Bookmark January 1, 2020 Wednesday Rose Parade


I used my laptop and Chromecast to stream KTLA-TV from LA on our TV.  We used
this to watch the Rose Parade. We started watching late because we went to
Detweilelrs at 10 AM for their JAN 1 one day sale.  They had local strawberries
for $1 and Pork Chops for 99 cents per pound.  We also found some very nice NY
Strip steaks for $6.99 per pound which we bought for dinner along with a baked
potato.  Once the parade was over I installed the One Page checkout into the
registration website.  I wanted to do more but we chose to take a walk after
lunch then after dinner we watched two episodes of the Mandalorian.  There’s not
much time to get anything done on the website. Dinner was a very yummy NY Strip
Steak along with baked potato and sour cream.  We had this with a few glasses of
Cabernet.  Dessert was a slice of Key Lime Pie.  This was one of the specials in
Detweilers today.  They had “made from scratch” Key Lime Pies for $5. Each.
Wow, was this good.


January 2, 2020 Thursday Vienna


I industriously was working on the registration website this morning when I had
to give it up at 8 AM in order to go to Selby.  Libbie is off today but I have
to go in which I didn’t want to do because of the website work.  I got engrossed
into the Selby work soon enough when I got there.  There were a lot of retakes
that needed processing through the system.  I also did the synchronization with
the Y drive and deleted the last of our Broms from the Q drive.  It was hard to
believe but 12 noon caught up with me by surprise.  I left and took Tamiami to
get to Clark so I could do a Detweiler's return.  Unfortunately there was a gas
leak at Trader Joes which closed the Northbound lanes of Tamiami.  The
Southbound side creeped along at 5 MPH.  I got off at Clark and went to
Detweilers.  The first thing I did was return the Sesame Seed which I bought
when we still had one in the cabinet.  Next was a trip to the Seafood counter
where I picked up some flounder stuffed with Lobster which was their special
today, 2 for 8.99.  I also cruised the cheese counter and sampled some delicious
Horseradish cheddar.  Once home I was pretty tired.  Libbie took the Christmas
Tree down while I was away.  I contributed by removing the lights from the
Palmetto in the backyard.   Next year I want an alligator as well as a Pink
Flamingo or two. I went into my office and tried a little more on the
registration but didn’t get much done since I had to dress up for the concert.
While I was putting out the garbage there was a giant turtle in the street and
many of the neighbors gathered around.  We stopped and chatted for a while
before I got dressed for the Salute to Vienna.  We had slices of cheese grilled
on toast in the toaster oven for dinner.  We left at 5:50 PM for a 7 PM
performance.  Since this was a groupon purchase for $49 each I didn’t pick the
seats.  We were in row 24 in the center of the house in seats 5 and 6.  Seat 1
is the exact center in Van Weezel. The performance was delightful. The Strauss
Orchestra was great as they played traditional Polkas and Waltzes from the
Strauss repertoire.  There was a tenor and a soprano as well as ballroom dancers
and a ballet company consisting of 4 girls and 2 guys.   It was a delightful
performance with a nice mix of symphony, ballet, opera and ballroom.  We were in
bed by 10 PM which is unbelievable.


January 3, 2020 Friday Groceries and Imagineering


I went to Lowes this morning to get 2 tubs for the Christmas lights.  I took
down the rest of the lights and have them on the garage workbench waiting to go
into the tubs. I worked a little on the registration but came down for lunch and
never back upstairs today. Lib and I did a major shopping trip to Walmart
picking up $20 worth of gas and $100 worth of groceries.  We were low on
everything from eggs to soup as well as some cosmetic items such as toothpaste
and deodorant.  I heard from Glenda this afternoon.  She is recruiting for a
Technology Chair.  I told her I would co-chair the job with her.  We need an
onsite person and an off site person.  I don’t think she sees it that way.  She
volunteered her husband Jim to be the co-chair with me as chair.  I watched a
YouTube video earlier today making breaded mushrooms in the air fryer.  I tried
the recipe and think the results are neutral.  They were tasty enough but too
crunchy on the outside.  I also screwed up the recipe leaving out the garlic
powder and pepper.  I also used Panko and Parmesan flakes instead of Sand in a
Can Parmesan and regular bread   The Sand in a Can would be smaller grains and
hopefully regular bread crumbs may be smaller.  This should make the coating
less crunchy. Dinner was Flounder stuffed with lobster, green beans and rice.
Dessert was the last of the Key Lime Pie.  After dinner we watched another
episode of Imagineering.  This time it was the building of Shanghai Disneyland
and also the new Star Wars and Pandora rides.  We went upstairs at 8:15 PM but
lay in bed reading before falling asleep around 9.


January 4, 2020 Saturday Rainy Day


I managed to stay indoors all day today. I also wasn't feeling that great - I
had stomach gas type cramps most of the day.  Libbie went through this 2 days
ago so I think it’s some kind of viral thing in my intestines.  After too many
errors I abandoned the single page checkout and turned it off. So far it seems
to have worked, I did some limited testing without an error.  I thought Glenda
was going to call today - I kept the phone nearby just in case.  I filled one
tub with the outdoor Christmas lights, timers and extension cords.  I’ll store
this in the garage attic with the Christmas Tree stand. I created the China Lake
album from our Maine pics and posted it on the George-Mary website then sent the
link to Mary and Libbie.  Mary commented on how fun it was reliving the reunion.
Dinner tonight was Pork Chops with baked beans and a glass of Cabernet.  Libbie
cut up the strawberries from the Detweiler's Jan 1 sale and made strawberry
shortcakes.  Yumm!  After dinner we watched another episode of the Mandelorian.
Baby Yoda is still the cutest thing on this show.  Once again it was another fun
episode where “Mando” has to go to an Imperial Prison ship and free a guy as
part of his bounty hunting “gun for hire”.  I saw that a few bars in Disney are
now offering a Baby Yoda cocktail.


January 5, 2020 Sunday Manon


I worked a little on registration today.  I configured SSL so the site now
requires it  I thought this would help the errors with the Authorize.net however
it did not.  Authorize.net still does not work.  I have more studying to do.  I
also want to configure some of the messages to better reflect the fact that this
is registration not a store for products.  At 2 PM I started watching Manon.  I
love this Opera.  The Soprano was Lisette Prosopero a cute flirty girl I have
never seen before. She stole the show backed by the usual outstanding cast of
singers from the Met.  The Opera is 5 acts and ran until almost 5.  PBS cut all
the intermissions out.  For dinner Libbie put Mushrooms on the pizza.  This was
fantastic as usual.  We had the mushroom pizza with a few glasses of Cabernet.
After dinner we watched Josh streaming live from Hollywood Studios.


January 6, 2020 Monday Long Winded Call


I didn’t get much done today.  I spent some time in the morning reading and
putting some tidbits of info on LifeBits.  We decided to go to Richard’s funeral
in 2 weeks so I first called Glenda to see if they were going and to see if we
could meet up in Denton.  They are going. The phone call was long and seemed
pointless. Glenda went around in circles.  I think I need to get involved and
get some membership software running.   I looked at flights afterward and ended
up booking the entire trip.  We’ll take Southwest on Saturday and stay at the
Fairfield Inn near the college.  We stayed here for Laura’s wedding in 2008.
The Memorial is Sunday afternoon at 2 PM.  While I was on the phone Libbie made
the quick taco salad recipe which is beef taco type mix poured over lettuce and
topped with Tortilla chips and sour cream.   Dinner was Quick Taco Salad with a
glass of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched episode 7 out of 8 of the
Mandelorian on Disney Plus.  This show was quite good.  We are left in suspense
at the end of episode 7 as the Baby Yoda appears to have been captured in the
final scene and his protector is laying nearby either dead or unconscious.
Episode 8 ends the series.  We’ll watch this tomorrow.


January 7, 2020 Tuesday Not Much Work


Libbie went to Selby while I stayed home to do catch up work.  Unfortunately I
was not very productive.  I did reroute one of the wires in the garage that ran
through the door pulley.  This involved moving the stuff away from the corner
near the pulley and vacuuming the area.  I moved the shrink tubing, heat gun,
soldering iron and misc tools downstairs so I could do all the wires.  In
retrospect I should have continued and finished this but I had software issues
hanging over my head.  I went back to the computer and spent quite a bit of time
looking at membership software since AVSA Imus is quite expensive, somewhere in
the 10,000 to 30,000 dollar range. I’m not sure it is worth it.  I looked into
writing something like this from scratch but did not get anywhere.  The best I
could do was possibly adapt some church membership software. The HDMI recorder
arrived.  It works fine however my PC does not seem to put audio out the HDMI
port.  I tried recording a little of Manon which was saved by YouTube TV.  I
wish I brought my Android box down from Apex.  It would probably work putting
out sound. Dinner tonight was Quick Taco salad which was leftover from yesterday
along with a few glasses of Cabernet.  Libbie made cranberry cookies for her
sewing group tomorrow.  We had a few for dessert.  They were yummy!  She is not
sure anyone is going to come.  Time will tell.  After dinner we watched the
final episode of the season of the Mandalorian.  It was quite satisfying,
however in the final scene we find the bad guy was not killed when his ship went
down.  He is seen crawling out of the wreckage after cutting through the steel
with his lightsaber.  I went into my office after this and  looked over the
Python output for Selby.  Earlier today I installed Python 2.7 and the
Pyscripter on the I-5 PC in order to run the Python scripts.  I reworked the
compare script I wrote so that it compared jpg files with the camera files and
listed jpg and dng files that have no corresponding camera file.  I emailed the
results to John and now I also need to upload the files to the OneDrive server I
use for misc junk. Today I also heard from the American Airlines eshopper
account.  I mentioned that I was not credited with the purchase of the attic fan
which should allow me to keep the airline miles.  They will credit me which
should restore the miles I lost on the first of the year but it will take a few
days.  In the mail today I received the Chinese clone of the Ring doorbell
camera.  I looked it over but did not hook it up yet.  I put it on the shelf
because I had other things to do.


January 8, 2020 Wednesday Office Suite


I had nice conversations today with David and then I talked to Sue Ramser about
the situation with Imis.  David is working at getting a Server working in his
home that will run Imis for Membership data. I felt better about the situation
after talking to these two.  Soon after that Amy called.  I had a nice chat with
her about how the tickets are printed.  It turns out she doesn’t need Imis at
all.  The printing is done via Word with field tags for the content.  I watched
a tutorial doing this with LibreOffice but decided this was not possible so I
then watched some YouTube tutorials about Fields, Mail Merge and Word.  I found
a place called AppStore which sells incredibly cheap versions of MS Office
products.  I ordered Office 2019 Professional for $59. The professional version
includes Publisher and Access.  I may use Publisher for the Family address list.
I’m not sure about access unless it will read the Selby database that I
downloaded several  months ago.   I managed to rewire one side of the garage
wires going through the door pulley.  I have to reroute the wires through the
Pulley bracket so that the garage door people can replace the door.  Libbie left
at 6:30 PM for “games” with the ladies at Angela’s house.   I was on my own for
dinner so I topped a tortilla shell with tomato sauce and cheese and made pizza
in the air fryer.  There was only a little cheese left in the bag so I stretched
it out to make two little pizzas.  I had vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce
for dessert.  I spent the rest of the night trying to get my head around how MS
Word can use fields to print tickets.  I fell asleep at 9:30 trying to figure
this out.


January 9, 2020 Thursday  Picture Frames


We had a little trouble getting going this morning and ended up going out the
door at 8 AM instead of 7:50.  We got there a little after 8:30.  John still had
not got there.  He said he may be late.  There was a student, Micco from Costa
Rica in the building as well as Liz.  The building was pretty cold.  I cleaned
up some of the files that were photos and needed to be deleted and also fixed
some that were misnamed with an extra “2” on the end.  I was still in the
process of cleaning up files when Libbie came in to the Herbarium.  At the same
time Bruce was leading a woman through on a tour.   We left there and took a
look across the street in front of the Mansion where the Bromeliad sale was
going to be as well as several tables of Orchids from the Orchid show. The sale
was to be at 1 but we did not stay.  We stopped by Yoders on the way home and
got a lot of yummy produce.  The Yellow Mango was to die for.  We also got some
fresh Florida Corn.  Back home we took a trip to Hobby Lobby for picture frames.
I had the photo of the old house  matted and framed there then we picked up some
5x7 and 8x10 frames.  After that I had several communications with AVSA people -
Glenda, Sue and Mary C. which took us up to dinner. Dinner tonight was a pork
chop along with the Florida corn which was really good.  We had a glass of wine
with dinner.  Only one glass because it finished our last bottle. The link and
activation key for the Office Suite I purchased yesterday came today.  I
promptly installed the software on my laptop.  It’s for one device only and for
Windows 10 only so I had to put it on the laptop.  Now I need to watch more
tutorials about using Fields to generate text in specific places.


January 10, 2020 Friday Messages


I spent most of today working on the messages put out by the checkout screens.
Hopefully I got them all fixed.  I put Photoshop on the Office computer and
stumbled through getting the Family picture into an 8x10 format.  Once I was
able to get the picture formatted I sent it to Walgreens along with our
Christmas card picture but I made the Christmas Card pic  5x7 instead of 4x6.
Once I picked them up at Walgreens I mounted them in the frames we previously
purchased at Hobby Lobby.  These went on the bookcase below the TV. Dinner
tonight was chicken breasts grilled on the Weber along with a Sweet Potato and a
few glasses of Cabernet.  I picked up the wine at Walmart on the way  home from
the picture trip to Walgreens.  After dinner we watched a little of Josh and
Jenna at Epcot with a large crew of people - 19 total.  The Dis N Dat guys along
with Dale all ran a 10K today at Disneyworld which started at 5:30 AM  then
showed up at 6 PM for Josh’s stream.


January 11, 2020 Saturday Birding


We left at 7:30 for Siesta Beach where we met up with the Stoneybrook gang.
Jeff led us to several groups of birds while I got to practice with my
Telephoto.  This thing is not bad but somewhat difficult to control when zoomed
all the way out.  Auto focus seems to be pretty good which I’m pretty happy
about.  This was my first time taking this out and actually using it.  With time
I think it will  work well for me.  We went out to Detweilers after we came back
from the beach.  We had the list of ingredients with us for Mongolian Beef.  We
picked up a Flank steak as well as the veggies needed.  After lunch I went into
the garage and did the second garage door pulley, moving the rest of the wires
out of the pulley bracket.   Now the door is prepped to be removed whenever the
new door comes in from the manufacturer.  Instead of working on registration I
found a T&A movie to watch, Captain Hagan’s Bed and Breakfast.  I originally saw
a clip on Mr Skin then found out this was streamed free on Amazon Prime.  It’s
an over the top comedy with a few beautiful woman who show it all in some R
rated sex scenes.  I enjoyed it but did not see the whole movie.  I went
downstairs and started helping make the dinner entree.  We had Mongolian Beef
with the Flank steak, snow peas, onions and carrots in it.   With dinner was a
few glasses of Cabernet.   The meal was delicious.  I added some hot pepper
flakes to spice it up a little.  Next time we should increase the carrots,
onions and maybe add some Bell pepper.  After dinner we just chilled and
listened to music.


January 12, 2020 Sunday Stripe and Debug


We watched the Sunday morning shows as usual then I went back to configuring the
AV Registration shopping cart.  I had a problem where an item kept saying “not
shipping to your region”.  It would appear at random.  I eventually traced it to
a variable that should have beenn set on the checkout page but I commented that
section of code out because I didn’t want shipping to show up in the shopping
cart.  Once I fixed this all was well.  I configured Stripe to use a test credit
card so I could continue with the checkout and look at the email confirmation. I
may have to open a Stripe account on behalf of AVSA.  I received an email today
from Sue regarding the Technology Chair.  She asked me if I would consider the
job.   I forwarded the email to Libbie without comment.  I am considering it but
I have some doubts about getting involved in any controversy.  For the
registration it looks like my work is almost done except for ticket printing and
reports.  I need to sit down with my laptop and the desktop running a tutorial
and MS Word.  Libbie made pizza dough from scratch while I went out to Walmart
and picked up Mushrooms.  The pizza was fantastic and we had it wine free even
though there was wine in the closet that I picked up while in Walmart.   After
dinner we watched “Behind the Scenes” on Disney Plus but it was only an hour
long so at 7:30 PM we watched the HBO Documentary again called “Birders” which
is about the Central Park Birders filmed in 2012.  It was enjoyable to see again
with many many outstanding shots of colorful birds doing their thing.  The
photography in this movie is over the top.


January 13, 2020 Monday Testing and Brer Rabbit I turned the registration system
over to the testers in the morning.  Kathy gave me a few punctuation fixups and
also found one tour was missing.  Joyce sent me a Word document with fixes and
also found that I had left off the dietary restrictions from each meal.   When
we went upstairs to bed this evening I went to my office and worked on the
computer adding the missing text box for each meal. That was pretty easy to do.
I trimmed the hedges next to the driveway in the afternoon.  Joe came over and
we had a conversation about birds.  He later came over and gave us a small bag
of birdseed.  This was the incentive I needed to get out the bird feeder we
brought down last month and measure for a post.  I went to Lowes and picked up a
steel pole then dug a hole in front of the Lanai and mounted the feeder which
Libbie then filled.  The Sandhill Cranes came around.  As an experiment she went
out and shook her bird seed container.  They came running to the seed which was
fun to see.  Libbie called Aetna about a letter she received regarding our
change of address with Aetna.  They are terminating coverage at the end of this
month.  I went to Via Benefits, signed in, picked out a new plan in our area and
made an appointment to talk with a benefits counselor tomorrow at 2:30 PM.
Libbie’s appointment is at 3:30 PM. Dinner was the leftover Mongolian Beef which
Libbie supplemented with more veggies.  It is really good even the second time
around.  After dinner we watched Song of the South, a movie that Disney will not
release from their vault.  I acquired a DVD image several years ago when I heard
about it.  Today I used “Handbrake” and converted the image to a video file.


January 14, 2020 Tuesday Insurance GobbleDeGook We went to Selby today in very
heavy traffic adding a few minutes to the trip.  Today I went back in time and
exposure corrected a large batch of photos from last February, 954 total.  I
didn’t finish the export process into JPG and DNG before it was time to go.  I
forgot my phone so I went over and picked up Libbie who was chatting with Addy
and a new volunteer named Elizabeth.  We stopped into the Botany Museum and
viewed the RainForest masks.  Most of the small masks are already sold.  We were
trying to figure out what makes one appealing vs a non appealing carving out of
the same balsa wood but with a different design.  Was it the color of the
orchids, whether it’s cluttered or not or is it the quality of the detail? We
stopped at Yoders on the way home and bought our veggies as well as a $5.38
container of Guac.  Lunch was chips and the Guac as a chip and dip.  After lunch
I had a 2:30 appointment to call Via Benefits to get our Aetna policy
straightened out.  Yesterday they said they were terminating us as of Jan 31
because our new address was out of their region.   Fortunately the rep on the
phone was able to do both of us at once.  We had to go through a nonsensical
series of repetitive questions and listen to robotic mumbo jumbo for 1 ½ hours.
It was painful but we got through it all.  Our new policy should be effective
Feb 1.  I made dinner tonight which was Chicken Quesadilla in the Air Fryer
using Tortillas I picked up today in Walmart.  We had the Onion, Pepper and
Chicken in the refrigerator and supplemented the meal with the Guac and a few
glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner Josh and Jenna were live from the Magic
Kingdom.  We stayed until the Fireworks then went upstairs to bed.  I was very
tired because I was up from Midnight to 3 AM last night in a restless night.
I’m almost afraid to go to bed because I can’t sleep at night.


January 15, 2020 Wednesday Lights, Registration This morning I worked on the LED
light fixture for the light stand.  I used 4 strips instead of 3 this time but
forgot to remove the shield around each LED strip so the light throws into the
room.  I won’t fix this now because the registration has much to do.  Lynn
Lombard reviewed the registration for me.  She found quite a few fixups and an
error two that I fixed.  She wanted more buttons for the awards but I told her
no, too much other stuff to do.  I started looking at samples of code for
reporting from the SQL database.  I also tried to enable SSH into the database
but I had no luck with that.  Support said it was configured correctly but I
can’t get it to work.  Directly accessing the database would be ideal especially
if I could do it with a B4J program which is a desktop JAVA version of a Visual
Basic program.  In addition to all this reporting I also need to make MS Word
templates to print tickets using the same data.  I didn’t want to take the time
for dinner tonight  but we had spaghetti with sauce and cheese over the top.


January 16, 2020 Thursday Zencart and Amy Went to Selby as usual.  I exposure
corrected another folder of images but did not get them all exported to JPG and
DNG.  I had three big jobs running: copying files to the Y drive, moving files
between two directories on the E drive and and exporting files from Lightrooom.
While this was going on I was able to download a plugin for zencart for
reporting database fields to a CSV file.  When I got home I started working on
the Zencart site and gathering the list of reports needed by Amy.  The biggest
issue is there is no Imis that used to do all the reporting.  I had many
conversations with Amy about what she needs.  The list keeps growing.  She
thinks this is a working system.  It has barely any reporting built in. I bought
the pre checkin for our return Southwest flight Monday.  The 24 hour check in
period falls during the Memorial service so I chose to pay $50 for check in.
Dinner tonight was steak and butternut squash with a few glasses of Cabernet.


January 17, 2020 Friday MS Word Help Libbie went to Selby today which gave me a
lot of quiet time to work on the convention reports.  I was able to modify the
export to include quantity and also deleted a few fields I didn’t need.  I
loaded B4J on the computer and got it to display a panel with a few buttons.
Things are progressing nicely.  I called Dave Kessler to tell him about Sue
asking me to be Technology Chair and then told him about all the work preparing
reports and I still have the MS Word macros to figure out.  He agreed to help
with creating the MS Word templates because he is experienced with Word.  This
is a big relief for me and made me incredibly happy.  When Libbie came home from
Selby I used the car to go to Great Clips and got a haircut.  I really needed
one.  My timing was great.  I had an 8.99 coupon and was the second in line at
the store.  Shortly after I got in there were 4 other people in the store.  For
dinner tonight we chose to get Chinese Szechuan Chicken with egg rolls from Gold
China in the Publix shopping center.  It was average.  Not much flavor but
cooked OK and inexpensive.  We had the meal with a few glasses of Cabernet.
After dinner we watched Josh and Jenna at the Epcot Arts Festival before they
took the Skyliner over to the Riviera Resort.  The Resort is incredibly French
themed with movie posters in French, French perfume pumped in and of course lots
of Disney Art on the walls.


