everywhere with long lines for everything. Our strategy of escaping to the Polynesian for dinner was excellent. The snow and xmas lights in Hollywood were a treat. Never before have I seen so many lights so well coordinated. The park employees were above all else. We saw a dancing street sweeper, a singing baton waving traffic director and generally happy "cast members". The ages of the help were also unbelievable from the 80 year old serving chestnuts to the 75 year old lady serving hot cocoa and generally gray hair cast members everywhere. ~ December 30, 2009 pub night, hydroponics, orchids --------------- Today was recovery day from Disney world. We didn't do much. We went out to find Orchidmania East of Bradenton and enjoyed the orchid place. Bought two phals with many stems. Kathy, the owner, wants to sell the place. She said she had an offer of 1.4 M$ several years back. 10 acres of land, a small house and 6 greenhouses with 15,000 square feet. The business seems to be mostly walk in retail. The warehouse was something to appreciate. It was a steel beamed building with concrete floor and restrooms. Next stop was the hydroponic farm. The owner designed some kind of stacking container which accepts liquid nutrients at the top and drains it down through all 5 layers. One quart of liquid 3 times a day is taken by each plant and only one tablespoon out the bottom. I photographed the farmers daughter and took lots of pics of all the veggies growing. We don't know who the market is but it seems to be a large u-pick operation. I really enjoyed the whole operation. Went over to pub night at 6:30 and the place was jammed. Where did all the people come from? ~ December 31, 2009 water lines --------------- Today I decided to tackle the refrigerator water lines. Took the whole thing apart but decided it may really be a frozen line in the door! Went to Ace Hardware for wire to unclog the waterline and also purchased a new cork screw to replace the plastic one which is broken. I also picked up some appliance epoxy spray paint. Did not get the line working before we had to get dressed to go to the party which started at 7. Peter and Christa invited us to their table which made it 8. We sat with Tony and Sigi from Germany and Heinen and Hoursey from Canada. We had nice horsedouevers, lobster and steak and an unbelievable chocolate cake for desert. I think we had 4 glasses of wine but I lost count. The bill without the bar tab was 190. My entertainment for the evening was a young blonde with a black shimmery form fitting mermaid gown. She couldn't move too much without having to hold the top up because it kept slipping. We kissed at midnight, said Happy new Year to everybody and left after a final dance at around 12:20. Just before leaving we chatted with a couple from Charleston we met at pub night. They have year old triplet grandchildren. The loser of the night was a guy in plaid with his wife in culottes. Christa was not happy with his sloppy dress. ~