January 18, 2020 Saturday Denton Gathering After breakfast I packed for the trip
to Dallas.  We are taking one checked bag and one carry on. After packing I had
a little time to look at the reporting app on my laptop. This morning I was able
to read the CSV file from the convention registration website into the B4J
sqlite database.  It was then necessary to close the laptop and leave for the
airport.  We got going at 9:10 PM for a 12:20 flight.  The trip to the airport
was surprisingly easy especially over the Howard Franklin which is always tied
up.  The exit ramp to the airport was nicely flowing while the other lanes going
into downtown were stopped.  Our flight was very nice and only 2 hours and 18
minutes to Dallas.  IT was mostly smooth but the last 10 minutes into Dallas was
bumpy.  All in all it was a nice flight but totally full with every seat taken.
We got our rental car easily and were on our way.  I like the Hertz Gold where
we go right to our car.   We had a white Elan which is old school with a key and
button on the key FOB to lock the doors.  We stopped at In and Out near the
airport for a late lunch.  My hamburger was delicious.  We shared a tray of
Fries.  After checking into the Fairfield Suites on University in Denton Glenda
called and wanted to go to dinner with us.  I told her we were on our way to
Anne’s house.  We had been invited by Laura then received an eMail and a
Voicemail from Anne. We were greeted at the door by Brian then Laura.  We went
into the Living Room and hugged Anne and expressed our sympathy.  She seemed to
be in good spirits. There was a buffet of food and we sat at a table with some
of Richard's fraternity friends. Richard was President of his fraternity and of
course his friends had a few stories to tell.  It was a nice evening at a very
sad time.  Richard died way too young.


January 19, 2020 Sunday Memorial We got up early because Dallas is one hour
behind so we were on East Coast time.  Had the hotel breakfast of eggs, sausage
and a bagel with cream cheese at 7 AM.  My mouse wasn’t working so we walked
next door from the hotel where there is a Walmart Supercenter.  The nice lady
looked for a battery for me to try in my mouse but I had no luck so I ended up
buying a new mouse for $10 plus tax.  The new mouse worked right away without
any drivers and works better than the old one I think.  On the way back we met
Glenda in the breakfast room.  She is still one long run on sentence which makes
no sense whatsoever.  Libbie stayed with her while I went back to the room to
work on the reporting from the database.  I successfully read the CSV file into
the B4J app and am now trying to parse individual fields.  I started with hotel
confirmations to start.   Just when I thought I was getting close it was noon so
I put my suit on for the 1 PM Memorial.  All the AVSA Texans were there. I
chatted with David and Alva, Penny, Mary and Bill Corondan, Sue and Chuck
Ramser, the Davidsons, the Kellys and more.  The service was very long but
Richard was so humble.  He had a life well lived.  Anne’s brother gave an
incredible talk about Richard and Anne and all their experiences. He is quite
the speaker.  Sue of AVSA gave a nice talk then this was followed by several
college department heads and a fellow philatelist from Florida.   Richard had
done so much in his life mentoring umpteen students and telling them they can do
it.  He was responsible for setting up scholarship funds that brought in
millions of dollars and doing fundraising to match  one million dollar grants.
He was very humble and modest and few if any knew of any of these achievements.
Dennis his fellow stamp collector from eBay, said he never even knew Richard ran
a major University or that he was a Phd.  If only he could have lived longer who
knows what he might have accomplished.  After the ceremony I had a nice talk
with Bill about LED lighting.  He had some research on types of LEDs and put
together a Powerpoint about all of it.  Mary said she will send it.  A slide
show to Handel’s Hallelujah concluded the ceremony followed by snacks in the
back.   I had some egg rolls with sweet and sour sauce, potstickers with mustard
sauce and little caramelized onion pastry cups.  The college does well making
food. I came back and continued playing with the software and finally got it to
put out the hotel confirmations.  Yes!   We went out to dinner at what
TripAdvisor said was the best Mexican Restaurant in Denton.  It was called Le
Matador.  It loved up to it’s name.  I had shrimp kabobs and a cheese enchilada.
Both were delicious.  It came with Rice which I did not eat because it was too
much food. We had a Frozen Margarita with dinner.  Libbie ordered a Carni Asada
steak which was 8 oz and delicious.  The meal was very good.

January 21, 2020 Monday Fly Home We got up early and went down for the hotel
breakfast. I had the egg and cheese omelet and a sausage patty which I didn;t
like so I picked up a Cnadin bacon round which was pretty good.  I also had a
blueberry muffin with cream cheese.   We stayed around the hotel room until
check out time at noon.  The maids tried to get into the room several times but
we kept telling them we were staying till noon.  I spent the time working on the
reporting.  I struggled with trying to get a Tableview filled out.  I finally
got the job done just before we had to leave.  I can now display a table of
hotel confirmation.  The issue was type casting the retrieved strings properly
so that the tableview could accept and display them. We left the hotel for the
airport taking I 35E.  We soon were in a traffic jam due to an accident.  We
left the highway under Libbie’s GPS navigation as she took us around the
accident creatively through beautiful neighborhoods.  We had plenty of time
since our flight was not until 4:05 PM and it was just after noon.  Once we got
back on the interstate it was not a problem to get to Mockingbird Lane.  We
topped off our tank at a Quicktrip where gas was 2.28 per gallon.  I only needed
2.5 gallons.  Our next stop was Chick Fil A at the airport entrance.  It was
outdoor dining only which was a little chilly since it was only in the 40s but
the sun was nice and strong.  We had chicken sandwiches and waffle fries.  Both
were delicious.  Why had we not been to Chick Fil A more often?   This place was
really hoping but they are very fast.   We returned our Hertz car to the lot on
the airport entrance drive and had a Hertz shuttle ride the short distance to
the terminal.  Check-in was very fast and smooth but I was randomly chosen for
the scanner machine.  At our gate I pulled out my computer and worked on adding
buttons to the report form in B4J.  I had trouble switching forms so I abandoned
that approach and kept a single page with a table view I could hide and display
as needed.  Our plane was late getting to Dallas so we left the gate 20 minutes
late for a flight that was scheduled at 2 hours 15 minutes but was only one hour
and 51 minutes.  The plane was completely full but the flight was mostly smooth.
There was some chippiness as we crossed the LA wetlands over Lafayette and
exited over New Orleans.  Once over the Gulf the flight returned to smooth
flying.  Going to Dallas we followed the Gulf coast all the way but returning to
Tampa we cut diagonally across the Gulf from New Orleans to Tampa.  We arrived
home around 9:15 PM.  For dinner we had some cheese and crackers.  I had a few
eMails to answer and I also heard from the Stoneybrook birdwatchers. Niki has
arranged for a field trip to Desoto Park up in Tampa Bay and sent us an
invitation.  I accepted right away.  I read through the Powerpoint presentation
that Bill and Mary put together and ended up ordering some wide spectrum lights
from Amazon.  They said delivery will be Thursday.  These are more pricey than
the garage lights I am using now in Libbie’s  light stand.


January 21, 2020 Tuesday Reports I made great progress today producing various
reports to the screen.  I managed reports for tours, meals and presentations as
well as awards.  I had to write a special sub to retrieve member number when a
customer ID is passed in. We did a Walmart trip today for our weekly groceries
including wine and a sugar bowl.  It was just short of $100.  Dinner was half a
pork chop and butternut squash along with a few glasses of Cabernet. After
dinner I continued to work on the reporting app.  It’s been a long day.


January 22, 2020 Wednesday Airport I had quite a bit of success with reporting
of Convention results before we left for the airport.  I checked with Jet Blue
and found out that her plane was 25 minutes early.  We left for the airport and
cruised parking level 7 but came up empty handed.  We then went to level 9 and
found half the deck was empty.  We parked near the elevator and went down into
the terminal.  It was perfect timing because in less than 10 minutes Vicki came
off the Monorail.  She didn’t have any checked baggage so we left the airport
quickly.  We had chicken and rice soup for lunch when we returned.  I did a
little more work on the reporting before we went out to Detweilers to pick up
Snow Peas and a Key Lime Pie for dinner.  In late afternoon we started making
the Mongolian Beef dinner.  It turned out extremely well because we increased
the Veggies.  We should have put more liquid one but it was excellent.  We had
the Mongolian Beef with a few glasses of Cabernet and a piece of Key Lime Pie
for dessert.  After dinner I started watching a little of Josh and Jenna doing
the mail stream while I managed to finish the Merch reporting for the
Convention.  It was a pretty good day!


January 23, 2020 Thursday Selby and AVSA I went to Selby this morning and picked
up where I left off last week.  I finished processing DNG files and backing all
up to the Y drive.  John had another folder of retakes for me to process which I
finished and also managed to find the originals scattered all over the drive at
various dates and deleted them.  The time went quickly.  Libbie came into the
Herbarium to pick me up.  After a stop at Yoders for fruit we got back where
Vicki had already returned our garbage cans.  I called Amy about what to put on
the registrant address form and the emergency form.  Shortly after I heard from
David.  He had some suggestions about how he wanted the CSV file to be created.
He is looking for a tab separating variables and also a pipe character instead
of carriage return separating names.  He will use the pipe to start a new sheet
of tickets. I didn’t get anything done on the reporting because Vicki was here
and liked to talk.  We decided to go to Sharkys for sunset but stopped by Evies
on the bay to check on the crowd.  We were surprised it was not crowded so we
decided to go there instead.  We were able to watch the sunset from a table in
Evies.  It was a little chilly but we all had light jackets.  All three of us
ordered Fish and Chips.  I had a Yuengling with the Fish and Chips.  When we
came back we did a little walk up the street and met one of our neighbors named
Anthony who has lived there for 2 years.  His garage looked like he was just
moving in, it was stacked with junk.  I came back expecting to get more work
done but did not.  I committed to David that I would finish the ticket and badge
printing reports so that he could get started with some data.  Much to do
tomorrow.


January 24, 2020 Friday Work and Party I spent all day today trying to sort the
registration data into printable tickets.  This is hard coupled with my lack of
knowledge of SQL statements.   I mostly have it doing what I want except for
trying to read the order IDs and creating printable tickets.  I have more work
to do.   I spent all day in my office trying to do this.  Libbie went walking on
Turtle Beach with Vicki and also went out for Mushrooms for the Casserole.  In
late afternoon I came downstairs and mixed the Marinara, mushroom and Pepperoni
mixture then poured it over the garlic bread.  It baked for around 15 minutes at
425 and came out lightly browned and bubbling.  It was yummy.  We went to the
party at 6:30.  The Pepperoni Pizza was a hit.  There was none left at the end
of the night.  I had the Pepperoni casserole, some kielbasa and sauerkraut,
pulled pork and veggies,  Dessert was cheese cake and also pineapple cake.  Very
nice.  We had this along with a bottle of Chianti.  When we came home I spent
some more time working on the reporting for the registration.


January 25, 2020 Saturday Country Ribs  I spent the whole day working on the
ticket reporting.  I reset and started a new approach to the reporting breaking
the task into smaller tasks and replacing one database with a list instead of
using sqlite.  This simplified things because events could be pushed onto the
list and then pulled off up to the number of events on the list so each could be
looked up for the ticketing CSV files.  I still need to write this stuff to a
file.  I’ll finish that work tomorrow.  I also need to add the times for each
event instead of the place holder I used.  We had an afternoon trip to
Detweilers where we picked up Country Ribs, a Key Lime Pie and Ketchup.   Libbie
made her delicious Country Ribs recipe which I have in Lifebits but she said you
don’t need a recipe.  Dinner was ribs, corn on the cob and Ravenswood Zinfandel.
Dessert was a slice of Key Lime pie.  I continued working on the configuration
of the reporting function after dinner.


January 26, 2020 Sunday Garden Department and ticket file I continued working on
getting a ticket file to David.  We were supposed to go to the Whimsy museum
when they open at 1 PM but Vicki had an unsettled stomach so we didn’t go.  I
used the opportunity to finally create a ticket file.  I don’t like the format
so I sent it to David with my suggestions.  I’ll wait to see what he says.
Libbie made two excellent pizzas with mushrooms and basil for dinner.  We had
the last of the Key Lime Pie for dessert.   To get the Basil we had to take a
trip to the Lowes garden department.  While there I looked at plants for
landscaping. Libbie visited the clearance rack and found a tray of Alyssum for
50 cents a pot. Vicki used her military family discount which got us an
additional 10% off.   I  looked at Bougainvillea to put around the AC units to
shade them.  I’m looking for a pure red to complement the pink wall. After
dinner tonight we watched the Art of Animation show and the Star Wars fireworks
from Hollywood Studios.  Once that was over we switched to the Grammys.  I
watched a few performances but it all seemed to be a bunch of noise.  I waited
for the tribute to Prince by usher but was disappointed by the poor arrangements
they did to Prince’s songs.  I shut it down and went upstairs to work on getting
the badge file put out from the convention app.


January 27, 2020 Monday Up early and back to formatting tickets.  I finally got
them formatted chronologically.  I need to do the same thing to the names.
LAter in the day I communicated with Kathy.  She wants the paperwork to go live.
I gave her the URL for the clone site which she took a look at. She also sent it
to Lynn who found a number of errors in the PDF that I could not correct.  The
reporting is going great.  I’m almost done there.  Late this afternoon I tried
again to get Authorize.net going.  I finally switched from the AIM module to the
SIM module and it worked.  I can process test transactions.  This morning Vicki
went with me to Costco where I picked up wine, coffee and cereal.  We met Ersin
there and chatted for a while.  He was buying groceries and supplies for his
restaurant.   At 5:30 we left for Bodrum in Venice.  We got a parking spot right
in front.  They had a table for us in the corner and knew we were Ersin’s
neighbor.  We started with the Carrot Tarator as an appetizer.  This was
fantastic.  Julia sent us some kind of cheese dips as an appetizer and Ersin
made the wine complementary.  Libbie and I had the Mahi Mahi in a caper sauce
while Vicki had the Salmon with a dill sauce.  The food was over the top
delicious.  The service was outstanding.   We had a  cute waitress from
Argentina who was outstanding.   There also was a guy server who also seemed to
be good.  It was a Monday night so it was not very crowded.   We arrived at our
reserved time of 6 PM and were finished shortly after 7 PM.  The meal was over
the top great.


January 28, 2020 Tuesday Carrot Tarator  This morning I saw Ersin and thanked
him for the wine.  I told him we enjoyed our evening at his restaurant.  I asked
about the Carrot Tarator and told him I saw a TV clip of him making the dip.  He
said we could use sour cream instead of yogurt and to make sure we don’t use the
fat free stuff.   I continued working on the registration. I got a badge file
off to David after talking to Amy about the contents of the badge.   I then
continued to try to extract the registrants and the emergency contacts.  I had a
plan - get all the orders in a list, use the list to search for name and address
info putting it in a table, sort the table and output the list.  This should go
pretty smoothly if I could get some time.  We went to Hobby Lobby this afternoon
then stopped by Sprouts for the ingredients for Carrot Tarator.  It was good but
not as good as the stuff in Ersin’s restaurant.  Dinner tonight was leftover
Country ribs, broccoli and Cabernet.  We had the Carrot Tarator with toasted
Pita as an appetizer.  After dinner I continued to work on the reporting for
registration.


January 29, 2020 Wednesday Airport I got the emergency contacts and the list of
registrants done today while Libbie and Vicki went over to Siesta Beach to walk.
On their way back they stopped into Chick Fil A and brought home lunch which was
a chicken sandwich and waffle fries.   I next started to work on the printing of
the reports.  This thing is looking pretty good and certainly will be ready to
launch this Friday which is Feb 1.   I still need to add Paypal credentials,
dietary restrictions for the package deal meals and notices on 3 of the meals
that this meal is included in the package deal.   We left for the airport at
2:30 and got to the airport at 4.  There was an accident on the Howard Franklin
so we creeped across the bridge.   We luckily found parking next to the elevator
and saw Vicki off at the monorail.  WE had a wonderful parking booth attendant.
I told him we probably had a Freebie.  He was laughing and joking with us and
saw us off with “have a blessed day”.  Nice guy.  The trip home went quickly
with no incidents.  Once again our Quickpass worked on the Skyway Sunpass
system.  My statement said that each trip was $1.07 each way.  The listed price
is $1.50.  At home I collected the garbage for  tomorrow which is garbage day.
We then watched a youtube video from yesterday of Jenna and her gang at Epcot’s
ARt Festival.  They were doing a scavenger hunt where you find each painting on
the pallete shaped card.  The stream was fun as usual.  Dinner was the carrot
taratot on pita bread for an appetizer followed by a bowl of spaghetti with
cheese sprinkled over the top.  A few glasses of Cabernet accompanied the meal.
I was tired around 9 PM so went to bed.  I got up today at 5:15 AM to go
downstairs to make the coffee before Vicki went downstairs.  During the week I
have been setting up the coffee machine the night before  and then Vicki would
come down before me and start the coffee maker.


January 30, 2020 Thursday EXE files I worked at Selby this morning.  It was
John’s birthday, the ladies were giving him a hard time.  I processed a  lot of
retakes of both Broms and Orchids.   Libbie stopped by at quarter of 12 because
she was dismissed an hour earlier and was free.  We left the Herbarium after
discussing epiphytes with Liz and whether a Bromeliad was an epiphyte or not.
According to her all Bromeliads are not Epiphytes, some are terrestrial.  We
stopped by Walmart for Milk as well as cheese for Quesadillas tonight.  I talked
with David when I got home about his badge maker which is done.  I then tried
sending the report program to Amy but she could not get it to run.  I studied
packaging it as an installer and was able to get the program into a setup file
using a combination of B4J packager which creates a script and then Inno
software which makes a setup exe file from the script.   I will use OneDrive to
distribute it to Amy. I didn’t do any further work on the reporting function but
spent all the time trying to make a setup file which I did succeed at.  Dinner
was Carrot Taratot appetizer with Pita bread and the chicken quesadilla along
with a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner I continued looking at the
Reporting program but did not do anything significant. In the evening we found
a YouTube channel that displays fine art while playing nice classical music.


January 31, 2020 Friday  I slept until 6:30 AM this morning.  Wow.  I’m usually
up before 6.  I did the normal morning stuff mostly trying to get the online
registration for launch.  I don’t have all the credentials for Paypal but sent
an email to Amy requesting them.  I suspect it won’t be until Monday that I get
them.  In the meantime I added a text box to the package deal meals for dietary
restrictions and noted on the three package deal meals that you don’t need to
add this to the cart because they’re included.  I left at 11 for Sarasota Glass
to look at their showroom and schedule an appointment.  The guy I was sent to,
Dan, was a total asshole.  I almost walked away but this company has a great
reputation so I stayed for it.  The estimator Terry will come Monday morning
while the DnD Garage door installers are here.  This should work well.  On the
way home I stopped in Lowes and got a price on a Jeld Wen impact resistant
window of the size needed for my office.  They have an approx 36W x 62H for $308
which is very reasonable.  If I can change windows for $500 each I would be
happy. We went out at 5:30 for cheese and triscuits to Puublix and while there
made the last minute decision to eat at Beckhams.  They had one booth left.  Our
server was a very nice blonde Polish girl. We each had the half rack of ribs
with rice and beans and a glass of Yuengling.  It started raining lightly on our
way home.  We watched Josh and Jenna at Hollywood Studios when we got home and
stayed until after the Star Wars fireworks.  I like the mapped projections along
with the John Williams music and synchronized light and fireworks.  We then went
to bed early because I set the alarm for 5:30 AM tomorrow.  We are scheduled to
meet at the Clubhouse for birding at 7 AM but because of predicted rain it looks
doubtful.


Feb 1, 2020 Saturday Canceled Up at 5:30 this morning in pouring rain.  We got
dressed, had breakfast and went over to the clubhouse at 7 AM anyway.  We met
Nicki there and she said they were cancelling because of the miserable weather
and predictions of rain the rest of the morning. I learned that the Buckingham
weather uploads to Wunderground stopped at exactly the same moment that the
Stoneybrook sensors stopped.  It’s time to move onto my own server and not rely
on an outside source.   I spent much of the day studying how to configure WeeWx
to use an MQTT driver and eventually installed WeeWx on the Scargill Pi in the
closet downstairs.   This Pi runs node red and the MQTT broker.  I hope to have
it running WeeWX feeding the Apache server on this device. The rain eventually
cleared in the late afternoon around sunset.  The sun appeared briefly as it
set.  We had wine, cheese and crackers before our dinner of Pork Chops, Broccoli
and Cabernet.  This was the last of the delicious Chops we bought on New Year's
day.  After dinner we left WCPE on with request night while I continued to study
how to configure the MQTT driver in WeeWx.


Feb 2, 2020 Groundhogs and Silly Bowl I continued working on the WeeWx weather
app today.  I resurrected a Pi 3 from my parts box and installed a version of
Raspbian as well as Scargill’s script and WeeWx.  I still could  not get the
MQTT driver to work.  I’ll work on it some more tomorrow.  This Pi is on my
office table with an IP address ending with 223.  Libbie helped me clear the
space around the garage doors to get ready for the garage door installers
tomorrow. After clearing the garage I took a piece of plywood and cut it as a
shelf for Libbie’s plant trays.  The 10x20 trays don’t fit into the pipes on the
stand. I put the new plywood shelf on the stand spanning the 2 side supports.
This ended up being around 53 inches side to side.  My scrap of plywood was only
18 inches instead of the 21 inches.  In the evening we had Libbie’s delicious
pizza with mushrooms and a glass of Cabernet.  This was the best yet, so thin
and crisp as well as tasty.  After dinner we decided to watch a movie, Jo Jo
Rabbit which started out being silly and stupid but then I got into it and
really enjoyed the movie.   While we watched the movie the Silly Bowl was
happening.  I saw the half time show on YouTube later in the evening with
Shakira shaking her stuff.


Feb 3, 2020 Garage Doors, Windows, ballet


At 7 AM this morning there was a knock on the door.  As promised, a DnD Garage
door guy named Adam was at the door, ready to install our new door.   He did a
good job. Halfway through the installation he knocked on the door again.  This
time he asked that the Paddle Board be taken down.  The new door is higher and
does not clear the board mounted on the ceiling.  I took it down for the guy and
left it on the floor.   We will have to do something about it when I put the
garage back together.  I took a piece of the old garage door trim and cut a
small section out of it.  I took it to Lowes and got it matched up in color and
bought a gallon of the matched paint to paint the trim.  I also picked up some
caulk.  This activity will be done tomorrow.  At 11 Am the Sarasota Glass guy
named Terry came to our door.  He was quite good.  He said he has been measuring
windows for 23 years.  He could practically look at a window and tell what size
it was.  The total for all the upstairs windows was lower than I thought it
would be.  The cost for 13 windows was $15,500 which was pretty good.  Steve
paid $25,000 for 17 windows.  In the afternoon Storm Shield of Fort Meyers
called and scheduled a date and time for an estimate on Hurricane Windows.  We
will get our estimate at 2 PM on Thursday.  This is the company Steve used.  It
should be interesting to see if they need to cut back the stucco on the wood
framed section of our house.  Once all this had been settled I turned to the
WeeWx software.  I found a discussion group using Node Red for a Weather
dashboard.  This appeals to me since I’m familiar with Node Red and how it
handles MQTT.  I installed Raspbian Stretch Lite on the Pi I was playing with
for WeeWx and then installed the Scargill Script on this same computer.  I now
have a fresh install of everything to start working on a Node-Red dashboard.  I
will put this thing on a free Dynamic DNS and expose it to the outside world. At
6 PM we had tuna sandwiches before we had to leave at 6:15 for the ballet.  We
arrived at 6:52 and picked up our Will Call tickets.  The performance was one of
the best ever.  IT consisted of three pieces separated by 2 intermissions.  The
first was meetings in a park with traditional white ballet costumes for both the
men and the women.  The women wore Pink bows in their hair while a group of
younger girls wore white ribbons.  The movement was mostly in diagonals.   The
next was Paul Taylor choreography.  Three girls in long olive dresses danced
with a troupe of 6 guys in black onesies.  This was a high energy dance.  The
dancing was frantic and mostly in circles.  The lighting was darker.  I really
enjoyed this dance set to the music of the Bach Brandenburg Concertos.   I’m
sure the dancers needed a long rest after performing this one.  The last number
was Italian and featured Video projections along with comedy sketches by girls
dressed as waitresses and guys sitting at a checkered tablecloth table.  One
piece featured no dancing at all but an Italian family at dinner with lots of
hand gestures.  The last number was hilarious.  It featured comedic music and
very loose slapstick dancing.  When the performance was over I decided to take
University to Tuttle because I took Fruitville all the way to Tamiami going
there and found the road was all torn up and under construction.  Going home the
trip down Tuttle was smooth and traffic free.  I took it all the way to Clark
and then home on MacIntosh.   It was a fantastic night.


February 4, 2020 Detweilers and Marriage Story I did my Selby thing this morning
managing images. Libbie came over to get me at 12:00 in the Botany building.  I
showed her an Audubon calendar which was owned by John and laying on the desk.
On the way home we first stopped at Yoders for Guac, strawberries and Oranges.
Next we stopped at Detweilers where we picked up some Jamaican Jerk Salmon that
we sampled.  We also purchased a Flank Steak and some Skewered shrimp.  In the
produce department I of course picked up a pineapple while Libbie shucked some
corn.  After the checkout we had to try the Yoders ice cream.  I had chocolate
chip ice cream on a waffle cone.  Amazingly this is 1.49 but 50 cents more for a
cone.   Once home we had lunch then I found from Amy that Paypal was not
working.  I fixed that and now need to figure out how to get rid of that $40 in
the registration field.   I need to work on this.  I took a little bit of time
before dinner and caulked the trim around the new garage door.  I don’t know
when I’ll paint it.  I’m going to work on AVSA stuff tomorrow morning instead of
painting.   We started watching Marriage Story before dinner then had some
crackers and cheese with wine.  Dinner was the Jamaican Jerk Salmon with corn on
the cob and Cabernet.  After dinner we finished watching Marriage Story.  It
reminded us of Kramer vs Kramer.  The acting was great, the story was sad but
the movie drew us in and was very long.  We didn’t finish watching until 9 PM.
Thank goodness we started watching before dinner.


February 5, 2020 Wednesday Busy & Porgy


This was an incredibly busy morning.  I managed to get Amy a Setup program that
installed the reporting program for her.  She still needs more reports,
especially printing.   I also managed to find out how to get rid of that $40
that was being advertised as the registration fee.  Unfortunately it was
reported that Paypal is still not working.  Late in the evening I deleted the
module and reinstalled it then added the credentials to it.  I used the
registration site to buy a calendar I don’t want. I was able to use Paypal to
refund the money.  IT all worked.  At 12:15 we left for the afternoon Encore
performance of Porgy and Bess which started at 1 PM.  We had some time at the
mall so we walked the length of the mall to the end and back.  IT was amazing at
the number of stores that were shuttered.  The Mall is over half empty.  There
are two businesses in the Food Court.  Even Chick Fil A has left.  The last time
we were there the Chick Fil A was in business.   The performance of Porgy was
full which was surprising for an encore.  I loved it.  The staging was
traditional and perfect.  The singing and dancing were spectacular.  Every
minute of this was fantastic but very long with only one intermission. Audra
McDonald who pays Bess on Broadway was the host.  She was perfect.  Once home I
continued working on the registration.  Dinner was the shrimp skewers we picked
up yesterday at Detweilers.   We had the shrimp along with Oriental Sweet
Potatoes which are a sweet potato with yellow center.   We had this with a glass
of Cabernet.  I chose to put off the painting of the garage door trim until
Saturday because of the work needed for AVSA.


February 6, 2020 Thursday Windows - Not!


We had a little trouble getting to Selby this morning.  Beneva was only one lane
so the traffic was really backed up.  Getting through the school zone was not
easy either at Webber.  We stood at the lights around the school for many light
cycles.  It took one hour to get to the gardens.  Once there I did the usual
image management activities.  On the way home we did a quick run through of the
Walmart neighborhood market on Beneva.  I used our shopping list from Alexa.  At
home our Window estimator was early.  He went around and measured everything
then showed us some samples of windows.  The overall price was a ridiculous
$35k.  We unfortunately signed the contract which we decided to rescind.  The
law gives us 3 business days to rescind.  The guy was a little pushy getting us
to buy windows.  The Sarasota Glass estimate was only $15k for PGT windows
instead of no name ones.   I think we will go with Sarasota Glass.  I will
probably replace the downstairs windows myself with Hurricane windows from Home
Depot or Lowes.   Amy had a problem trying to edit orders.  When she tries to
save the changes it complains about the negative number for the hotel discount.
I studied the code and found a place where the minimum value was supposed to be
0.  I changed it to -10 and saving is now possible.  Regarding the windows, I
read the rescind contract and found that the paper has to be returned to Fort
Myers by midnight on Monday.  Today is Thursday.  I will go to the USPS tomorrow
morning and purchase an overnight express envelope to get it delivered in 24
hours. Dinner tonight was a hamburger made from the Detweiler's hamburger meat.
They were very good.  We had this with Baked Beans and Cabernet.  After dinner I
kept looking at how to do reports in B4J for Amy.


February 7, 2020  Friday Cancel


After breakfast I took a trip to the Osprey Post Office and sent the
Cancellation notice to Storm Shield in Fort Meyers.  Delivery is guaranteed
tomorrow, Saturday, with return signature.  I also paid $10 at the CU online
site for a stop check order on the 17,500 check I wrote.  LAter in the day I got
3 phone calls and an email from the salesguy saying he had cheaper windows he
could price.  I don’t know why he priced what he did - he priced double hung of
their most expensive window.  This window is made by a company that was bankrupt
in Cleveland Ohio but was taken over by another company.  We decided that this
guy was a middleman for a window company instead of what we thought.  We thought
it was factory direct.  Libbie and I next took a trip to Detweillers for
Mongolian Beef ingredients for tomorrow night.  We then crossed Clark and went
to Sarasota Glass with our quote.  We spoke with the sales guy about the type of
window that was estimated for us.  It is single hung with a half screen on the
lower half.  Our estimator is going to have to come back out because we want the
downstairs windows in the bay window area done as well.  I think I will delete
the entire back of the house from the estimate and add the entire front of the
house.   I’m very comfortable with Sarasota Glass.  We also looked at door
inserts to replace the glass in our front door with impact rated glass. In the
afternoon I did not spend the time productively.  I watched some YouTube videos
and some CB before buckling down and started to work on convention reporting.  I
managed to report the total types of registration as text on the screen.  Next
I’ll expand this to include all the meals and tours.  I started doing this work
but did not get anywhere.  Dinner tonight was spaghetti with tomato sauce and
cheese as well as a glass of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched Josh and Jenna
at the MK.  Jenna had a cold again and it was a chilly night with temps in the
50s.


February 8, 2020 Saturday Reports, etc


This morning I swapped LED tubes on the top plant shelf of the stand.  Instead
of the 4 LED tubes I had I mounted the last of the two full spectrum tubes that
came after we came back from the Memorial in Dallas.  I waited to install these
last two LEDs because I was fully tied up with the AVSA reporting. I then went
to  my office and worked on collecting all the items per order.  I finished
constructing the table in software.  The next step is to  combine orders from
each date into a single row of a second table so the report can be written, I
came down around 5:30 and helped Libbie make the Mongolian Beef for dinner.
She cut the Flank steak and chopped the veggies.  I combined the wet ingredients
and shredded the Ginger.  The meal was delicious as could be expected.  We put
mushrooms in the mix but they disappear and don’t add any taste.  I’m not sure
they are needed. Dinner was Mongolian Beef with a few glasses of Cabernet.
After dinner we watched another Oscar candidate, this time it was Judy.  It was
good but not great.  The lead star, Renee Zellweiger was fantastic as Judy
Garland.


February 9, 2020 Sunday Reports, paint and Oscars


After the Sunday morning programs which were all about the Oscars I continued to
work on reporting.  I thought I was successful at reporting the totals but soon
learned that the totals were coming out wacky.  I put this aside to tape the
garage door flange then began painting the trim and the inside of the garage
door frame.  The paint matches the old paint perfectly.  I was a little worried
about this because I took a piece of the trim  down to Lowes and had the lady
match it  up with her machine.  The match is perfect.  You can’t tell old from
new paint after it dried.  I worked on the reporting and rewrote the routine
that did the totals.  I managed to get this correctly reporting during the E Red
Carpet show with Ryan Secrist.   I still need to more thoroughly check this out
before declaring it done.  I added the classes for printing to the program but
set this aside when the Pizza was ready.  Libbie made a pizza with basil,
mushrooms and tomato bits.  Today was National Pizza Day and this pizza
certainly did the day homage.  It was perfect - the crust thin and the toppings
delicious.   We watched the Oscars until a little after 9 and only saw the best
supporting actor and actress before turning it off.


February 10, 2020 Monday Reporting Continues


I spent some time studying the way to print from my reports.  I will have to do
paging which also means setting up a second table with just the day displayed.
This then would be paged for printing.  I’m still not sure about all of this.
It certainly is a challenge. Sarasota Glass called today.  I made an appointment
at 2 PM for Tuesday (tomorrow) to add the additional windows to the estimate.
Terry will be coming over which is good.  I like him. In the afternoon we
watched the Korean Movie which was awarded Best Picture at the Oscars.
“Parasite” was a thriller and was well done.  We had a false start because I had
a bad subtitle file but I stopped the movie and found a better file from open
subtitle.org.   This was much better and readable although it does require full
attention to keep reading subtitles. Dinner tonight after the movie was
Mongolian Beef with Rice and Cabernet.   I noticed Jenna was broadcasting Epcot
fireworks from the top of the contemporary.  Their friend Donna had a room up
there so the gang hung out in Donna's room and broadcast fireworks live.


February 11, 2020 Tuesday La Boheme


Off to Selby this morning.   Orchids are finishing up.  Most people have been
reassigned to georeferencing.  I don’t have to come in on Thursday which is good
for me because I’m buried in AVSA stuff.  Libbie and I stopped in to Yoders on
the way home and picked up some fruit including strawberries and bananas.
Shortly after we got home Terry from Sarasota Glass arrived early.  He was
supposed to come at 2 PM but it was 1 which was good. He measured the downstairs
three windows and gave us a price.  We removed the existing thermal Windows in
the Master Bedroom and Master bath from the earlier estimate and added the three
windows in the front room to the estimate.  The total was nearly the same which
was the goal.  The total for our windows is just under $16,000.   We signed the
contract and handed Terry a 50% down payment of $7900.  I’m pretty happy  about
this.  After a lunch of the leftover Mongolian beef and rice I went to work on
the AVSA convention reporting.  Amy had a plea that accounting was getting out
of hand.   I replied that I hope to have something to her by noon tomorrow
(Wednesday).  I managed to get the daily reports working a day at a time with
the forward/backward buttons.   I hope to get the rest of the items working this
way.  We left at 6 PM for the Opera. We had tuna sandwiches in the car on the
way there.   Surprisingly there was a parking spot available on Palm almost at
Main St. The meters run until 8 PM so the cost to park until 8 from 6:45 was
$1.75.   This is cheaper than $5 in the parking garage but the biggest advantage
is convenience to get out and away.  We sat  in the Opera courtyard with a
couple from NEw Hampshire.  They are here only for the month.   La Boheme was
wonderful. The singers are strong and our seats in the center of Row D were
perfect.  This is such a delightful Opera.  The Cafe Momus scene that Sarasota
does is especially admirable on the small stage they have to work with.  The
costume shop they own is very obvious with how many nice costumes they have for
the cast.  WE arrived home around 10:30 from the 7:30 performance.


February 12, 2020 Wednesday Mr Rogers Neighborhood


Slept until 7:01 this morning which was late for me.  Wow!  I stayed inside and
spent the whole day addressing the reporting issues.  The only one I solved was
adding the hotel confirmations to the daily totals.  I talked with Amy and she
gave me her latest list of what she needs.  Next I will work on breaking out the
package purchasers and add them to the meal rosters.  This is something that is
not being done right now.  Dinner was hamburger on a bun with tomato and a side
of the leftover baked beans.  We had this with a few glasses of Cabernet.  After
dinner we watched “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” which is the Mr Rogers
movie with Mr Rogers played by Tom Hanks.   I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.  It
was much better than the Judy movie we saw several days ago.


February 13, 2020 Thursday  Computer Work All Day


Libbie left for Selby while I remained behind today.  I’m not needed as the
Orchid digitization work ends.  This has been a bonus as I dove into the hard
part  of doing the reporting.  I managed to get the package deal people added to
the rosters for the meals, finished up the hotel confirmation work and also
changed the names of people on the rosters to reflect the registered name as
opposed to the name of the purchaser.  This went well.  The last bit of activity
was the cumulative totals for everything purchased.  This surprisingly was easy
because I already had the totals for each day.  Rather than resetting the totals
after each day I just continued to accumulate which gave me numbers for
everything purchased.  Missing is the adding up of all the purchases to get a
grand total. We did a Detweiler's trip this afternoon to get the ingredients for
Shrimp Pad Thai.  We also picked up some sausage and steak.    They were out of
bean sprouts so we stopped at Publix Gulfgate for bean sprouts.  As usual we
were publixed. There was a line at the register which is inexcusable in this day
and age.  I wish they would put in self checkouts.  Dinner tonight was the
homemade Shrimp Pad Thai.  Libbie thought the noodles needed more cooking time
but I followed the video which said no need to cook them, just soak in hot tap
water for 5 minutes.  I didn’t like the Argentinian shrimp we bought in
Detweilers.  They tasted fishy which is something you should not have in shrimp
which is too bad.  I bought them because of convenience.  I know Walmart has
better frozen shrimp but Tamiami is one lane going there because of road
construction so it’s a hassle picking up good shrimp.  After dinner we watched
half of Pinochio but I fell asleep though it so I didn’t get the storyline of
all of it.


February 14, 2020 Friday Valentines Day


 The convention reporting has been going well enough that I took some time today
to work in the garage.  I removed the old surfboard hooks above the garage door
and reinstalled them next to the attic stairs.   I then struggled to hang the
surfboard onto the rope I put up between the two hooks.   It sags quite a bit.
The old bungie cord is only 2 feet long so it won’t stretch across the hooks
which are 4 feet apart.   I may purchase a 3 foot cord and a one foot cord.  The
3 footer will expand 4 feet and the one footer will add to the existing 2 foot
cord to make a second 3 foot card.  This will also be insurance for the ropes
holding up the board.  I went out to Costco today to get wine and cereal.  On
the way home I stopped in Target and ended up in Publix to get a box of Russel
Stover for Valentines Day.  I also picked up a Valentines plant in Lowes, a
Mandivilla vine growing up a trellis. For dinner Libbie cooked one of the rib
eye steaks which we shared and had along with Oriental sweet potatoes and a
glass of Cabernet.  We had Russel Stover candy for dessert.


Feb 15, 2020 Saturday Fort Desoto


We met at 7 AM at the clubhouse and met the group for birding.  We carpooled
with me being one of the drivers.  Nikkii and Ken went along with us.  There are
two toll causeways we have to cross, the Skyway and then another one onto Fort
Desoto.  It was windy and the car was buffeted a little as we approached the
Skyway but it wasn’t too bad.   The beach we ended up at was beautiful.   It was
wide with White sand much like Siesta Beach.  Jeff led us around to several
spots in the park where we saw a variety of birds.  The coolest ones were the
Red Heads which was a duck and the Red Heron which was not really red but was
reddish colored. On the way back there was an accident just after the bridge
near the Ellenton Mall. We creeped along less than 20 miles per hour but once
past the accident it was full speed ahead.   Once we got back we chose to have
lunch at the clubhouse.  We had a Yuengling and a turkey bacon avocado club wrap
which came with homemade chips.    This wiped me out for the rest of the day.
The sunshine along with the food and beer and the exercise made me lethargic.  I
dozed a little while watching a YouTube video but then woke up and tried to do
some work.  I tried various ways to print from B4J and found one that worked.  I
did this work after moving the I5 desktop over to hook it up to the   printer
and the scanner.  I had to install a scanner driver but the computer had a
driver for the printer and worked right away.   Dinner was easy tonight - we had
the leftover Shrimp Pad Thai and a glass of Cabernet.  I was so tired after
dinner I went to bed at 8 PM.  Just before bed we watched a live stream from the
Montauge Ski Resort in Scranton, PA.  They had a torch parade down hill followed
by fireworks.  It was 23 degrees there and the purpose of showing it to Libbie
was to reminisce about night skiing in the icy temperatures over 40 years ago.


February 16, 2020 Sunday Open House


I finally got printing working on the reporting program.  I ended up passing a
string to the java print object and it printed.  This means I’ll go through
everything that needs printing and convert it to a long string with appropriate
CRLFs to print a page.  I had no luck with printing a label, a tableview or a
pane.  The string, however, worked.  That’s all I needed to proceed. After lunch
we took a walk to the country club side for an open house on Grey Oak.  The
house was 539k with a pool.  My interest was in the French Doors Opening to the
pool area.  They had 3 sets of them but they were done before the code changed
so they were not impact glass.  The owners had quite a few orchids on the pool
patio.  The light seems to be ideal.  We continued our walk up around the
clubhouse, by the Martin House, and home. In the evening Josh and Jenna were
broadcasting coast to coast from Disneyland and Disneyworld.  It was only the
brother and sister without their normal collection of people.   We watched until
the Disneyworld fireworks then went to bed at 9.


February 17, 2020 Monday Printing


I managed to get a lot of the B4J reporting functions switched over to put text
on a label which in turn was sent to the printer.  I’m having trouble getting
the proportionally spaced columns lined up, even after padding the strings with
blanks.  It will be more important to alphabetize the list which is what I’ll
work on next.  This afternoon Libbie wanted to go to Lowes to get Once and Done.
I picked up some picture hooks and Weber grease pans.  I replaced the grease pan
on our BBQ grill since it has been one year since we purchased the grill.  It
was overflowing with grease.   After Lowes we went to Walmart the long way
around.  Because Tamiami is one lane due to road construction and the traffic is
pretty bad we chose to go over to Honore and then cut over on Bay Street.  We
picked up the ingredients for the Ziti Sausage casserole as well as new scatter
rugs for the doorway to the Lanai.   Around 6 PM I started cooking the ziti as
well as sauteeing the sausage and onions and peppers.  Libbie cut up the pepper
and the onions while I cut up the sausage.  I used 2 links of Regular Italian
Sausage and 2 links of hot Italian Sausage.  The meal was delicious.  I may make
this again for Thursday night when Brenda and family are here.  I had several
glasses of Cabernet and so had no desire to do anything else after dinner.


February 18, 2020 Tuesday Romeo and Juliet


On the reporting scene today I found a way to alphabetize the names, now I need
1o incorporate this into the main program.  It currently is in a test function.
Amy sent an email later today about the tickets not containing the registered
names but the purchaser instead. I fixed that in a new version.  I also added a
cumulative total of the number of conventions attended.  I sent these changes to
Amy late in the day.  After lunch today I went outside and cut up the leftover
plywood sheets into small pieces that would fit into the garbage can.   I filled
two garbage bags with the wood.   It’s pretty heavy so I will have to distribute
it across two garbage cans.  The garage floor is finally cleaned up and looks
good, back to where it was several months ago.  I went over to Lowes this
afternoon and bought 2 new keys for the KB home.  Libbie gave hers to Christa
and didn’t get it back.   I also got a quote for a new impact sliding glass
door. A Jeld-Wen slider will be $4600 and I will be the installer.   The guy
cautioned me it is heavy.  I’m ready to deal with it anyway.  I’m weighing the
cost of this door versus buying a roll down shutter.   The shutter with a motor
comes in at $3500  We left at 6 today for the Opera, Romeo and Juliet.  We had
tuna sandwiches on the way their.  Surprisingly we found parking on Palm again.
I paid at the kiosk machine which costs $1.50.  This was cheaper than the $5
parking garage and much more convenient.  We met John and his daughter Felicia
as well as his partner Tom as we were going into the doors.  We chatted briefly
then took our seats in Row D, almost the center.  The Opera was outstandingly
wonderful.. The  music was so wonderful.  It was long at 5 Acts but I enjoyed
every minute of it.  The Tenor who played Romeo was sick and did not finish the
last two Acts.  They had to call in the understudy who did a very good job in
completing the performance.  He was a little weaker sounding but sang the
beautiful duets well with the fantastic Soprano.  We got out of the theater at
11 PM but quickly went straight down Tamiami and made it home by 11:15 which was
a record.  Traffic was non-existent.


February 19, 2020 Wednesday


This was a good day.  After breakfast I dropped Libbie off at quilting then
drove over to Home Depot on Cattleman and got a quote on an impact sliding door.
It was $550 less than Lowes.  They also had a deal going for 24 month financing
on new credit cards.  I opened up a new account and bought the door on credit.
They said it should take one month.  It’s being delivered to our driveway.  I
will need to locate a hand truck.  While in bed I found out there is one at
Harbor Freight for $50.  Finding and ordering the door was a good deal.  This
afternoon after speaking with Joe across the street about needing permission
from the board for replacing windows, I sent an eMail to the board asking for
permission.  The head of the appearance permission, Elaine, responded that I
don’t need permission for an identical replacement.  This is pretty good news.
While at Home Depot I bought 6 replacement Evolvulus and planted them in the
front yard.  I’m pretty disappointed in the front yard landscaping.  The great
news is that the old plants that I thought were dead seem to be sending out
runners that have new growth on the tip. They may not really be dead. Dinner
tonight was half a pork chop and butternut squash with a few glasses of
Cabernet.


February 20, 2020, Thursday


It was off to Selby this morning.  John didn’t have much for me to do.  We
chatted about the opera we both saw.  I corrected a few folders of images and
then photographed a sample from Belize before playing with lights to try
photographing a specimen that is covered in cellophane that  is glued down.  I
managed to reduce a lot of the reflection blocking the overhead lights and
lighting from the side using the microscope light.  I left 45 minutes early and
then stopped at Yoders for fruit.  I then did a Walmart trip for the Casserole
ingredients but they were out of Parmesan so I had to go to Osprey Walmart after
I got home. I was pretty tired this afternoon so mostly laid down in bed and did
some reading and watching YouTube.  We were going to make the Ziti Casserole and
have it a few days from now but we ended up calling Brenda when we found the
girls plane had landed and offered to put the Casserole in the oven for when
they arrive at 7 PM.  They agreed and so we had dinner after everyone arrived.
We had salad, Ziti Sausage Casserole and Strawberries over pound cake for
dessert.   We also had Cabernet with dinner.  We spent a little time chatting
with Brenda after dinner.  They brought a nice gift package of fruit and nuts
and wine.  Nice!


February 21, 2020 Friday  Art It was a delightful day.  We left for Selby around
10 in Mahlen’s car.  At the garden I escorted the three girls, Hailey, Taylor
and Johanna into the conservatory wearing my white Selby badge around the pay
booth.  Libbie took Brenda and Mahlen to the front desk and explained we are
volunteers and Members.  She only charged $10 for everyone.  They told her the
kids were free. I wonder if they knew that 2 of the “kids” were 18 and the other
is 17 they would say they were free.  It was fun seeing the garden through the
girl’s eyes.  We each split a Cuban in the Cafe. Because it was chilly out we
ate inside.  The girls had Parmesan Fries which I tried.  They were delicious.
After lunch we finished our Selby visit in the Botany Art Museum and looked at
the Dali paintings.  There was a line to get into the room of paintings.  The
paintings nicely reflected what we saw in the gardens.  Many eyes, boats in
trees and eggs both whole eggs and fried eggs.  What fun.  We next went to the
Whimsy museum.  What a delight!  There were more paintings and whimsical art
stuff than ever.  The collection seems to have grown.  Upon leaving we thanked
Marietta who was sitting on a bench near the door.   On the way home we stopped
in Detweilers and picked up hamburger, buns, corn and a Key Lime Pie.  Dinner
was hamburgers, corn and Cabernet with a slice of Key Lime Pie for dessert.
The girls spent an hour in the hot tub after dinner.  Yikes, too long.  They are
a fun group of delightful young ladies.






February 22, 2020 Saturday Dali


We left for St Pete today at 9 and arrived at the Dali museum a little after
they opened at 10.  This place is amazing with many, many samples of Dali’s
artwork including some that cover the wall of a room.  Some of them are optical
illusions and others have hidden figures within.  The whole thing is really
nice.  I don’t know why we waited so long to get over there.   After the museum
we found a Chick Fil A thanks to Libbie’s phone.  The restaurant was only about
2.5 miles away and it was very crowded.  We somehow luckily found a parking spot
after a drive around once.  I had the chicken sandwich and an order of waffle
potatoes which were good but it was too much food.  We got home around 2 which
allowed me to run out to Walmart for Cream Cheese and Heavy Cream.  The girls
went over to the pool for a few hours this afternoon even though the temperature
was only 71 degrees.   At 6 PM I started making the Alfredo sauce for dinner.  I
made Shrimp Alfredo Fettuccine which we had with a salad and Cabernet.  It was
another perfect day with perfect sunny weather and a nice museum visit.


February 23, 2020 Sunday Swan Lake IT was a nice day today.  Unfortunately when
I went to print our theater tickets  my desktop would not light up.  It was
totally dead - nothing at all.  I’m thinking I may have to revisit the Power
Supply or maybe even the power supply switch.  I’ll have to debug it.  I moved
the printer to the other desktop computer and did the printing as well as a
sheet of committee members needed for the convention.  Libbie made sandwiches
for the theater for us.  We left at 12:15 and got there just before 12:30 for a
12:55 performance.  We bought a small bag of popcorn before the ballet.  The
ballet itself was over the top fantastic.  The Pas De Deux was the best we have
ever seen.  It was a memorable performance.  The precision of the White Swans
was incredible.  The music of course makes half the enjoyment of this work.  The
high skills of the dancers completes the perfect.  Before we left for the
ballet, Joe from across the street brought some beach umbrellas over for the
girls who were going to Siesta Key today.  These girls are delightful.  They are
quiet, have a great sense of humor and are talented.  When charged with doing a
logo for the convention they sat down with paint, crayons and pencils and came
out with 3 logos for the convention.   Both Brenda and Libbie are very happy
over the logo which we will use.   In the evening Brenda used a Domino’s app and
ordered 3 pizzas and a box of chicken.  The meal was great. We ate out on the
back porch and watched the alligator across the pond.  The gator la on the grass
all day and was still there at night.  While he was there a second gator showed
up in the water.  Amazing.


February 24, 2020 Monday Ringling Museum


Hailey was not feeling very well this morning.  She is red as a beet from too
much sun on Siesta Beach yesterday.  We stayed around until after lunch to go to
the Ringling.  I went out to Publix and picked up bread, turkey, cheese and
potato salad for lunch.   We ate on the back porch then  went in Mahlen’s car to
the Ringling. We did a stop at the Walmart on Bee Ridge and Beneva for GatorAde
for Hailey so she could stay hydrated.  The Ringling was crowded.  The parking
lot was packed but after driving around a while we found a spot in the far
corner from the entrance.   The museum was a little different.  All the modern
paintings that I liked in the last gallery were missing.  The docents were
useless but they’re just volunteers and not knowledgeable about the collection.
We stopped at Detweilers on the way home and picked up some Salmon and a Key
Lime Pie for dessert.   Brenda and Libbie with me standing by had a good
conversation with Kathy Spissman who is the 2021 Convention Chair.  I am going
to write the schedule and do the design reservations.  This should be a piece of
cake.  I downloaded the 1971 and 1976 magazines which had the 25th and 30th
conventions. I also installed Image Magick which converts the JP2 files to PDF.
This seems to be quite a nice program.  I used it to create the 1971 and 1976
schedules.  Dinner was grilled Salmon, Broccoli and Cabernet and Key Lime Pie
for dessert.  Everyone went to bed early because of a 5 AM wake up. I continued
to work on the 1971 and 1976 AVM issues before going to bed at 10 AM.


February 25, 2020 Tuesday


Up at 5 AM this morning.  We saw Brenda, Mahlen and the girls off to the
airport.  The ladies are such nice people.  Very quiet, appreciative and nice.
Brenda commented that they were all smart, well adjusted and level headed.  No
tattoos or piercings complemented by good grades in school.  I told them they
are welcome back anytime. The rest of the day I spent the time working on back
issues of the AVM.  I downloaded several years of Jpeg2000 files which are
difficult for any of my PCs to handle.  Also, they could not be converted to PDF
files.   I found out that I could do batch conversions with IrfanView to make
and then use IrfanView again to combine the JPG files into a PDF.  This is a
slow process even on my faster I-5 computer.  I first did the important years
such as the ones with the 25th and 30th anniversaries then randomly did others.
It is a slow process but I will continue.   I managed to repair the I-5 before
all this started. I took the machine apart trying to figure out why it would not
power up.  Accidentally I found that where the internal plug goes into the power
supply was a bad connection.  If the front panel is pressed against this plug it
is intermittent.  I hopefully rerouted the cable so it was not crushed and
reassembled the case.  It seems to be working now.  I spent the whole day
working on downloads and conversions.  In the evening after dinner we watched
some old Josh and Jenna YouTube videos while I did screen grabs of the rest of
the Dali book on Amazon.  Dinner was leftover Ziti Sausage Casserole.  I had a
slice of Key Lime pie with my dinner and a glass of Cabernet.


February 26, 2020 Wednesday AVM


I scanned the painted convention logo and emailed it to Joyce.  There is a
little difference between K Spissman and Brenda & Libbie.  She wants balloons,
fireworks and the State of Georgia.  We want none of that, just the diamond.   I
would like diamonds to  support the plants on the honors table.   I went up to
the office and continued to work on downloading and converting back issues of
the AVM.  I tried to use Jalbum to allow the PDFs to be selected but that didn’t
work very well.  I may still be able to use Jalbum to build the pages but then
have the links go to the PDF of each year.  Much still needs to be done but so
far I’m happy with the initial downloads and conversion.  It looks like a few of
the later years are missing in addition to the most recent 5 years which were
not digitized.  It started raining in the evening.  At times the rain was pretty
hard.  We decided this may be a good time to go out to Beckhams.  We had our
Polish server again.  She is a fun girl.  We discussed Pan and Panyi with her
and whether it indicated a married person or not.   For dinner we each had a
Yuengling, half rack of ribs and rice and beans.


February 27, 2020 Thursday Photo Lighting and AVM processing


I had an easy morning at Selby this morning.  I had one folder of images to
process and then moved some images around and did a backup.  The rest of the
time was spent playing with an LED light that John brought.  The light did not
cover enough area.  Aaron, the Selby photographer and a retired Surgeon, said he
had a remote transmitter and 2 remote receivers to trigger the flashes.  He will
bring them Tuesday.  I’ll  go in Tuesday to try photographing the specimens that
are encased in cellophane.  On the way home I stopped into Walmart for Milk and
for cookies for Libbie’s quilting group.  I also stopped into Harbor Freight to
look at Hand Trucks.  I will use a hand truck to move the sliding door glass to
the back of the house when it gets delivered.  I left Harbor Freight without
buying anything.  Libbie had the quilting ladies, 2 of them, in the sewing room
upstairs.  I worked in my office continuing to download and process the AVM
magazines.  I’m thinking that I could put all the covers into a Jalbum and then
use the caption to link to the PDF. I was super stuffed with food today.  I
badly need to  start a diet.  Dinner tonight was spaghetti with cheese and a
glass of Cabernet.  We unfortunately had cheese and crackers before dinner.
After dinner we relaxed and watched Josh and Jenna do their mail stream.  That
couple is really enjoyable to watch although their tastes in art and food are
very basic.  They share good simple MidWestern values.




February 28, 2020 Friday Oh Happy Day


I took the Prius to Tire Kingdom and got an oil change and tire rotation for $74
bottom line with $10 coupon and the taxes and shop fees.  Not bad.  On the way
home I stopped in Harbor Freight and bought a small tool bag and an 800 lb
capacity hand truck, both with coupons on the “Leap Day Sale” weekend.  I also
picked up a free 5x7 tarp.  Quite the success!  Upstairs I finally managed to
get the digitized AVM linked to the Caption in Jalbum.  This was not working for
the last few days when I tried it.   Happily the version that is now on LifeBits
is the winner!!!!   All covers are nicely displayed and clicking on any caption
opens the PDF for that month and year.   We then did a trip to Walmart to
transfer our prescriptions to Walmart in Osprey.  While there we picked up a
trellis and more alyssum in the garden shop and a few groceries to supplement
the leftovers in our refrigerator. Dinner tonight was leftovers.  Libbie had the
leftover Salmon and I had leftover hamburger except I burned the bun for the
hamburger.  Libbie had some leftover corn on the cob that she had stripped.  She
mixed the corn with frozen Limas making a delicious succotash. I had this with a
glass of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched Friday Night Live with Josh and
Jenna who were in Animal Kingdom tonight.


February 29, 2020 Saturday Leap Day


This morning we left at 9 AM for the Tampa Violet Show.   Traffic on I-75 was
heavy and also going slow.  We noticed it was mostly snowbirds heading North
loaded to the top with bicycles and suitcases.  Most cars had midwestern license
plates.  Once we got to the skyway the going was easier.  Naturally the Howard
Franklin was creeping and crawling into downtown Tampa.  We enjoyed the Violet
Show in the basement of a church off MLK Blvd.   We have been there before 2
years ago.  We chatted with Terry, the lady we met in Buffalo and also Mary Lou
Hardin who did most of the designs.  I inquired about the niches that we were
told she had.  She has them in her attic.  She said she will measure them for me
if I send a reminder eMail. We left the show with a box of Gesneriads and a
shopping bag full of pots.  On the way home we took an alternative route
parallel to I-275 through St Pete.  We stopped at the same Chick Fil A we
visited last week with Brenda and Mahlen.  I had a chicken sandwich with waffle
fries and a cup of water.  Once we got home I spent the rest of the afternoon on
my computer, back to digitizing movies.  Dinner was Steak with a baked potato
and a glass of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched Josh and Jenna ride Rise of
the Resistance and then visit the MAgic Kingdom.  We watched until the Happily
Ever After fireworks were over.


March 1, 2020 Sunday Rabbit


After the morning programs I hooked up the backup drive to my computer and
started backing up the last few months of data from both the Synology and the
desktop PC “Swing”.  This takes a lot of time because each of the data volumes
such as ImageDb, Shares, Movies, etc have many many files.  We took a trip to
Lowes to pick up some irrigation drippers however I was quite disappointed that
the rabbit had eaten all the Evolvulus in the front yard.  There is no need to
put down drippers since the plants are being eaten at such a rapid rate.  The
solution is to use plants that the Rabbit does not like.  I was pretty depressed
over this.  A combination of the huge drop in the market, 12% or 4,000 points
last week and the crappy state of our landscaping have taken a toll on my
outlook.  I need to stay positive - I will get through this. I unpackaged the
fan and started to study how I will mount the solar panel.  I was thinking  of
screwing it down to the top of the fan, however this gives it a high profile and
the fan is not constructed well enough to support additional weight during a
high wind load.  The alternative is to make more holes in the roof mounting the
panel separately.  Rather than make her own pizza, Libbie took it easy this
afternoon.  I ordered the standard 3 topping pizza for 7.99 from Dominos.  This
time for the toppings we had standard cheese instead of double and then ordered
double mushrooms and tomato bits for our three toppings.  Double mushrooms is 2
toppings, the tomatoes are the additional or third topping. During dinner we
watched 60 Minutes although I was hardly interested.


March 2, 2020 Monday  Garage attic fan


After the morning news show I climbed  up on the roof of the garage and started
marking the circle with a pencil on the shingles.  I went into the garage attic
earlier and drilled a hole straight up exactly between two rafters.  I used this
as the center of my circle on the roof.   I used my jigsaw to cut the 14 inch
diameter circle.  Amazingly I could feel a wave of heat escaping from the attic
as soon as the hole was opened.  I suspect that just a passive roof vent would
work just as well as a fan.  I had to make a trip to Lowes to get roof caulk and
some stainless screws.  After I installed the solar panel on the other side of
the roof ridge from the fan I went into the attic and lugged it in. The fan
started running immediately.  Later in the afternoon I peeked into the attic and
saw the fan was not running.  The light on the solar panel was mottled and it
was 5:30 which was an hour before sunset.  I continued to try backing up the
Synology onto the external drive.  This is a major effort because there are so
many files.  Beyond Compare does not seem to be able to be used as a backup for
thousands of files.  I may have to move over to “second copy” which was the
backup program I previously used on Traviata before it got infected. Dinner
tonight was Scallops with rice and Succotash.  We used the Mango Coconut Pepper
Sauce Libbie picked up in Detweilers.  Wow, was this good.   These Scallops were
leftover from Libbie’s birthday celebration 6 months ago.  I had a glass of
Cabernet with dinner but it was only one glass.  I’m trying to cut back.  I’m
very sore this evening from going up and down the ladder so many times.   After
dinner we watched a video that Jenna posted.  She went to Port Orleans and
filmed the Mardi Gras parade.  It was cute, featuring all of Disney’s past
attractions like 20,000 Leagues and Mr Toad.   The most amazing thing for me was
a place in Disney Springs that Jenna bought a Latte from.  She uploaded a Selfie
and the machine put her likeness in the foam topping of the drink.  This was
amazing to me and the price didn’t seem too bad at $5.


March 3, 2020 Tuesday Backups and software


Libbie went to Selby this morning while I continued to struggle with baking up
my files to the external drive.  There are so many files that this is very
difficult.   When BeyondCompare would not do the job I downloaded a trial
version of Vice Versa which is the software I use at Selby.  It reports the
number of files it has read.  I stopped it after half a million files.  I need
to break up the Shares drive into an archive drive so I started to move little
used files to a new directory called “Rchive” which I assigned drive letter R
to.  I also tried creating a First Class update.  None of the files were on my
PC.  I had to setup B4A and the Android SDK then install First Class and update
it to where I left off with the last update.  I still have not created an update
after a whole day of trying. Libbie and I went out to get groceries and our
prescriptions from Walmart.  We had to go there via Honore because Tamiami is
down to one  lane and the traffic is backed up for miles Southbound. For dinner
I made Shrimp Scampi from a Cooking Light Recipe that came from Southern Living.
It was nothing special.  I would rate it a 3 out of 5 stars.  I heard from Amy
today.  She is looking for a way to report exhibitors who signed up.  That
feature is not included yet.  I’ll work on that in the morning.


March 4, 2020 Wednesday  Bougainvillea


I worked on the avreg app to add a report for exhibitors.  It has two modes,
horticulture exhibitors and design exhibitors.  I finished this up and emailed
it to Amy.  I also removed a CD from the website for her.  The Entries program
is not available on CD anymore. I wanted to use my 15% off coupon at Home Depot
so we took a trip there after lunch.  I picked up 2 Bouganveillas, a 6 pack of
Kalanchoes and a  6 pack of Vincas.  On the way home we stopped by Troy Tropic
and were quite surprised.  This is a nice garden center with quite a few
plants.  Libbie spent $50 on potting soil and rooting hormone. I’m still working
on reorganizing files on the Synology and the external drive.  It took 20 hours
to move the Art directory.  I still need to move a few other directories.  The
goal is to have less files on the Shares drive to make backups of frequently
used files easier.  Less frequently used files will go in the “Rchive”
directory.   Dinner was reheated Shrimp Scampi from yesterday.  I had a few
glasses of Cabernet with this meal.  It was better than last night.  After
dinner we watched Josh and Jenna at the opening of the Epcot Flower and Garden
festival.  The flowers and topiaries are beautiful.  Earlier today they streamed
the grand opening of Mickey and Minnies Runaway Train ride.  This was a
fantastic ride.  It starts with a cartoon where the train driven by Goofy
explodes.  A big hole appears on the screen with smoke coming out of it.  The
guests then enter the hole and get on the ride which  puts the guests into the
cartoon.   At the end of the ride they exit through the hole in the screen that
says “The End”.  Very cool.


March 5, 2020 Thursday  Elixir


Went to Selby this morning and started playing with the lighting to photograph
specimens wrapped in cellophane without getting reflections in the image.  After
an hour of experimenting with lighting and positioning I finally found a way to
acceptably light the entire specimen.  The rest of the morning was spent trying
to improve the evenness of the lighting.  At one point there was a bad shadow
coming from the color box and the ruler.  With John's help we removed the velcro
from the back of the two and tried it.  The shadow was gone so I photographed
the entire folder again.   There is another problem in that the flashes are
acting like spotlights with rapid light falloff.  The way to solve this is to
back the speed flashes away from the specimen which will spread the light out
further.  Libbie stopped into the gift shop on her way home and bought a $54
orchid and some pot clips.  We get a 20% discount as volunteers so it was better
than that.  On the way home we made the usual stop at Yoders for fruit then I
had to stop at Costco for gas because we were low and planning to go to the
Opera tonight.   When I got home I was really tired and fell asleep in the
living room chair after a lunch of a fruit bowl.  We left at 6:15 for the Opera.
It was easy sailing to the Opera house.  We were sitting in the Opera House
courtyard at 6:52 after finding street parking on Palm.  The meter cost 1.75
which is a better deal than the $5 event charge in the Parking Garage plus
street parking is easier to exit than the garage.  The only drawback is a 3
block walk.  The Opera was spectacular.  Sarasota knows how to put on an
enjoyable performance.  Elixir is one of their best. We had our usual seats in
Row D in the center.   This Opera is one for the chorus to sing.  We got out at
10:15 PM.   Dinner tonight was tuna sandwiches in the car on the way to the
Opera.


March 6, 2020 Friday Apprentices


We decided to stay inside this morning to keep clean because of the noon Opera
performance.  I finally managed to reorganize the files on my Synology and the
external drive.  I found that logging directly into the Synology and moving
files from drive to drive was incredibly fast instead of moving them over the
network.  It has been a week long process of trying to organize and backup
files.  We left for the Opera at 11 and arrived before the doors opened at
11:30.  I parked on Level 2 of the parking garage behind the Opera House.  There
was a long line at the door but we got seats in the second row.  The first row
had 17 people from Road Scholar.   The concert of course was excellent.
Sarasota has a strong group of very talented apprentices.  The music choices
were perfect but of course the old familiar favorites were the best.  The duet
from Traviata and the trio from Butterfly stand out.  After the concert we
walked down Main Street and had lunch at our old favorite, Red Classico.  We
ordered 2 Stella drafts.  Unfortunately as Libbie turned to see some Segways go
by she tipped the table and dumped her beer down her front.   They comped a new
beer and gave her several towels to help dry off.  Despite the accident we both
had a nice time sitting outdoors in the sun although there occasionally was a
chilly wind.  On the way out we met one of the tenors sitting at a table with
his family.  There was a baby there who was in the Opera house.  He identified
her as his niece.   In the parking garage the ticket machine was missing.  This
machine was smashed in an accident we saw on TV a few weeks ago where someone
ran into it.  We paid at the exit gate.  A stop at Detweilers on the way home
stocked our freezer.  We had hamburger for dinner with fresh corn on the cob.
Besides the hamburger, we also picked up Salmon and steaks as well.  We also
stopped on the way out and each had an ice cream cone.  We both ordered a single
scoop Gator Tracks on a waffle cone.  The gator ice cream was a vanilla base
with chocolate chips and peanut butter cups in it.  When we got home the eBay
order with Turbotax was in the mailbox.  It truly was a sealed package.  I was
suspicious because of the low price.   After dinner we watched Josh and Jenna at
Port Orleans and a performance of Yeehaw Bob.  This guy is a talent on the piano
with an amazing ability to bring the audience into the performance.  He had Josh
running around like a madman and Jenna leading a Conga line around the room with
the stream.  A lot of fun!


March 7, 2020 Saturday Planting


It was cold this morning so I spent the time finishing up the moving around of
files and backing them up to the external drive.  After lunch I went outside and
tried chopping a little at the Palmetto then I planted all the Kalanchoes and
the Vincas.   Just before dinner I went out to get some mulch for the newly
planted flowers in the back as well as around the Bougainvillea that I planted
several days ago.  Great news was that when I went to Lowes I found they had
Epidendrum Orchids.  I have been searching for them for several weeks.  I was
even planning to make a trip East of here to Crowleys to look for the outdoor
Orchids.   The label said partial shade with up to 6 hours of sun so I only
bought 2 until I researched them.   At home some Google searches showed that
they can take full sun.  I’m not sure if I need a third one but a pot of them
may be attractive. Dinner tonight was Salmon with rice and Broccoli and a glass
of Cabernet.  A piece of pound cake for dessert completed the meal.  After
dinner we watched Toy Story 4.  It was a delightful movie that captured my
attention and was eart warming as Woody tried to get Forky back to his child
Bonnie.  We adjusted our bedside clocks just before bedtime and set them to
Daylight Savings Time which starts tomorrow morning at 2 AM.


March 8, 2020 Sunday Cold Day


I didn’t do much today.  It was chilly in the morning so I stayed indoors and
did some reading.  I did a trip to Walmart after lunch to mostly get Milk for my
cereal and also eggs and cheese for Libbie.  I hooked up the Harmony Hub but am
very disappointed because all this thing does is turn the TV on and off.  I’m
really looking for a WiFi to IR gateway for a phone or Node-Red app.  I used the
new Pi foundation flasher to install Raspbian on an SD card for the former WeeWx
Pi.  I also installed the Scargill script on this thing.  In the process I found
out that the Pi I use for irrigation and landscape lighting was out of memory on
the root partition.  I ran some cleanup functions to free 1 Gig of memory.
Ultimately I need to put this thing on an SSD drive.   Later in the afternoon I
ducked outside for about an  hour and spread the mulch around the new plants in
the backyard.  I will need to bury a water line to this spot.  In preparation
for the water line I tried my pick on some of the sod.  It looks like it easily
lifts.  Libbie made  crust from scratch for dinner.  We have a problem with the
outlet next to the breadmaker.  The plug falls out of the outlet.  I will need
to get a box of outlets and start replacing some of the outlets around here.
Dinner was homemade pizza with a glass of Cabernet.


March 9, 2020 Monday Financial Meltdown


Corona Virus continues to dominate the news. The Market had it’s worst day ever,
down over 2,000.  I finished up the transfer of files to the external hard drive
and put it away in the closet. A trip to Lowes for plumbing and irrigation parts
resulted in finding another Epidendrum.   I ended up planting the three
Epidendrums in a spot held by a Bromeliad in the front yard.  I was planning to
bury the PVC pipes I bought in the backyard to get water to the plants around
the bird feeder but I was too tired to do this.   On the computer  I started
working again on the First Class update. There was a revelation in that the last
update was July 2019.  This was something I was not aware of.  I assumed the
last update was May, 2019.  There is still much work to do.   Dinner tonight was
spaghetti with cheese and a glass of Cabernet.


March 10, 2020 Tuesday Water Filter


I went to Selby this morning and did photography of a few folders of specimens.
On the way home we stopped at Yoders for our veggies including Guac and some
grapefruit.   The Water filter housing and the carbon block filter arrived this
afternoon.  The Chinese vac from Banggood also arrived.  Libbie didn’t think it
had much suction.  I agree but it seems to do the job.  I went around and
vacuumed bugs from the crown along the ceiling.  I had to run out to Lowes for a
bag of concrete anchors to hang the water filter housing.  I located a spot
above the water heater near the shutoff for the new outdoor water line.  I will
tap this waterline to supply the filter and then run the output of the filter to
the wash tub cold water line.   I was very tired this afternoon because of the
Selby photography.  While there I was on my feet all the time running back and
forth between the specimens and the computer that controlled the camera.  This
was good for me but really wore me down.  At home once I had the filter mounted
I called it a day.  Dinner tonight was hamburgers with onion, tomato and ketchup
plus corn on the cob.  I had a few glasses of Cabernet with the meal.  We had
strawberries with whipped cream for dessert.  These were the strawberries from
Yoders today.   My other Amazon purchase also arrived.  I bought a package of
adapters to go from Micro USB to USB-C.  This morning I also ordered an SSD
drive.  I will use this on the Pi in this house that is used to control the
landscape lighting and the watering.  I watched a few tutorials on how to clone
an existing installation.  I don’t want to mess up the installation of the
running Pi on Knightsbridge. March 11, 2020 Wednesday Outdoor Water


Today I set up the fittings to hook up the Water Filter and made a list of what
I still needed.  Libbie announced that she wanted to use the garage bench where
I laid everything out so I put everything back in the box and deferred that
project.  Instead I dug a trench from the Lanai to the bird feeder and buried a
new waterline.   I hooked up misters to the line and tested it all in the
afternoon.  I cut the test short because it was windy and the water mist was
drifting away from the flowers I was trying to water.   Libbie made the Fajita
Marinade for the Flank steak and used it on the steak we had in the freezer.
Dinner tonight was peppers, onions and flank steak on Tortillas.  It was very
tasty.  Our Salsa has run out.  I need to get to Costco for Salsa as well as
cereal, wine and coffee.  We had dinner with Cabernet then settled in to watch
Jenna’s visit to the Epcot Flower and Garden show.  My new Google Pixel 3A and
the Sim card arrived today.  I spent quite a bit of time configuring all the
apps.  The apps transferred over OK but they each needed to have user and
passwords added.   This was difficult for some of them since I had no record of
the password for example on the Envera gate access app.  I had to request a new
password and added it to the written list on Google Docs.  I wish I had written
more of them down this way.


March 12, 2020 Thursday


I went outside and cut up the palm branches that have been sitting next to the
house.  I didn’t have to go to Selby this morning so i used the time to take
care of jobs that have been waiting.  The palm branches then went out into the
street.  I need CPVC glue and Libbie took the car so I couldn’t work on the
water filter this morning.   Instead I spent some time working on the updates
for First Class.  This involved getting B4A bridge working on the new Pixel 3A
phone.  By the time Libbie came home a little after noon I had completed the
updates for September and November.  WooHoo!  This is going forward.   I did a
trip to Lowes and picked up the glue and a few more fittings for the water
filter and then got the filter working after lunch.  This involved laying down
on the garage floor under the laundry tub.  Once it was all done I waited a bit
and then pressurized the lines.  There were no leaks.  Hooray.  Now I need to
install the pipe clamps into the wall to support the pipes better.  I called it
a day. Dinner tonight was the Flank steak Fajitas again using the rest of the
Onions and Peppers.  This stuff is really flavorful.  We had the Fajita Steak
with peppers and  onions on Tortillas and a few glasses of Cabernet.


March 13, 2020 Friday Opera I finished  up the updates for First Class while
waiting to go to the Opera.  Now I need to get these updates into the app and
upload it.  The data and photos are currently on the website ready for download.
We left for the Opera at 11 AM.  It turned out this was the last performance of
the year, Sarasota Opera has canceled the rest of the season.  This was an
understudies concert.  We had mini scenes with props for each opera.  The
Sarasota cast is strong.  Each of the Operas was fantastic.  We had seats in the
front row because there were only 6 reserved seats for Road Scholar.  We chatted
with a Road Scholar attendee.  He was from the Hearst Castle area of Calif and
has done the Sarasota Road Scholar 4 years in a row.  After a thoroughly
enjoyable performance we went to our standard restaurant, Red Classico. I
ordered the French Dip which was shaved beef on a baguette with onions and au
jus.  It was delicious and came with Onion Rings, my favorite.  The Onion Rings
were perfectly fried.  I had this with a Yuengling in a frosted glass.  It was a
beautiful afternoon in the sun out on the sidewalk. When I got home I had a
minor flood in the garage to deal with.  The shutoff for the laundry tub that I
disconnected yesterday was leaking. It put a small stream of water down from the
tub to the garage door.  I disassembled the faucet and discovered it was a
compression fitting.  I tightened everything down as best as I could using two
wrenches.  This seemed to stop the leak.  Tomorrow I will put down the pipe
straps to fasten the pipes to the wall. We were not too hungry by dinner time so
we had cheese, crackers and soup for dinner with a glass of Cabernet.  We
watched Josh and Jenna’s live stream on the last weekend that Disney will be
open.  Disneyworld announced they will close Monday for 2 weeks.


March 14, 2020 Saturday Pi Day


I had a number of successes today.  I finished the First Class updates and put
them on the website.   This was a long ongoing process and it finally concluded
today.  I also backed up some of the monthly versions to the Shares drive.
There are some old archives on there from 2017 that need to be purged.   My next
achievement was the pipe straps on the new carbon filter in the garage.  I
fastened the pipes to the walls using wall anchors and pipe straps.   We did a
quick trip to Lowes to get more drippers and a roll of dripper tubing.  Libbie
also picked up a tray of New Guinea Impatiens from the clearance racks.  This
will replace the Mums among other things.   Libbie had fertilized a lot of her
Orchids and was working towards getting them all hung on the back porch rack.  I
used the roll of drip tubing and hooked up around 30 or so new drippers on the
existing water line.   This involved Libbie using her hair dryer to straighten
the coiled tubing so it would hang freely into the flower pots.    After this
was all done I did a quick trip to Publix to get Swiss cheese.  While there I
noticed pineapple was on sale for $2.99 and Key Lime Pies were $3.14 in honor of
Pi day.  I bought the pineapple and the pie.  I used my new phone to post a
picture of the pie on facebook.   Dinner tonight was Salmon with Rice and
Broccoli along with a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched the
outstanding movie “Stargirl” on Disney Plus.  It was quite good and
heartwarming, just what we expected from Disney.


March 15, 2020 Sunday


I did the morning shows which I was barely interested in.  After this I spent
some time on the office computer backing up the files associated with the First
Class  updates.  I’m glad this is behind me.  I spent quite a bit  of time today
trying to boot a Pi-3 from a USB drive.  I finally found out the secret was to
edit config.txt with the usb boot line added and then reboot with this modified
SD card.  From here subsequent boots will be from the USB.  My first attempt
booted from a USB Flash. When this worked I then tried booting from the new SSD
drive I purchased on Ebay.  This was successful also.  I next did the modified
SD boot thing on the house controller Pi.  I rebooted with this thing then put
the SSD drive into the USB drive and ran rpi-clone from a terminal window.  My
last step was to remove SD card and reboot with just the SSD.  It worked!
Lastly I copied the database from the USB Flash drive to the SSD drive and
modified the references to the SQLite database to access the db on the SSD
instead of the USB Flash.  This surprisingly worked well. We took a bike ride
over to Clubside to see the roof work.  They are replacing the roof and filled
the parking lot with dumpsters.  I was quite surprised to see that Dave’s place
downstairs is for sale.  He spent some major money last year replacing tiles and
opening up  the kitchen.  Wow, I wonder what happened?   Libbie got a flat tire
over at the Condo.  I drove home on my bike and brought the car back to rescue
her.  After I found out that it was the valve stem that was leaking I ran out to
Walmart to get a tire valve tool.  Unfortunately I discovered that the issue was
a broken tire stem valve.  I’m guessing that the bicycle has tubeless tires
because normally the valve stem is hooked to the tube.   I’ll take it back to
Mike at the Pedego dealer.   Libbie made her fantastic pizza for dinner which we
had with a glass of wine.  While eating the Pizza we watched Josh and Jenna
streaming live from the Magic Kingdom for the last time for a while.  The Parks
close tomorrow for at least 2 weeks and probably much longer.


March 16, 2020 Monday Not Great Day


I hung the cabinet in my office and don’t like it.  It’s not deep enough to hold
my printer paper or the folders.  There is a linen cabinet on clearance for $70
in Lowes that I am interested in.  I may swap the linen cabinet for the wall
cabinet I just installed.  I was depressed much of today.  The stock market went
down another 3,000 today with no end in sight.  We got a flurry of eMails from
Selby’s CEO, volunteer coordinator Vera and Bruce Holst of Botany.  After the
dust settled they closed the garden and told all volunteers to stay away.  This
gives us a lot more time to do stuff around here.  It also may be a good time to
go to NC to pack up the house except we have windows on order from Sarasota
Glass and I have a door on order from Home Depot. For dinner tonight we went out
to Beckhams Pub where I ordered the Fish and Chips with a glass of Yuengling.
The fish came with fries and garden  peas.  When we got home I installed the Met
Streaming app on my new phone and cast the screen to our TV.  The Met is
streaming free operas all week.  We watched Carmen which I was mildly interested
in.  I was falling asleep throughout the opera. We finally went to bed before
the last act.


March 17, 2020 Tuesday bicycle


It’s a pretty slow day.  Everything is shutting down.  We did  a grocery
shopping trip to Walmart  for cabbage and tomato sauce to make Golumpki tonight.
I bought organic crushed tomatoes because that’s all they had.  While we were in
Walmart we got a call from Mike at the bicycle store that our bike was ready.
We took our groceries home and went to the bike shop.  The bill was 60 for a new
tube and 60 for a “tuneup” which is supposed to be lubrication and adjusting
brakes and shifters.  I’m not sure how worthwhile it was but we got the bike
back repaired.   On the way back we bought grapefruit and eggs in Sprouts
because Walmart was out of eggs.  They were cage free brown eggs for $2.99 which
was a little steep but in this environment nothing is normal.  Libbie and I went
to Lowes to look at a clearance laundry cabinet but it was gone, probably sold.
This cabinet was deeper so it would be better because the new cabinet I put up
is only 11 ¼ inches deep which is not deep enough. Libbie cleaned the upstairs
today and discovered we still had Joe and Angela's air mattress.  We both worked
at getting the air out of it and returned it to Joe.   The new remote control
arrived today.  This one works perfectly.  The other replacement I ordered must
have been defective.  We made Golumpki together for dinner.  Libbie chopped and
sauteed the onion while I added the vinegar and sugar which I don’t think added
any yummy flavor.  We could taste the vinegar in the mixture.  The meal was
delicious.  We had the Golumpki with a glass of Cabernet.   After dinner we
watched Josh’s tour of the new paint on Cinderella’s castle and also a YouTube
of a new NYC attraction called the Edge as well as the series of connected
stairways called “The Vessel”.  Then it was time for La Boheme streamed on the
Met Opera Player.  Once again I cast the performance from my new Pixel 3a phone.
I really like this phone. IT is responsive.   Unfortunately when I tried to
install First Class for Android on the device I found that my desktop upstairs
was not set up to compile the program.  Quite  a few libraries were missing.  I
started searching for the libraries online.  Some of them have been abandoned by
their developer and are hard to find.  No more updates will be available for
those libraries in the future.


March 18, 2020 Wednesday Corona Worries


Another day where more and more things are being shutdown because of the virus.
I worked outside this morning trimming the tree along the property boundary.
Dean came over and helped with the power cord.  The job went easily.  I used the
saw without the pole to cut up the fronds and put the thicker pieces inside the
garbage can while Libbie bundled the lighter pieces and put them out at the
curb.   Next I added the 90 degree waterer at the end of the Alyssum row since
that wasn’t getting any water.  I also need one of the 90 degree waterers along
the Kalanchoes but lack another mister stake.  Tomorrow I will pick up more
stakes as well as the materials to run a water line to the Bougainvillea in
front of the AC units.  After lunch Libbie and I went for a bike ride inside the
development.  We checked out the roof work on the condo.  The project has moved
the cranes towards the North roof.  In the meantime we saw workers replacing
sheets of plywood.  I confirmed we did see a sale sign on Dave’s apartment,
2106.  His wife was the ultimate bitch who chewed me out for being irresponsible
when I had nothing to do with the water leak.   Maybe they’re getting divorced?
I don’t know how anyone could live with her.   For both lunch and dinner we
finished the Golumpki.  With the dinner meal I had a glass of wine.  After
dinner we watched Trovatore streamed from the Met.  Our Chromecast dropped the
sound twice.  I rebooted it but it was time for bed so we stopped for the night.


March 19, 2020 Thursday Spring Starts


Spring arrives tonight.  The news is still as depressing as ever.  Everything is
closed and we’re mostly confined to around the house.  I did go out to Lowes
this morning to get irrigation pipe and risers for misters.  The store was
pretty dead as it should be in these CoronaVirus times.  I ran the irrigation
pipe along the side of the house to the Bougainvillea.  They will now be watered
along with everything else in the yard.   After lunch today we got onto our
bicycles and rode around the neighborhood. It was a nice afternoon to be doing
this, I’m glad Libbie’s bike is fixed and we can now enjoy the outdoors. In the
evening we made the Shrimp Pad Thai.  I sauteed the shrimp and mixed the sauce
while Libbie cooked the noodles.  I then combined it all into a pan and cooked
it for 4 minutes.  We had the Pad Thai with some leftover Chardonnay from a meal
last week that needed a cup of white wine.  In the afternoon we watched the
ending of Trovatore with Netrebko and Hvorostovsky.  What a tribute to him in
one  of his last performances before he died.   After dinner it was time for
today's HD encore performance which was Traviata.  The music is captivating.  IT
featured Diana Damereau and Juan Diego Flores.  We didn’t make it to watch the
last act, instead we chose to go to bed.


March 20, 2020 Friday No Gas


I finally got the First Class program to compile after making a few more
adjustments including switching the HTTP library because the old library needed
an older version  of Android.  I didn’t have my phone with me so I didn't load
it onto the device.  I need to do that and test the subscription to see if the
update goes as far as March 2020.   I started making the cables and sketched out
a design to have the garage lighting come on when the door is activated.  I
settled on a scheme where the garage door lights will send out MQTT packets when
they are on or off.  The LED lighting is currently switch controlled.  I’ll
detect when the switch is on or off and send the corresponding MQTT packet.  I
ordered a power relay from Amazon.  I’ll hook up an ESP8266 to the relay to
receive the MQTT packets.  Libbie and I finished watching Traviata this
afternoon then went out and took a neighborhood walk.  I used my cell phone and
took pictures of the driveway on Westbourne with the flower bed.  I’m a little
disappointed in the lack of detail in the picture. I noticed the lens is wide
open all the time at f1.8 which  is not a good thing.  It has no f stop
adjustments and seems to run wide open all the time.  We were going to have
steak and green beans for dinner but we left the gas on last time and so the
tank was empty.  We decided to have the leftover Pad Thai with a glass of wine
instead.  While having dinner in the living room we watched Josh and Jenna with
Mom and Dad do a virtual Park visit from home.  They showed some old rides with
some of the material coming from old VHS tapes.  It was fun.  We chose not to
watch the opera tonight which was Fille Du Regiment with Nataly Dessay.  We’ll
watch it tomorrow.


March 21, 2020 Saturday  Lackadaisical


This was a mostly mopey day.  I went to Lowes after breakfast and exchanged our
empty propane cylinder.  I also shopped for ¾ x ¾ mouldings to fir out my office
cabinet.  I came up short handed.  I paid for the propane and left.   I managed
to add the one 90 degree mister in the backyard for the flowerbed.  On the same
day I went into the front yard and turned the  water on using my cell phone.
While the water ran I unclogged a few more nozzles at the Bromeliads.  I’m still
not sure why this water line was so plugged up.  This was the line that was run
over last summer and broken so I’m thinking that mud and silt seeped into the
pipe. Today was mostly a lackadaisical day, I didn’t feel like doing much.
Libbie had the same emotional state.  Neither one of us were motivated to do
anything. I ran out to Walmart and restocked our soup and picked up a baked
potato and sour cream to go along with dinner.  Dinner tonight was steak, baked
potato with sour cream and green beans.  We had cheese and crackers earlier so I
was not very interested in finishing dinner.  We had Cabernet with dinner.
After dinner I fell asleep during Lucia being streamed from the Met.  I wanted
to watch it but could not stay awake after being satiated with food and wine.


March 22, 2020 Sunday  Not Much


The Sunday morning programs were mostly a rehash of the Corona Virus so I was
mildly interested.  I’m still thinking of selling half of our portfolio to
protect it.  Monday, tomorrow,  looks to be another down day. I spent a lot of
the day trying to get some version of Calibre running on the Synology. I did
manage to get both COPS and BBS running on the device.  The issue for me is the
display is not as good as Calibre and further the database has to be loaded from
a Calibre installation.  Both programs are only for display of the database, not
for maintaining it.  I probably could use the Pi from the home controller to run
Calibre especially now that the entire thing is running on a 240 Gb SSD.  There
should be enough room for both Calibre and the Home Controller. Libbie made her
delicious pizza from scratch today.  I did not have any wine with the yummy
pizza.  Josh and Jenna had a coast to coast live stream tonight which we watched
until about 9 PM.  I fell right to sleep.


March 23, 2020 Monday Digitizing VHS Tapes


I set up the VCR, hooking the output to the second HDMI computer monitor.
Fortunately I had a composite to HDMI converter box.  Once this was working I
inserted the HDMI recorder into the middle of the HDMI cable stream.  The
recorder is a nice simple little box that will record anything on the HDMI while
still outputting it to the HDMI monitor.  The box is incredibly simple with an
on/off push button and a record button which also serves as a 1080p/720p
selector.  I recorded in 1080p because I didn;t know how the button worked.
Holding it down for 5 seconds switches to 720P.  Since my source material was
VHS which is not great to begin with I should have used 720P for a smaller
movie.  My box has a 32 Gb USB drive plugged in.  I located the 50th Anniversary
tape from 1991 in Hershey, PA and digitized iit, all one hours worth of video.
I used Premiere Elements to try editing.  I was somewhat successful but need a
good tutorial about how to cut out segments.  I managed but still am not sure
how this is supposed to work. Once this was edited in Premiere I did an export
to MP4 and then uploaded it to YouTube.  I also put it on the Plex Server.  I
sent the YouTube link around to the family. This was successful enough that I
picked a second VHS tape to be the next digitized tape.  I was also delighted
with the design of VHS back 20 years ago.  The cartridges just drop into the
player and you can press a button to go back or forward.  After dealing with 8
MM film with the threading, sprockets, frame alignment, film breaks and having
to reverse reels to rewind, VHS is a dream.  Quality of course is terrible.
Digital has recalibrated our expectations. I was wanting some of Libbie’s old
chicken BBQ sauce.  She told me her recipe was the same as the BBQ ribs recipe
she makes so I found the recipe and made the sauce on the stovetop.  In place of
a dash of Cayenne I put in a dash of Franks Hot Sauce.   Libbie wasn’t happy
when I told her this but she got over it.  Dinner was the BBQ chicken done on
the grill.  The chicken was basted with the homemade sauce and accompanied by
Lima Beans with corn.  We had a few glasses of Cabernet with dinner.


March 24, 2020 Tuesday Tree trim


This morning I dragged the ladder out of the garage and leaned it on the Queen
Palm on the West side of our home. It took many trips up and down the ladder and
moving the ladder around the tree.  I managed to take down one frond which was
30 feet long and also trim up a lot of the sheaths.  The tree looks a lot
better.  I still want to take down more of the drooping fronds but I was wiped
out by what I had done plus I was sweaty and dirty.  I managed to use the lounge
chair on the lanai for one of the first times and just sacked out for a while
recovering. The workout is good for me.  We heard from both Mary and Heather
regarding the 50th anniversary video. They both loved it.  Mary will share it
with her family while Heather Chromecasted it to their big TV and had Family
Movie night.    I digitized a 1983 VHS tape of various family scenes.  This file
is twice as large as the 50th anniversary one.  I watched a Youtube tutorial
about editing with Adobe Premiere.  I’ll be using this knowledge to edit the
newest digitized movies. For dinner tonight Libbie cooked the leftover steak on
the stove top along with peppers and onions in a delicious medley.  As a side we
had a can of baked beans.  Yummy.   We had the bottle of Chianti that Brenda and
Mahle brought for us last month.  After dinner I watched the beginning of the
Ring Cycle which was Rheingold.  The singing and Music was fantastic.  I hated
“the machine”.  I watched it up until the descending into the Nibelungen scene.


March 25, 2020 Wednesday 48 years


I watched a Grafana tutorial by the Swiss guy, “the guy with the Swiss accent”.
This of course is the moniker he starts every YouTube with.  The Grafana
tutorial went way too fast.  I had to watch again and keeping stopping it and
backing up a few seconds.  I now understand the influxdb which is a time series
database which means it has a limited number of data points instead of the
thousands of points contained in a SQL database.   He has a sample SD  image for
a Pi that I downloaded.  He claims it would fit on an 8 Gb card but I tried the
8 Gb and the etcher program complained the card was too small.  I found a 16 Gb
card and burned his tutorial image which worked perfectly.  Later in the day
when I tried the image I was able to use his node-red flow and put data into the
influxdb database.  He provided an inject button to create random data.  This
will allow me to play with my real data and put it into an influxdb for
graphing.  I need to work some more on this.  I’m looking forward to it! This
morning at 10 AM when the store opened I went to Costco to get groceries.   It
was different.  They had a single file line going into the store where they gave
me a sprayed down shopping cart.   I kept my 6 foot social distance from most
people and was surprised at the number of customers wearing masks and gloves.  I
guess that’s a good thing.  The checkout lines were assigned by a guy and each
line had a painted line on the floor with 6 foot marks.  The cashiers were each
behind a plexiglass shield.  They scanned my card with a laser so they did not
have to touch it.  I picked up milk, eggs, tomato sauce, a brick of cheddar
cheese and wine. After lunch I thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion to Das
Rheingold.  The ending is not very satisfying.  The singing and music is
fantastic but I hate “the machine”.  Instead of crossing a rainbow bridge the
machine lights up with a rainbow.  This is crap! I created my traditional
anniversary card with a poem and pictures then went out again to pick it up at
Walgreens.  I didn’t like making another trip out into the public but I tried to
be careful.  I gave Libbie the card with a glass of wine before dinner.  For
dinner she mostly prepared a Lasagna.  I had a small hand in stirring the
mixture and putting down the layers.  The Lasagna was mostly Libbie made.  She
added cinnamon to the Ricotta which I could taste.  I would rather not have it
in there but it was good enough for a half of a second serving.  We had this
with a few glasses of wine.  Happy 48, wow!  How did this happen so seemingly
quickly?


March 26, 2020 Thursday Computer


I spent the whole day on the computer in my office learning grafana and influx.
It was great to have the day to do this.  I have learned so much trying to get
my Davis weather station into influxdb.  I’m going to have to accumulate MQTT
packets and write them all at once to a timestamp in influxdb. For dinner
tonight we had leftover Lasagna which was very good.  We have quite a bit of
Lasagna leftover.  We had the Lasagna with a glass of Cabernet.  After dinner we
sat on the Lanai sipping our wine then came in and looked at the offerings on
Disney Plus.  WE ended  up watching the Original Star Wars which is confusingly
named episode 4.  As could be expected it was outstanding.


March 27, 2020 Friday Grafana redux


I continued working on aggregating measurements from the Davis weather station.
It was a struggle since I was not completely sure on the syntax for aggregating
individual measurements from the Davis.  By the end of the day after dinner I
finally had the MQTT messages combined into a single message. We had a glass of
wine at sunset then we went outside and took a walk around Knightsbridge.  We
met a lot of the neighbors who were also out walking.  We need to do this more
often.  For dinner tonight we once again had the leftover Lasagna along with
another glass of Cabernet.  Dale and Jenna did the Livestream tonight and using
their app they also had two guys from the UK patched in.  It was fun watching
the chat.  Josh’s wife had surgery so he couldn’t be there. I stayed up past 9
and enjoyed some of the Disney Trivia.


March 28, 2020 Saturday  Grafana


Today I worked on putting the aggregated MQTT weather stream into influxdb and
plotting it on Grafana.  I pretty much have the concept down of Grafana.  I now
have plots of all the weather measurements.  This is quite a program.  It is
responsive and works quite well.  My next step is efficiency in parsing the MQTT
packets.  I also started looking at the possibility of a virtual Violet Show
using the Jalbum software. Libbie and I went out to Yoders after lunch to get
fruit and other produce.  We ended up stopping into Walmart on the way back to
pick up salad fixings as well as cheese for pizza on Sunday.  The Walmart trip
was unplanned. Dinner tonight was hamburgers with fresh corn on the cob along
with a few glasses of Cabernet After dinner we watched the second movie of the
Star Wars saga.  This one is called Episode 5.  I fell asleep during the Movie.
Libbie decided it was time for bed and so turned it off.


March 29, 2020 Sunday Grafana on scargill


I worked out the simplification of my MQTT processing by using a string function
that parsed out the ending of the MQTT topic and successfully used this on my
testing Pi Node-Red.  Next step was to move this over to scargill which is my
main Pi running on an SSD.  This thing runs all the house automation.  Moving it
was very easy, just a copy and paste over to the scargill node-red installation.
Next step was to create an influxdb database and then use the grafana export and
import to the scargill grafana dashboard.  Surprisingly this worked without a
hitch! Earlier today I had a caterpillar or something munching on the new leaves
on the Bougainvillea.  I used Libbie’s bug spray and sprayed the bush down.
Libbie made her nice pizza for dinner which we had with a glass of Cabernet.
This afternoon we finished watching the Star Wars saga Episode 5 which was the
second star wars movie.


March 30, 2020 Monday 8 MM


I spent the day doing video editing. I started by splitting up the large VHS
tape into subject based clips.  This tape has Tom, Lib and Joe in 1983.  It was
a tape that I sent to my Dad so it has a tour of the TRS80 music, our outdoor
gardens and then Easter egg coloring.   I uploaded all of it to our Plex Server.
I then took some older 8 mm films that were previously digitized and processed
them through Adobe Premiere.  Two of them, the July 4th, 1961 Dunellen parade
and a 1956 Memorial Day parade, were uploaded to YouTube.  I shared them with
Vicki and Arlene.   I also uploaded Frank & Hedy’s Wedding to YouTube but Sue
Glembocki cautioned me that Frank doesn’t want anything to do with his name on
the Internet. The Christening at the end is of Joan’s late daughter Linda Lee.
I also heard from John Salventi today.  He wanted to know how he could reduce
the size of the images so people could download them.  I told him Irfanview
could do the job and gave him some brief instructions on using it to bulk resize
images. Libbie and I watched some of the Family Video on Plex on the big TV.
Dinner was Spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese.  We had a glass of Cabernet
with the Spaghetti.  After dinner we watched the third of the Star Wars series.
Libbie had seen this with Joe and it featured the Ewoks.  She made an Ewok
Halloween Costume for him that year.  I never saw the movie so it made a lot of
things clear to me.  It has been a great series.  I’ll be sad when it’s over.
March 31, 2020 Tuesday Image Galleries

I ran out to Walmart this morning for supplies for our dinner tonight plus
birdseed and hand cleaner.  Hand cleaner is still not in plentiful supply but I
managed to find a large bottle of Lime Basil Softsoap.  After I put the
groceries away I went outside and hooked up the comealong to a tree at the edge
of the lake and tried pulling it out.  The chain which was wrapped around the
tree slipped up the trunk so it didn’t do the complete job.  What did work was
bending the tree over and having Libbie hold it down while I hacked at the roots
with my hatchet.  We removed all the trees this way.  Libbie dragged them over
to the garbage cans where I will cut them up.  I was too tired to do this today
so I’ll defer until tomorrow.  After lunch I went upstairs and tried a few web
albums.  I had permission issues with PiWigo.  I couldn’t find what was going
wrong. In the evening I helped Libbie make dinner.  She sauteed the shrimp while
I made the cream sauce then cooked it and added the Fettucine and shrimp.
Dinner was Shrimp Fettucine with a few glasses of Cabernet.  We enjoyed sitting
on the backporch after dinner then after dark we went inside and turned the TV
on.  We watched the Met stream of Barber of Seville.  We ended up going to bed
around 10:30.  The rain predicted for today never materialized.


April 1, 2020 Wednesday Galleries and Wordpress


It rained ¼ inch last night at around 2 AM.  I heard it coming down pretty hard
during the night but it didn’t last long so we only received ¼ inch of rain.   I
went outside in the morning and cut up the trees we pulled from the pond.  They
all fit into the garbage can that I put out for the landscape trash.  During the
day I experimented with Wordpress and found a nice plugin that will do the
gallery with descriptions.  The cost is $29.  I’m debating whether or not I
should buy that for AVSA as a donation.  I feel I do a lot for them anyway.  I’m
on the fence with this but I know I want to try fooling around with it so I
probably will buy it. I finished watching the Barber of Seville from the free
Met HD stream.  Dinner tonight was the leftover Shrimp Fettucine Alfredo.
Libbie added more noodles, cream and cream cheese to the mixture. It was rich
and too heavy for me.  The good news was I didn’t want more because I was full.
We had Cabernet with the dinner.  After dinner we stayed outside on the Lanai
sipping wine and watching the sunset. We briefly chatted with Ersin.  He said
they completed all the requirements for citizenship and now only have to go for
“the ceremony” to become US citizens.  He said the only difference is a US
Passport. It was down to 71 degrees with a breeze so I was under a blanket while
out there.   Once we came inside we watched the live mail stream from Josh and
Jenna.  By the time we tuned in they were on to a Disney trivia game.  It was
fun to watch because I knew a lot of the answers.  When we went upstairs to bed
I picked up reading the free book again which I’m really enjoying.  It’s about
Claire, a broken woman, who meets a guy in Las Vegas but then bails out on him.
She meets up with him again in Montanna while trying to hide her previous Las
Vegas identity.  He is a championship rodeo rider ready to settle down.  She is
in a band on the rodeo circuit trying to hide her identity from a former boss
who thinks he owned her.


April 2, 2020 Thursday  Stumps


We went to Lowes this morning one day before the State lockdown.  We picked up
some Salvia and bark chips and also a large Plumbago.   This wiped  me out, I
wasn’t feeling so great after bringing the materials around to the backyard.
Libbie planted the Salvia and wanted to also do the Plumbago but I nixed that.
I didn’t want it in my view of the lake.  Later when I felt a little  more
recovered I went outside and started working on the stump Libbie uncovered.
With a combination of digging around it plus hooking up a chain and the come a
long I managed to pull out about 80% of the first stump.  I have two smaller
ones left plus a very large one where I want to put the Plumbago.  Little by
little these will all get pulled out but it is a lot of effort. I came inside
and did a little more work with the website using Wordpress and also finished
reading the free book, Protect Me, Cowboy by Shelli Stevens.  It was a nice fun
light read.  Dinner was Libbie’s BBQ Chicken with baked beans and a glass of
Cabernet.  After dinner we tried watching Don Carlo but I was really tired.  We
went to bed at 8:30 and only did some of the first act.


April 3, 2020 Friday Stump Removal


I went outside after breakfast and started working on the huge stump which is in
the place I want to plant the Plumbago.  It was quite a struggle.  Libbie came
out to help me and dug some of the sand out with her hands.  I sawed and chopped
and eventually when I stabbed the bar under the stump I was able to lift the end
of the bar and rip the stump from the ground.  Libbie wanted me to stop but I
continued and eventually took out a smaller stump.  At this time I finally quit
but left all the tools outside.  I worked on the AVSA virtual show.  eMails were
flying fast and furiously with details, suggestions and eventually a preliminary
schedule from Mary C.  I spoke with Amy today who is doing office stuff from
home in between homeschooling her kids.  She told me about her procedure of
using a mask and gloves to open the mail in her yard.  I thought she had an AVSA
credit card which is why I called about her buying the Global Gallery for me.
She said I should buy it and send her the bill.  I later purchased the Global
Gallery and found the $29 price was really $31 after some kind of “handling
fee”.  I did not install it yet.  In my office I successfully recorded Don Carlo
using my HDMI recorder and the stream from the Met Opera website.  This is great
news that I can capture HD performances for our Plex server. Libbie cooked a
ribeye steak and baked potatoes for dinner.  This was yummy.  We had the steak
along with a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner we sipped our wine on the
back porch until after sunset then came inside and watched Josh and Jenna on the
Friday night stream.  They streamed videos of some of the rides and the quality
of stuff like Frozen and Haunted Mansion were beautiful.  I was pretty tired so
I went to bed around 8:30 but I stayed up and read the book about internet
history.  So far it has been pretty fascinating.


April 4, 2020 Saturday Configuration


I changed to a different theme today, this time it is called Rowling.  This one
seems simpler and easier to customize.  I managed to pick out some colors from
the AVSA color palette and change the header and footer.  I also picked out a
lighter color for the menu background in the same color palette.  I am having
trouble getting a logo to display on the same line as the site title.  Just
before bed I found an article in the theme developers handbook that will help.
Actually, the entire handbook will  be useful.  I’ll need to find out if there’s
a pdf reference copy somewhere.   I went outside in the morning and hooked the
chain up to another smaller palmetto stump and pulled it out.  I didn’t do much
more beyond that since configuring Wordpress was of  more interest to me.  I
like the program so far. We decided that for dinner we should order some ribs
takeout from our favorite pub.  We ordered two half racks of ribs and two sides
of rice and beans.   We had this with many glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner we
sat out on the Lanai and had even more wine.  I think  we had too much wine but
we have done so much physical labor this week that we decided it was time to
chill out.


April 5, 2020 Sunday Wordpress Themes


I struggled with the Wordpress theme.  I ended up completely replacing the
Rowling theme with a fresh copy and struggled throughout the day trying to get
it in the shape I had a vision for.  I want two horizontal menus and content
that is centered against a gray background.  The Gesneriad people ideally have
what I need.  I tried to find out the theme they used but it is reporting as a
custom theme.  I was out of milk this morning so I gathered together a shopping
list and went to Walmart.  It was a drizzly day so I didn’t work outside
although I didn’t really want to either.  The entrance at Walmart was quite a
bit different.  They have built a queue in the parking lot with markers every 6
feet.  They are limiting the number of people in the store.  I didn’t have to
wait and went straight inside.  Two ladies were at the door wiping down shopping
carts for customers.  The great news was they had everything including toilet
paper and egg noodles. I resumed working on the themes and ended up searching
for a new theme that met my needs better.  I found one on the Wordpress website
that I loaded.  It seems to be more to my liking for appearance.  Libbie made
her delicious pizza from scratch today.  The crust came out a little thicker
today but was absolutely delicious.  I did not have wine with the Pizza since
I’m trying to cut back.   After dinner I began looking more seriously at the
theme I chose and started configuring it for the Violet show.  In other news I
have been pleased with the Internet History book I’ve been reading.  I just
finished the chapter with the Google guys and now am reading a chapter on Apple
and Steve Jobs.


April 6, 2020 Monday Virtual Shows and Palmettos

I struggled changing the new theme colors and finally decided to spend the $25
and buy the pro version of the theme.  This thing is great.  Color changes are
push button like, everything else about the theme is menu driven.  It seems to
be working pretty well.  Around noon I went outside and  pulled the remaining
Palmetto stump.  I then raked all the sand back into the hole and planted the
Plumbago.   I then spread the 4 bags of bark around the plants, essentially
finishing the job.   When I came back around to the garage, Laurie from
Brookdale was in our driveway to pick up the 40 or so masks that Libbie had
made.  She also loaned her cutting wheel and board to Dean next door who was
cutting the material for her to sew more masks.  Dinner tonight was hamburgers
on the grill and baked beans.  We had Cabernet with dinner then sat on the back
porch sipping another glass of wine during the sunset.   While back there Dean
brought a stack of cut fabric for Libbie.  We also heard a large banging noise
next to the house.  We discovered it was Ersin’s AC unit.  He came out with a
flashlight and discovered a rat or some other animal got into the unit.  He will
have to get a service call in the morning to get this fixed.


April 7, 2020 Tuesday Beta launch


Ersin took his AC apart this morning and removed the dead animal.   I continued
working in my office on the new website using Wordpress.  I was able to get it
to the place where I was able to send out credentials to select people to take a
look and make suggestions.   It was very positively received which I expected.
There is still a lot of work to do. Dinner tonight was steak mixed with peppers
and onions on a hamburger bun.  It was delicious.  We had this with a few
glasses of Cabernet.


April 8, 2020 Wednesday Vicki’s Birthday


Arlene arranged for an 8 AM conference via Zoom this morning.  I set the laptop
up on our kitchen table where Vicki, Arlene & Rich and Libbie and I sang Happy
Birthday over zoom.  It was a very nice conference that lasted 40 minutes.  I
spent most of the day answering the many many emails from people who saw the
beta but I didn’t do any real work today.  Libbie and I went out this afternoon
to Yoder’s fruit stand then stopped at the sewing machine store where she needed
a new cutting wheel and new spools of thread.  We hit Walmart on the way home
and picked up ingredients for Panera’s copycat broccoli cheddar soup.   Libbie
and I made the broccoli cheddar soup.  Of course it was delicious.  We had
dinner in the living room while watching the live stream of Josh and Jenna using
zoom with the moppers.   It was a fun evening watching some very positive
people.


April 9, 2020 Thursday Broken Gallery


I worked on the front page of the website using the block editor to add a logo
block next to the text where the Welcome letter will go.   The gallery seems to
not work on the website.   In desperation I installed the gallery in the root
with no plugins and it worked.  There must be a conflict somewhere.  Today was
trash day and the great news was the huge stump I pulled out of the backyard got
taken away.  I intercepted the garbage truck by running down the driveway to
make sure they took it.  It’s now gone! While working on the website this
morning I recorded the Met Live in HD performance of Falstaff.  They have one
free opera per night. The HDMI recorder I have installed on my computer has been
working great. Libbie continues to sew masks while Dean next door is doing the
cutting.  Paulette is turning them out because the sewing results in a mask that
is inside out.  Dinner tonight was hamburgers on buns with tomato, baked beans
and a glass of Cabernet.  I received a call that Sarasota Glass would like to
install our windows tomorrow at 9 AM.  I said yes.  It will be good to get this
job started.


April 10, 2020 Friday Windows


Once again I struggled trying to get the global gallery to work.  It worked in
the root with all the plugins installed so next I installed it in a new
directory called virtual2.   It worked there as well.  I postponed this work for
a few hours since our window workers showed up at 9 AM as planned.  They
questioned us about temperature or being sick.  We did the same of them.   They
started with the arch window in the upstairs hallway as well as the window in
the guest bedroom.   It’s a messy job.  They have to cut away the stucco around
the window so the nailing flange could be nailed into the framing.  The house
smelled of smoke and dust.  Nicely they cleaned up after themselves with a shop
vac. I ended up deleting the virtual website.  It was a gut wrenching decision
but in the end it was worth it.  It took many hours to rebuild the site but in
the end the gallery worked which was the goal of the whole thing.  This morning
I went to Costco to get wine.  The checkout line went to the back of the store
and all across the back.  The great news was it was single file and with most of
the registers open the line kept moving.  When I left the store at 11:20 the
entrance had a rope across it and as one person left they let another person
into the store.   This is the Friday before Easter so it is extra busy. At home
I am very happy with the new windows.  They are thick, seem to be well built and
have handles to raise the sash.  Good stuff. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with
cheese and a few glasses of Cabernet.  During dinner which we had in the living
room we watched Josh and Jenna do a retro stream of older attractions that are
no longer around.  They also showed the changes over the years in the color
scheme and building facades including the Disney 25th Anniversary castle.


April 11, 2020 Saturday Gallery continues


I continued working on configuring the site and answering email questions from
our small team.  Sue sent the welcome letter which I posted on the virtual site
front page.  I had to deal with Joyce today and her fonts.  I told her I could
make her an admin and she could change fonts to her heart's delight. She
declined.   I had a small say in the commercial virtual showroom.  I told them
we don’t need to replicate the list of our commercial vendors, only list those
who want to participate.  They all agreed. I made a trip to Publix wearing a
mask for the first time.  It worked OK.  I bought Easter candy - a chocolate
bunny and 2 marshmallow eggs, all by Russel Stover.- Dinner was our Easter Ham
with a Yam and a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner we didn’t do anything
but listen to music.


April 12, 2020 Sunday  Galleries and Easter


I heard from the author of the Global Gallery.  He suggested that I use an RSS
feed to populate the gallery.  I also found the WP Media Library plugin which
adds up to 10 virtual folders to the media but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to
also work with RSS.  I am using the root directory to play with the global
gallery and for manual populating I like the WP MEdia Library because of the
folders.  I wish the folders were real and not virtual.  I’ll keep working on
this. I set up the Chocolate bunny and the Marshmallow eggs on the Kitchen
counter for Libbie this morning.  She commented there was no basket or grass.
It was the best I could do. I suggested to the 75th anniversary convention team
that they record a zoom welcome to the virtual convention.  Kathy S agreed,
haven't heard anything from Brenda.  I think it’s going to happen. Since today
is Easter we had ham, apple sauce and squash along with Cabernet for dinner in
lieu of pizza.


April 13, 2020 Monday  Google Drive


While Cosi was being recorded from the Met on my PC I worked on the process to
attach Google Drive to the Global Gallery.  It all worked.  I used the AVSA
Google account to attach the Google Drive there to Global Gallery on the Virtual
website.  It works pretty nicely.   I was able to put photos in the directory
there and retrieve them in the Gallery portion of the Virtual website. Because I
let the Cosi recording run beyond the end due to being downstairs for lunch and
a little beyond, I had to use the video editor to cut the end off the file.
Editing huge files is hard.  It took almost an hour to save the video after I
cut the end off. This morning a second 2 man crew joined the first crew
installing our windows.  They finished the upstairs windows  today.  There is
dust covering everything in our bedroom.  The windows look great but this is a
real messy job. Dinner tonight was ham with hash browns from a recipe that
Libbie created.  They were the highlight of the meal.  We had this with
Cabernet.


April 14, 2020 Tuesday Windows Complete


Two guys showed up this morning to finish the three windows in the front room.
The job looks great.  We noticed condensation outside on the thermal windows so
I looked it up on Google.  I didn’t really understand the answer but it has
something to do with the Low-E coating on the glass.   I continued to work on
the website.  I managed to get the cascading menus working.  They will go a long
way towards being able to locate stuff that is seemingly buried on the website.
I used these to open windows into some of the endowment funds.  I’ll also add
scholarships and research activities to the menus. I went out this morning to
Walmart and picked up milk that I needed and also got some general groceries
such as soup, tomato sauce, eggs and cheese.  The store is nicely stocked once
again with the exception of hand sanitizer.  I managed to pick up a bottle of
bleach and 2 containers of softsoap for hand cleaning. When Brandon of Sarasota
Glass finished the job he presented me the bill as well as what I needed for the
building inspector.  They did a very thorough job, even repairing some sheet
rock that was damaged in the sewing room.  I’m impressed.  I wrote a check for
the remaining balance which was $7,900. This afternoon Addie from Selby came
over to pick up masks Libbie made for her family.   She brought us a nice bag
of fresh produce from her garden.  We had some of the carrots and lettuce for
our salad at lunch then dinner was roasted vegetables.   Our dinner tonight was
Ham with roast veggies consisting of Carrots, Onions and Potatoes.  Accompanying
this was a few glasses of Cabernet.   After dinner we watched a little of Josh
and Jenna’s Q&A and retro Disney rides.  I was tired and went upstairs and did
some reading.


April 15, 2020 Wednesday How To


I tried creating a movie tutorial this morning.  This worked OK but I had
several attempts at narrating the video before I finally gave up.  I used the
digital recorder for the narration.  The issue was me stumbling and jumping
around various aspects of the screen.   I finally gave up and worked towards
writing a written how-to.  I finished this up, proofread it a few times then
created the PDF and distributed it to Candace and Susan for our volunteer
placement people. Dinner tonight was the last of the Ham from the Spiral Easter
Ham.  We had this along with hash browns mixed with sweet onions from Addie’s
garden and a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched Jenna’s review of
Onward followed by the Movie itself on Disney Plus.   The Movie had an
interesting story line but I’m not sure that it was that great of a movie.  The
Pixar animators sure had a good time drawing this thing evident by the amount of
detail in each frame.  It was over the top in plants, greenery, winding roads
and such.


April 16, 2020 Thursday Drupal


I tried installing a module in the AVSA Drupal but that system is in pretty bad
shape.  I finally decided that my best bet was to download the files to my PC
and install Drupal there.  I was not very successful.  The system will not
start.  I need to do more debugging of the installation. For dinner Libbie has
been soaking beans and cooking the Ham Bone all day.  For dinner we had the Ham
and Bean soup and some Cabernet.  After dinner we watched Episode 1 of Star
Wars.  This movie came out after the first three movies which were labeled 4,5
and 6.  It was pretty good and featured a very young boy who wanted to be a
Jedi.  He was Anik Skywalker who in later Movies becomes Darth Vader.


April 17, 2020 Friday Fertilizer


I ran out this morning to Lowes and wandered throughout the garden department
looking at all the plants.  I wanted Plumbago but the rack of them in the store
had been killed by the store mishandling.  If they were on the half price rack I
would buy them.  The purpose of the store visit was to buy liquid fertilizer for
the flower garden.  I found some Miracle Grow that you mix one tablespoon per
Gal of water.  I ended  up doing 3 pails for the flowers in back and another
pail for Misc plants which included the Orchids in the front of the house.  I
answered a lot of Emails about the Virtual Show and got a new magazine cover for
the front page but did not make any real forward progress.  For dinner I made
chicken Parmesan in the air fryer and Libbie steamed some Broccoli.  Dinner was
the Broccoli and the Parmesan Chicken with a few glasses of Cabernet.  Earlier
today I talked to Sarasota Glass about scheduling my Windows inspection.  It
will take place Tuesday.


April 18, 2020 Saturday Plugins


I added some new plugins to Wordpress to embed PDF files into the pages.  I’ll
use this for the board resolution and other documentation. I spent some more
time with the installation of Calibre on the Pi.  This thing is pretty slow.  I
definitely can see a Pi 4 in the future but for now boot from SSD is not
available on the Pi 4 so I’ll hold off. I went around and measured our
downstairs windows, three of them are the same size.  The fourth one is smaller,
the laundry room window. Libbie wanted a recipe to use our Cherry Tomatoes so I
found one that called for roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Pasta.  I didn’t think it
was very good, it was very bland and had an overabundance of garlic.  We had
this with Cabernet. April 19, 2020 Sunday File Uploads


I tried a few experiments today to try to get better success at people uploading
files to our eMail server for the AVSA Virtual Show.  The one that eventually
worked was the site I set up on avsa.org with just the Contact Form 7 upload
form.  Everyone seemed to have success with this one.  I don’t know what the
difference was with each person.  It can’t be up load speeds because Mary C is
reporting 10 Mbits upload speed but no success with uploading with the original.
I’ll have to try different browsers to find one that is especially bad to use
for my testing. Libbie went with me to Lowes where I went to the window desk and
ordered the 4 windows needed for downstairs.  They were more expensive than I
thought but the salesperson did me a huge favor.  He gave me the 15% off sale
price which expired a few days ago.  This saved me $400.  IT took a while
because he had to scour the store looking for a Manager to approve override.  He
finally found a manager in the paint department.  I waited patiently while
Libbie went to the plant department.  I met here there and found that the
Plumbago I was interested in was marked down to $7 from $12 because they had a
lot of dead stems.  At home Libbie cleaned up the plant and trimmed it while I
dug a hole next to the existing plant and put it in the ground.  The big success
story is the Bougainvillea.  I sprinkled liquid fertilizer on the two plants
several days ago and now they are covered in blossoms.  Woo Hoo!  I also
purchased two Orchids which are called Ground Orchids in Lowes.  I will plant
them near the Hibiscus on the West side of the Lanai.  Dinner tonight was
Libbie’s excellent pizza with a few glasses of Cabernet.


April 20, 2020 Monday Books


Early this morning I went outside and planted the 2 Ground Orchids.  I watered
them this morning after planting them and of course it would have to rain this
afternoon.  We had a thunderstorm come through at 3 PM but it was so fast that
it didn have a chance to drop much rain. I spent a lot of the day reading a
trash novel I got for free from Bookbub.  It wasn’t very good.  On the Virtual
Show site today I configured the submission form on our main site and linked to
it from the Virtual site.  The main site does not have an SSL certificate so the
form shows up as not secure.  Earlier I changed the PHP version on Namecheap
from 7.4 to 7.2 to match avsa.org. Mary tried a file upload but it didn’t work
so it wasn’t the PHP version that is the magic on avsa.org that works. While on
the Virtual website I filled out some of the endowment funds complete with a
button to the shopping cart.  This was easy except I need to go back and fix the
button color. Dinner tonight was Salmon with Butternut Squash and a few glasses
of Cabernet.


April 21, 2020 Tuesday Successes


The building inspector came around 10:30 AM.  I greeted him outside and chatted.
He said Sarasota Glass was one of the best.  I questioned what the Lowes guy
said that you don’t have to cut back the stucco.  The inspector said not to
listen to the Lowe's guys.  They give him the most problems.  Once the
inspection was done I made a phone call to Sarasota Glass and got the number for
Eddie,, the stucco guy.  I left a message and then went to Home Depot to find
out about my patio door order.  This door was ordered on Feb 19 and today is
April 21, over two months later.  The person at customer service said that was
too long.  Then she saw it was a $4,000 order and said something has to be done.
She called a manager over.  He said the door was received on March 6 but was not
scheduled for delivery.  He asked if Thursday was OK.  Since this was Tuesday I
was surprised and readily agreed.  After this business I had to go into the Home
Depot store via the lumber doors and walk to the other end of the store to the
garden center.  I looked at mulch then started looking at ground covers.  I’m
looking for something to put along the driveway.  I found some multicolored
trailing Jasmine and as I was photographing it Libbie called asking where I was.
After talking with her I ended up buying two trays of Mexican Heather to use as
a ground cover.  I looked up Cuphea (Mexican Heather) online and found out it
was somewhat rabbit resistant.  I saw a very fit woman in the garden department
wearing a sports bra and skin tight stretch leggings.  If this was the fifties
she would have been arrested for indecent exposure.  Thank goodness I could
enjoy her nearly nude form which was excellent.  On the way home I stopped in
Publix and picked up a bag of bean sprouts for our Chow Mein dinner tonight.
When I got home I got a call from Eddie about stucco for the windows.Libbie made
Chow Mein with the Bok Choy we bought the other day.  I made the sauce with
Oyster sauce, brown sugar, soy, etc.  It was delicious.  Dinner was Chow Mein
with a glass of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched some Clarinet antics with
Mike of Earspasm on YouTube.


April 22, 2020 Wednesday  Landscaping


I picked up 8 bags of mulch at Lowes then began the job of spreading it along
the driveway and planting the Mexican Heather.  I have a total of 48 plants and
managed to plant half of them before I was tired.   It looks pretty good so far.
I think this will work for me.  I’m looking forward to finishing the job
tomorrow.  Eddie of the stucco company called today.  We set up an appointment
for noon tomorrow.  Tomorrow the glass patio doors also come.  It will be a
challenge moving them. I need to pick up plastic sheeting, a 10 foot 2x4 and
some plastic sheeting.  I also need a stapler to tack down the plastic sheet.
Harbor Freight may be a destination tomorrow. Dinner tonight was the leftover
Chow Mein from last night along with a glass of Cabernet. After dinner I
continued reading my latest book from BookBub, “Her Long Walk”.


April 23, 2020 Thursday  Tools & Yeast


This is a windy day.  I wasn’t very interested in planting the rest of the
MExican Heather today.  I ran out to Walmart for Milk and Dental Floss.  I used
my last “Glide” threader yesterday so I needed more.  I bought both the $6 Glide
and tried a package of Oral B pack that was only 2.67.  The Oral B is has a
thinner threader and seems to be less waxy and thinner.  The Glide is a much
nicer dental floss although I can put up with the lower cost Oral B.  I met with
Joe from Palm Coast Construction.  He looked at the potential stucco job and
said he would send an eMail estimate.  I wonder when?  No estimate came. I tried
recording Hoffmann this morning.  It was the 2010 version we saw on HD with Kate
Lindsey as the muse.  Unfortunately the first recording was corrupt.  I don’t
know what went wrong.  I started it up again and did a successful recording the
second time.  The patio door was rescheduled to be delivered tomorrow instead of
today.  I ran out to Harbor Freight and picked up some 6 inch C clamps, a
stapler and plastic sheeting.  The plastic was only 2 mil.  I may look in Lowes
for a thicker plastic sheet when I purchase a 10 foot 2x4. I also went into the
new Publix next to Harbor Freight and found Yeast which I bought.  I also picked
up a bag of Bean Sprouts for Shrimp Pad tomorrow. Dinner was the leftover Chow
Mein from the past few days along with a few glasses of Cabernet.


April 24, 2020 Friday Doors, Rain and Pad Thai


It started raining lightly this morning as  our delivery from Home Depot was
coming.  I received a call from the driver 30 minutes before then at 9 AM the
truck showed up. The 2 guys were really nice and put the doors into the garage,
something they were not supposed to do.  I only paid for street delivery.  It
would cost $20 more for delivery into our house.  The doors are incredibly
heavy.  I hope I did the right thing.  Even the frame is too heavy to lift.  I
may open the frame box and move it a few boards at a time. When the delivery
truck left it really started raining. There were times it was pitch dark and
raining hard.  I watched our rain gauge slowly climb throughout the day.  We
ended the day at 5.2 inches of rain.   In the morning I recorded the Merry
Widow.  This was a delightful opera.  Later when the time came for the streaming
premiere of Andrew Llloyd Weber’s Phantom 2 I tuned in.  It was different but
great.  I watched about 30 minutes of the musical.  Next time I will record it,
probably tomorrow..  It’s only live for 48 hours and tomorrow morning I also
want to record Traviata.  Libbie had the first zoom meetup with her convention
team.  It was good to be a lurker, I learned a few things which I passed on to
Joyce about the people not knowing this was a week long event and also Kathy
Spissman’s comment about how the newsletter has really helped get the word out
about her supplies business. We started making the Pad Thai around 6:15.  The
noodles ended up being dry and I totally forgot to put the bean sprouts into the
mixture.  I could kick myself.  The flavor was delicious and the heat was just
right.  We had this with Cabernet.  After dinner we watched Josh and   Jenna do
some retro movies of past Disney rides.  Some of them were shot by their Dad and
we could see the two when they were 10 years old.


April 25, 2020 Saturday Doors and Opera


This morning we went out to Walmart to get more rice noodles and Shrimp to try
Pad Thai again.  I also picked up a roll of 10x25 poly sheeting that is 3.5 mil
thick.  This will be for the patio doors.  When I got home I used the hand truck
and moved both patio doors around to the back Lanai.   This was quite an effort
and involved using plastic pipes to move it across the concrete of the Lanai
once I got the doors inside.  Next task was to remove the vertical blinds. I
don’t want to put these back.  I looked online for powered shades and found one
attractively priced through Home Depot. Starting at 1 PM today I watched the
Mets 2020 Gala which featured 40 singers singing at home.  It was fun to see
these Met performers in their home environments.  The most fun was Erin Morley
who sang and played the piano.  She was delightful.  One of the fin couples was
Roberto Alana and his wife and their antics.  I loved the whole thing.  It will
be available on the Met website for 24 hours and Libbie wants me to record it
which I will do. In the evening we started making the Pad Thai. This time we
added the bean sprouts that we forgot to ad yesterday.  The meal was perfect.
The noodles were cooked, the bean sprouts were in the mix.  The heat was less
than yesterday even though it was the same ½ teaspoon of crushed red pepper as
yesterday but the volume of mixture was higher due to adding the bean sprouts.
I sprinkled my dinner with additional crushed red pepper.  Dinner tonight was
the newly made Shrimp Pad Thai along with a few glasses of Cabernet.


April 26, 2020 Sunday  REcording and planting


It rained again this morning while we watched CBS Sunday Morning.  This was a
surprise since I was planning to go out this morning to finish planting the
MExican Heather.  I recorded the Met 2020 Gala this morning but the recorder
wouldn’t turn off.  It seemed to have crashed and was unresponsive.  This
happened one other time and is frustrating because the resulting file is not
usable.  I started the thing over and this time broke it into 2 two hour
segments. It was successful the second time around. I put the video on our Plex
Server.   I finished up the front yard planting and mulching.  I wanted to get
this job done before I continued any more serious work on the back patio door.
I didn’t do any work on the patio door today.  We had a fun conversation with
Ellie.  It was her 40th birthday so I tried sending a video invite.  She texted
back “who is this”. After we answered she downloaded the app and called back.
We had a nice Video chat with her and David.  David has been furloughed because
of Covid 19 but they are getting unemployment payments which is good for them
and Ellie is still working as school psychologist.  I answered many many emails
among the violet ladies about the virtual show.  We discussed new intros, a new
site and violets 101 as well as an updated show schedule.  I still need to post
the new board resolution and the Lest We Forget memo. Libbie made her delicious
pizza today and added mushrooms which were left over from the Chow Mein this
week.  Dinner was the pizza and a few glasses of Cabernet.


April 27, 2020 Monday Door Frame


I was sore today with a stiff neck overnight.  I wonder what is going on?  I
made a quick trip to Lowes for caulk and flashing for the door project.  Slowly
I laid out the door frame and proceeded to assemble it.  When I found no pre
drilled holes on the last piece I realized I had assembled the thing wrong. I
managed to swap a side jamb with the header.  I undid all the screws and crawled
around doing it again.  This pretty much wiped me out.  I was sore in both
shoulders from firmly pressing the drill with one hand and holding up the frame
with the other.   This is hard work.  It’s going to take two of us to walk the
frame up into the opening but first I have to prepare the opening.  This will
involve removing the doors and the frame.  Much to do. I set up a shop page for
Joyce on the Wordpress site.  She has become quite familiar with editing pages
in Wordpress. Dinner tonight was the leftover Shrimp Pad Thai which was as yummy
as ever.  I had it with more Cabernet than I should have.  We chose to have
dinner in the living room while watching a stream that Josh put up yesterday of
some old Magic Kingdom rides.  I was numb from todays work and just sat there
like a vegetable.


April 28, 2020 Tuesday Patio Doors


I put the 2x6 barrier up across the doors this morning to start the day.  I then
struggled removing the two sliders.  They didn’t cause too much difficulty but
they were heavy enough.  Removing the frame proved to be more of a challenge.
After removing the screws it was held all around mostly by the caulking.  This
stuff is pretty good at holding the frame in place.  I eventually got it free
and pulled the frame apart and disassembled.  I stacked everything next to the
house against the wall then went inside and called the County Waste Management
number.  A pleasant lady named Ingrid said the fee for hauling away patio doors
is $50.  I agreed and gave her my credit card number.  She told me to have the
doors and frame out by the curb by 6 AM Thursday.  After lunch I started the
horrible task of cutting back the sheetrock.  The new frame is 6 inches wide,
the old one was 4 inches.  The hardest part was cutting back the floor and
chiseling the old caulk off the concrete.  I ended up having to run out to Lowes
and get a new blade for the oscillating saw.  Wow, the blades are $15 to $40
each.  We’re not at Harbor Freight! I also  picked up a tube of self leveling
concrete to place under the ends of the floor boards so they don’t flex.   I
didn’t get this put down but will before I put down the flashing around the
frame tomorrow.  I need to dry fit the frame first to see if there is any other
sheet rock that needs to be cut back. Because we were both tired Libbie decided
this would be a good time to do a takeout.  We called Beckhams for a 6 PM pickup
of ribs with rice and beans.  I was impressed with their cleaning between
customers.  They also have separate jars for the clean and the dirty pens and
also clean the counter in between customers.  Libbie wanted to watch Star Wars
Episode II but I fell asleep shortly after it started.  Dinner tonight was the
half rack of ribs with black beans and rice.  We had the last of the Cabernet
with dinner which was enough for 1 ½ glasses each.  We’re going wine free for a
few days.


April 29, 2020 Wednesday Door Glass


We dry fitted the door frame this morning and it looked good.  I removed it and
applied the self leveling concrete under the ends of the flooring.
Unfortunately this stuff was a liquid and ran out. I put up a temporary dam with
the strips of leftover sheetrock but ended up taking out the sheetrock after a
few hours since I wanted the door frame installed.  It is getting late in the
day and a thunderstorm is predicted for 4 AM tomorrow morning.  I screwed down
one whole side of the frame but decided that drilling into the concrete was too
slow going so I only put two screws into the end of the header and the end of
the sill plate in order to get the doors into the tracks.  I moved the door to
in front of the opening but could not rotate it to upright myself.  Libbie ran
over to Ersin’s for help.  Ersin is strong.  He helped me upright the doors and
install them into the tracks.   Unfortunately I discovered I did not put the
roller tracks down first.  These go over the screws.  With a little luck I can
jack up the door in place and slip the tracks under the rollers.  I hope this
strategy works. I do not want to remove the doors.   Libbie helped me bring the
tools inside and dispose of all the cardboard.  I was too exhausted to move out
of my chair.  I was well beyond my point of exhaustion and should not have come
this far.  I was weak and dizzy when I stood up.  It felt like several years ago
when I was disassembling the greenhouse and was weak and dizzy. This was low
blood pressure at that time as measured by my blood pressure gauge.  After I
rested a little bit I went out in the evening and moved the old glass doors and
door frame around to the front.  As instructed by the Waste Management company I
placed them near the street with the door frame on top of the doors.  Libbie
nicely made tuna noodle casserole for dinner.  It was delicious and I was so
grateful because of exhaustion.  I finished my book and fell asleep soundly.


April 30, 2020 screws and roller tracks


I woke to rain at 3 AM which continued into the morning.  We ended up with a
total of over 1 inch of rain.   At about 9 this morning Waste Management showed
up with a truck with a booom attached.  A single driver/operator swung the boom
around and picked up the doors and put them into the dumpster body. This was the
end of those old doors.  The skies cleared by noon and it was a nice day.  I ran
out to Lowes to get shorter Tapcon screws to mount the sill plate. The 4 inch
screws into the sill are over-kill.  I picked up some 3 inch screws as well as a
can of foam and a roll of foam insulation to stuff into the gap around the door.
I also bought a 2x4 plywood panel to use as a square.  I also need the pieces of
plywood as shims around the door.  The plywood used as a carpenter's square
shows that the door is square.  It was expected to be square since the old frame
was nailed directly to the side jamb and sill and did not need shims.  This
indicates the opening was at least square.  My level showed that one side was
level vertically.  The other side is close but not exact.  I drilled the holes
for one track and then the battery in the drill died.  I put it on the charger
and instead worked on installing the track.  I used my 6 foot bar and easily
lifted the door.  With a little bit of work and twisting I managed to thread the
track under the door and lowered the door onto it.  This worked really great.  I
grabbed the freshly charged battery and drilled the holes under the second track
and did the same thing more or less.  The next door was the inner door which
didn’t have a great place to insert the bar to jack it up.  Eventually I managed
to jack it from the inside and get a wood block under the door so I could
finagle the second track  under the door.  Once this was done both doors glide
smoothly on the track although the door is huge and heavy.  I would guess a
frail elderly person would have difficulty sliding this door.  Dinner tonight
was chicken quesadilla.  I had mine with nice slices of green pepper and onion.
Libbie chose the minced version which I don’t care for.  We only had water with
our meals.  No Wine!  After dinner we continued watching the Star Wars Episode
II which is “Attack of the Clones”.  Despite the rain which was a relief because
it gave me a break, it was a pretty good day.


May 1, 2020 Friday  Screw it Down


I went through the process of drilling the rest of the holes into the concrete
jambs and the header.  This was tough work but I got it done.  The door is very
secure. I had to cut up the ½ inch plywood into 6 inch squares to be used as
shims on the jamb side of the door.  I have 2 plastic blocks leftover  called
header blocks and I’m not sure what they are for.  It looks like they are made
to go into the tracks to reinforce the doors where they come together.  The
instructions warn that these are part of the structural integrity of the door
and are necessary.  It was too late today so I will figure this out tomorrow.
It was one week ago today that the doors were delivered.   Dinner tonight was
hamburgers and baked beans.  The burgers were 95% lean so they were a little
dry.  Interestingly you pay more for leaner cuts but they are not as juicy and
tasty.  We had water with the hamburgers.  After dinner we watched a little bit
of Josh and Jenna celebrate Josh’s birthday.


May 2, 2020 Saturday Foam


I put the remaining screws into the patio door and tapped the caps into place.
I had to run out to Lowes to get long #10 screws to secure the fixed panel onto
the frame.  They don’t provide those. I tried putting foam in the crack next to
the door but it was a disaster.  The foam expanded all over the place and seeped
out everywhere.  What a mess. Early in the morning today Libbie and I made a
trip to Detweilers to get produce, fruit and meat.  We picked up country ribs,
Salmon and steak.  On our way to Detweilers and saw Ersin and Julia walking the
baby.  We stopped and found out the restaurant was opening Monday.  We told them
we would be there.  Julia was wearing the tiniest pair of painted on short
shorts that I’ve ever seen.  Very nice. Dinner was steak with baked potato and
sour cream and as a special treat, Cabernet.  I made a trip to Publix on my way
to Lowes to get the wine. We even had dessert consisting of a slice of Key Lime
Pie.


May 3, 2020 Sunday


I spent some time on my computer this morning trying to find out why Joe Bruns
can’t do file uploads to the Virtual website.  I tried a lot of things without
really understanding the reason for the failures.


I had to run out to Walmart to get milk because I ran out while fixing my cereal
today.  I also picked up the regular groceries for the week.  The big find in
Walmart was hand sanitizer.  I bought an 8 oz bottle of GermX.  The sign said
one per customer.  There were only 2 bottles left on the shelf.  At home I
bolted down the fixed panel with the screws I bought yesterday.  This possibly
may have caused the latch to not reach over far enough to engage.   I also spent
some time adjusting the foam with a knife and the box cutters.  I did not need
foam over the door.  The gap is filled to the edge.  I did not apply caulking
over the foam.  I was tired. Libbie made her over the top delicious pizza with
Baby Bella Mushrooms.  They were especially tasty.  The Bellas are a lot more
flavorful than the white mushrooms.  In the evening I continued to work on file
uploads.


May 4, 2020 Monday   Bodrum A guy from Sarasota Glass showed up today for the
stucco company.  He dropped off a wheelbarrow and other tools and then set up
scaffolding.  He left in the early afternoon.  I added the PVC trim board above
the door and also caulked one side.  The other is too wide to caulk.  I bought a
strip of vinyl from Lowes to glue on this side with caulk.  I also bought a
piece of vinyl for the outside but didn’t install it.  The foam needs a slit
down the middle to accommodate the T on the underside of the vinyl strip.  I
picked up some #10 stainless screws for the latch mechanism.  It took quite a
bit of fooling around with the latch to get it adjusted so it engaged.  After
this I was done for the day. In the evening we went out with Joe and Angela to
Bodrums. We had a reservation at 6:30 PM.  IT was so nice to be there again.  It
was a fun evening.  We had a bottle of Cabernet with dinner which is nicely
priced at $38.  We started with an appetizer of Carrot Tarator.  Ersin sent the
table several other appetizers.  We had mixed spicy vegetables, Mom’s potato
salad, and turkish sausage.  It was all so good.   I had the Mahi Mahi with
Caper sauce while Libbie had the Lamb shish kabob.  It was all so good.  For
dessert Ersin sent the table Baklava and a pudding.  Wow.  Very nice.  The bill
was $102 but so worth it.  I left a $30 tip.  We came home and crashed


May 5, 2020 Tuesday Global Gallery


Our stucco guy came by at 9.  His boss arrived first and collected our deposit
and signed the contract.  He spent the day putting up screen mesh to  hold the
stucco.   He also nicely cut the palm frond that was hitting the house.  I
loaned him my saw to do this job. We ran out to Walmart to get a battery for my
key fob.  I also bought one for Libbie’s.  In a stroke of luck her key fob died
in the Walmart parking lot.  I had to change the battery in hers in the parking
lot so we could get home.  Mine was disassembled on the bench in my office
waiting for a new battery.  I also used the microscope and soldering iron and
removed the button that sets off the emergency horn and flashing lights.  This
thing has gone off unintentionally it’s last time. I spent the afternoon working
on the global gallery trying to get landscape pictures corrected to become
portraits.  I tried various settings but somewhere along the way the global
gallery totally stopped working.  I tried reinstalling it then deleting it and
reinstalling it but nothing worked.  I ended up using phpmyadmin and going
directly into the database to delete everything associated with the global
gallery.  This was all the table entries beginning with gg_.  This worked well.
The galleries worked again.  Now I need to add them back into the system
including the link to Google Drive.   This has been an ordeal.              For
dinner Libbe made my favorite, Country Ribs with Onions.  We had the ribs with
Lima beans and corn and a glass or two of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched
Saving Mr Banks with Tom Hanks.  This was a very good movie.  I totally enjoyed
it.


May 6, 2020 Wednesday Virtual Show


I spent all my time today working on the virtual violet show.  We launch
tomorrow.  I got the galleries restored and then started fixing up wording and
adding logos.  I really want to modify the php code to allow both the logo and
the title on the same line. I have a little time to work on this now that most
of our issues are behind us. Outside the stucco work continues. They taped
plastic over all the windows to be stuccoed and surrounding each window with
mesh.  The scaffolding is in place around the house.  Libbie and I went outside
in the evening and took pictures of the house.  Dinner tonight was the leftover
country ribs with onions.  As a side we had sweet potatoes and a few glasses of
Cabernet. May 7, 2020 Thursday Door Trim & Launch Day


I ran out to Lowes and found PVC lattice strips to finish the door trim.  I also
found the ⅝ x ⅝ PVC stick to extend the front of the cabinet in my office.  I’ll
work on the cabinet in the future.  While in Lowes I took a look at the sample
impact door.  I saw where they put the door stop.  It’s between the doors on the
slider mounted to the door itself.  The stop bumps against the fixed panel
stopping it before the handle hits the frame. We launched the Virtual website
today on schedule.  Mary C reported the submit button was not working.  I logged
into the submit site and removed the broken button and installed a default
button.  It comes in fire engine red which Joyce was not happy about so when
Candace changed it the thing stopped working.  I didn’t want to deal with it so
I left it red. The PVC strip went up next to the door frame better than I
thought it would.  The outside one is a little big but will still be OK.  I can
leave it alone or trim it down.  One issue is the little ditch along the edge
that the trim has a tendency to fall into.  I need to bridge this gap either
with more foam, a lot of caulking, maybe some plaster, spackle or concrete or a
strip of moulding. I will finish the inside first though.  Dinner was spaghetti
with cheese on top.


May 8, 2020 Friday User Posts


I spent quite a bit of time today reading about user submitted posts.  I will
need this to populate a gallery of some kind.  I had some initial emails with
Beth who has agreed to join us.  She had a great suggestion about people posting
their grow spaces and said it was pretty popular on Pinterest and Facebook.  I
was going to work on the backdoor but ended up not doing a thing.  I did a lot
of reading about user posts and galleries and actually ended up getting a
gallery built that I didn’t like because the images were too small.  Ideally I
would like the Global Gallery receiving posts but it needs more work.




The stucco was finished late this afternoon.  It looks good.  Of course Eddie
showed up to collect his check.  We paid him a total of $5300.  I asked for an
estimate to paint the front of the house.  He said with a primer/sealer coat  it
would be $1500.  This may be worth it for me.  I’ll concentrate on the sides and
back of the house.  Libbie didn’t seem to be interested in any of my dinner
suggestions.  I wanted to make pasta BLT, then Mexican Chili then a chicken
dish.  She was blah about all of them so I ended up making chicken Quesadilla
which we did not have with wine because we were saving our last wine in the
bottle for a virtual wine in with our dance friends in NC.  At 6:30 we couldn’t
get into the Zoom conference because I used Tom Gee and Anne Cain rejected the
name because she did not recognize it.  Oh well.  We had our wine and watched a
little of Josh and Jenna’s live stream playing old videos of Disney holiday
parties.


May 9, 2020 Saturday door threshold


I looked some more at how to upload user content to a gallery.  I would like to
use Global Gallery but it doesn’t seem possible from a user file without some
custom programming. I put down the ready mix container of cement along the patio
door.  I  then placed the trim piece over it.  It’s not great but more than
acceptable.  This completes the inside trim for the door. It’s supposed to rain
tomorrow so there may not be a lot of down time. I did a Walmart trip to get
potatoes and sour cream for our dinner plus a bottle of wine. I enjoyed some of
the short shorts I saw in Walmart which is different than the normal clientele
who are mostly old people.  San Francisco Opera streamed Mefistofeles today, the
one we saw in NY because the production is co-owned with the Met.  Libbie
watched it streamed from my laptop to the TV while I went to Walmart.  I saw the
ending on the TV big screen then went upstairs and played it again with my
recorder running.  I captured it at 1080p.  It has a surprising amount of nudity
in it including the chorus both old and young. Dinner tonight was Sirloin Steak,
baked potato and sour cream with several glasses of Cabernet.  I only did
reading after dinner, not TV because it was later than usual for dinner.  I was
distracted on my computer upstairs and did not come downstairs early in the
evening like I usually do.


May 10, 2020 Sunday Contest Plugin


I spent the whole day working on user submitted photos.  I finally got a plugin
working satisfactorily. It is called the Contest plugin and is made for photo
contests.  It’s perfect for our usage. I tried setting Beth up for access but
had a bunch of failures.  In the end I found out I have to make the editor
category have access to the front and back end in the plugin that controls
maintenance mode. I recorded the Opera House this morning in my office.  It’s
quite a good movie about the building of Lincoln Center. It was supposed to rain
today but we didn’t get anything except for dark clouds.  I didn’t work outside
expecting it to rain.  Libbie mde her delicious pizza from scratch.   I ran out
to Publix for Bella Mushrooms and also Moose Tracks Ice Cream in honor of
Mother’s Day for Libbe.  We had the pizza with Cabernet followed by the ice
cream.  I spent the evening after dinner trying to wrestle with permissions in
Wordpress.


May 11, 2020 Monday Patio Door Trim


Today I finished most of the caulking on the outside around the patio door.  I
added a lath strip down  one side and a piece of tile vinyl across the top.  I
held the tile strip in place with caulk but let it dry overnight tonight before
I touch it up some more to fill in a few gaps.  When I touch it up wet it only
gets worse and shows gaps in other places. I worked with Beth through the day on
and off getting the gallery in shape.  She wants the comments to be shown.  I
think it’s a mistake.   I tried going through the code to find out where the
image is resized to the bitty size that we have.  I want it larger or even in a
Lightbox but I can’t see how to get user input into the box, both text and
images.  Global gallery does allow comments so if we can get input into global
gallery we would have a solution. Dinner tonight was hamburgers with air fried
french fries.  They were left over from this past summer when I bought them
because Paige liked French fries.  We finished the Cabernet with the hamburgers
by having a single glass each.


May 12, 2020 Tuesday Windows


I noticed my phone had a message from Lowes corporate on it.  I suspected this
was my window order but I couldn’t get anyone via phone at Lowes so I went to
the store.  My Windows were there.  They wheeled them to me and I loaded the
Prius up.  These were pretty heavy but I was able to leverage them along the
ground and then tip them up into the car.   I unloaded them into the garage then
went back to Lowes and picked up 3 bags of mulch.  I need one bag for the
Orchids and the others will go around the pipes in the front yard.   Libbie went
with me to Walmart to get the Salsa Verde and chicken for dinner.  She deboned
the chicken and pulled the skin off and cut it into one inch squares.  I mixed
the ingredients and cooked the chicken in a skillet then loaded up a casserole.
The shredded cheddar I was going to use was covered in green mold so I
substituted Fiesta Cheese instead which we had half a bag of.  Dinner was the
Mexican Chile Chicken Casserole with Cabernet and the last of the Moose Tracks
Ice Cream.  After dinner we watched “The Opera House” about half way through.
Earlier this morning I finished the Faith Salie book “Approval Junkie”.  What a
horrible book, hard to read and pretty boring.


May 13, 2020 Wednesday Pressure Washer


We went to Home Depot this morning to get a pressure washer.  It took us a
little time because I wanted the Ryobi model with a Honda engine.  There was
only one in the store and it had a damaged box with obvious damage to the
contents.  Another gentleman led us to the outdoor shop where there were 3 more
on the shelf.  Libbie had a salesperson find a cart outside the store and wipe
the handle down for us.  We bought the generator, a gas can and a gallon of
pressure washer soap by Zep. We next went to Topps looking for thread but they
were sold out of white.  Our last stop was a Shell gas station on Bee Ridge
where I bought gas for our new gas can and also topped off the car tank because
gas was only 1.78 credit card price.  In the afternoon Libbie had scheduled a
zoom meeting with her co chairs for the 2021 show while I recorded the
invitation.  She is not happy with the results because we had some troubles with
the recording I assembled the pressure washer but did not use it today.  I’ll
wait until tomorrow. Dinner tonight was the last of the leftover Chili Salsa
Verdi along with some Cabernet.  This was an excellent meal.  After dinner we
watched a little of Josh and Jenna doing more of the Disney rides from older
tapes.


May 14, 2020 Thursday Pressure Washer


This morning I struggled with the gas can.  I took the nozzle apart to try to
figure out how the thing is supposed to dispense gas.  These new safety cans are
a pain in the ass.  I eventually did away with the safety latch but it still
requires a stiff push on the nozzle to get it to dispense gas.  I saw online
that Eagle makes an intelligently designed metal 2 gallon can.  I need to invest
in one.  I dragged the pressure washer around to the back porch and fired it up
after attaching the hose.  All went well.  It started on the second pull.
Libbie used pure water and did a nice job getting the mold off the struts of the
screen cage.  Meanwhile I realized that the host gator hosting for
glembocki.info is running out soon.  I spent a lot of time trying to get the new
host server up and running.  When I went to bed it was still not up.  I’ll work
some more on this tomorrow.  I transferred the 75th Anniversary invitation over
to my PC.  It looks pretty good.  I initially thought I was going to have to do
it over again.  For dinner we decided to do a takeout from Beckhams.  Libbie
ordered 2 racks of ribs with black beans and rice.  I went a little early and
stopped into Publix for wine as well as cherry tomatoes for my BLT pasta.
Dinner was the ribs with black beans and rice and more than a few glasses of
Cabernet.


May 15, 2020 Friday Rain


I set up the pressure washer for Libbie and went upstairs to work on moving the
genealogy site to the new server.  I ended up having to set up a live chat
session with Namecheap because I wanted Glembocki.info to be my main domain
instead of glembocki.website.  This was something I could not do by myself even
though I spent an hour trying.  Once they set me up with Glembocki.info as my
main domain I was able to access the website. I had to create a new htaccess
file in order to redirect the root to the tng directory where the genealogy
stuff was.  The great news was that the bookmarks and the George and Mary
dokuwiki both worked out of the box.  Copying the files from the old server to
the new server was good enough for functionality.  For the genealogy software I
had to import the data into a new database which I created on mysql.   The old
files had the old database exported into backup directories.  These were copied
over when I did the general website copy yesterday.  The TNG software allowed me
to import the data into the genealogy and everything magically worked.  The
genealogy site is fully functional as before. Dinner was Salmon with baked
potato and sour cream. A few glasses of Cabernet completed the meal.  We watched
Josh and Jenna play old Disney holiday parties.


May 16, 2020 Saturday Window


This morning I removed the family room window with much difficulty.  While
trying to pull it out it shattered in a million places all over the Family Room,
the window sill and the grass outside.  I spent a few hours picking everything
up. I struggled with cutting the sheetrock back a few inches before plugging the
new window into the opening as a stop gap until I can fix the bucks.  They only
had 2 inch wide strips for Bucks.  I will replace them with 3 inch wide bucks
from Lowes made from cut down treated 1x6s. At 10:30 I recorded the welcome
message from Sue for the Virtual website.  After this I continued on the window
removing it and struggling to temporarily put the new window into place. After
putting all the tools away we ordered Chinese takeout from New China in Nokomis.
This was a restaurant I read about on Venice Foodies FB group.  We were not
disappointed.  The food was delicious.  Libbie ordered a 4 season meal which was
mixed veggies with pork, beef, shrimp and chicken.  She also ordered 2 eggrolls.
The meal was cooked perfectly and really yummy.  The eggrolls were the best
ever. While there picking up the food I ran into Publix next door and bought a
mini key lime pie and a bottle of Cabernet.  Dinner was the 4 season dish along
with   Dinner was eggroll, 4 season dish and Cabernet with a piece of key lime
pie for dessert.  At the end of the meal I was done with my day and sore all
over from the window installation.


May 17, 2020 Sunday Day Off


Today I didn’t do much physical labor.  I did an early morning trip to Lowes and
picked up the Bucks for the windows then was back in time to watch CBS Sunday
Morning although I was only mildly interested. I set up the saw horses next to
the house and ripped the 1x4s down to make 1x3s for the window bucks.  This went
well but it was quite warm outside - 90 degrees.  I finished this up and went
inside for the rest of the day.  Inside I worked on the 75th Anniversary
invitation video.  This went well.  NExt I worked on Sue Ramser’s welcome
message.  This took a lot of doing since it had to be cropped then zoomed to
fill the screen.   In addition, twice during the video it switched to me.  I
inserted a frozen pic of Sue over the two spots where the video switched.  It
looks like a normal video glitch over a poor connection.  The only other issue
is the audio could use a little more of a boost. Libbie made her delicious pizza
again.  This time she froze the leftover baby bellas last week and put them on
the pizza this week.  They were very tasty with a mouthful of flavor.  Dinner
was pizza with mushrooms and some Cabernet.  After dinner I finished up the
Welcome video and uploaded it to YouTube.


May 18, 2020 Monday  Rain


I thought I was going to work on the windows today but it started raining around
9 AM and didn’t stop all day.  It rained in little bursts all day long.  We only
ended up with half an inch of rain. After the morning burst Libbie and I went
out to Walmart for groceries and a birthday card for Jeff and also Paige.  Jeff
is going to have a 50th birthday party put together by his wife. I tried
configuring the Synology on Downing but had trouble logging into it with the
Cloudsynch service.  I need to watch some more youtube tutorials. I came down
and made the Creamy Penne Pasta with Shrimp and peas.  I liked it but Libbie did
not.  We had the Penne Shrimp along with a glass of Cabernet. After dinner I
continued reading a romance novel I started yesterday, Loving Maddie by Kelly
Jamieson.


May 19, 2020 Tuesday Window


This morning I used the planer and took off about ⅛ inch off each side of the
flange on a window.  I then removed the temporary window from the Living Room
Opening and put the new bucks in.  They fit perfectly but I needed to drill a
half dozen holes for Tapcons to secure them.  The newly planed window fit
perfectly except the flange could have used a little more trimming than what I
did.  Libbie helped me from the inside while I lifted the window into place.
This took much of the day.  Still remaining is drilling and screwing the frame
into place and then caulking it.  Dinner tonight was the leftover Penne Shrimp
Pesto pasta along with a few glasses of Cabernet.   The FIT book club chose the
“An Odyssey” book through Facebook like voting.  I ended up buying the book on
Kindle because of a $1.30 credit for “Good Kindle Reads”.   I finished reading
the “Loving Maddie” book and am now ready to start “An Odyssey”.  In the evening
I went to Walgreens to retrieve a 5x7 print I uploaded of Jeffrey and Bill at
the 80th birthday party.  We are also going to create a video message for Jeff.


May 20, 2020 Wednesday Window Slow and sure


I drilled the mounting holes into the concrete block for the new window and put
the #8 screws into the drilled holes.  This mounted the window.  Next I caulked
the exterior and washed the window on the outside.  At sunset the window washing
didn’t look so great.  There were streaks throughout the glass. Uggh. I made a
run out to Lowes to get some PVC for the inside of the window frame.  This is
instead of patching and caulking the sheetrock.  I successfully got the Met
Opera HD videos synched with Downing Place.  This is a big step.  It now means I
have the tools at my disposal to sync over the internet, saving me the trouble
of using an external hard drive. Libbie cooked some steak with peppers and
onions for dinner. I had mine on a bun.  We had this with baked beans and a
glass of Cabernet.  This afternoon I spent an hour or two breaking the rest of
the glass out of the window frame for the trash and also breaking the frame up
into pieces suitable for the trash can.  I also cut up our vertical blinds from
the sliding windows and managed to put them into the trash as well.  I hope they
take all our trash this week. LAst week the barrel with all the stucco leftovers
was too heavy and they left it behind.  I separated the stucco scraps into
smaller garbage bags and cartons.


May 21, 2020 Thursday Finish One Window


I went to Costco when it opened this morning.  I was actually there early and
thought it was closed because there was a line at the door.   I found out it was
Senior early hours so they let me in without question.   I picked up our wine, a
Kirkwood Cabernet, as well as Blueberries, walking shorts and coffee.  On the
way home I picked up some broken chairs from our neighbors but later found they
only cost $17 each in Target.  I abandoned plans to repair them after I already
bought the nuts and bolts.  I was determined to finish the last window today..
I ripped the PVC trim for the inside and finished caulking the window.   I
screwed up cutting the right side trim and ended up going to Lowes for another
PVC board.  I used the nail gun to put all this up.  The Harbor Freight brad
stapler nail gun is excellent.  For the $25 it cost earlier this year I have
really gotten my money’s worth.  Libbie and I went out to Target this evening to
look at Adirondack chairs.  We found two on sale for $17 each complete with cup
holder and cell phone holder.   We set them up in time for Sunset and enjoyed a
glass of wine before sunset then went out at Sunset and enjoyed a glass of wine
as the sun set over the lake.  It’s the perfect spot to enjoy wine and the
setting sun.  I need to build a little patio back there. Dinner was spaghetti
with cheese and a glass of Cabernet.  The file synching with the Downing place
Synology  continues nicely.  Now I need to get the selfies page up and running
on the Virtual website.


May 22, 2020 Friday Cuban


I spent the morning working on the Contest Gallery for the selfie portion of the
virtual website.  Joyce has stepped up and is going to pretty up the pdf
documents that I was supposed to post next week.  While I worked on the website
I was recording and playing Turandot.  That Opera is certainly grand opera in
every sense of the word. For lunch we decided to go out and seek Belkis in the
Citgo in Venice.  This has been mentioned many times on the FB group Venice
Foodies.   We had a delightful experience there.  The owner let us sample each
of the meats his wife cooks. HE was pretty talkative and told us all about his
genuine Cuban food.  We ordered 2 Caban Sandwiches.  They were huge,  We only
ate one and had the other for dinner.  We bought 2 bottles of water and drove to
Nokomis Beach where we found a picnic shelter with a picnic table on the
Intracostal Waterway.  We enjoyed the sandwich and watched the parade of boats
waiting for the drawbridge.  After our meal we walked across the street to the
beach and stood on the sand for a while.  There were lots of colorful umbrellas
and blankets with proper social spacing.  A very nice relaxing afternoon.  On
the way back we drove along Casey Key and gawked at the enormous mansions.  The
true delight was the bridge near the Casey Key Fish house.  A very curvy young
lady was wearing a very tiny thong with her entire very shapely and tan  ass
exposed,  She was fishing on the bridge.  How nice.


Dinner was the other half of the Cuban Sandwich.  It seemed to be too much food.
I was stuffed beyond belief.  Dessert was Godiva chocolate pudding with cool
whip topping.  It started raining again around sunset but we went out onto our
new chairs anyway hoping for some glimpse of the sun.  It was not to be.


May 23, 2020 Saturday Blinds and Gallery


I finished the window in the Family Room today including washing it.  Libbie and
I went to Lowes and purchased a blind for it.  I chose the more expensive
Levolor blinds rather than the Roth ones which are Lowes brand.  They will cut
the Levolor brand on the Levolor machine but will not cut the $10 cheaper Roth
ones.  The sales person pointed out that the Roth shades were made for DIY
trimming.  I preferred not to cut blinds because the machine does a much better
job than I would.  It was worth the $10 extra.  We also picked up 10 red Vinca
plants and 6 bags of stone for the backyard.  I will build a small patio for our
chairs so we could sit and watch the sunset.   The global gallery has some
problems.  Some classes won’t display.  I did some debugging on Class 12 because
it only had 3 designs in it.  I isolated the designs one at a time and
discovered that a very large 4k x 3k one was the problem. I replaced it and the
class worked.   We need to replace most of the gallery with smaller images.
Dinner was Salmon and Butternut squash with a few glasses of Cabernet.  After
dinner I continued to figure out how to work on the images in the global
gallery.  One of the things I did was download the database which is SQL.  I’m
hoping to find a browser for SQL on the desktop.


May 24, 2020 Sunday Window


I worked at loosening the window in the East living room.  I actually removed
the lower glass window sash by cutting the frame.  I thought it was going good
with the upper frame because I had one side and part of the top free.  Suddenly
the window shattered and a falling piece of glass gave me a bad cut. I ran to
the garage leaving a trail of blood.  The garage had the paper towels to wrap my
wrist which was badly bleeding.  After a while the bleeding stopped so I started
cleanup of broken glass.  Libbie helped me put the new window on the saw horses
where I used my power planer to shave 5/16 inch off each side.  This was the
perfect amount. Fortunately the bucks had been precut last week so they
installed pretty easily.  With Libbie’s help we nudged the new window into
place.  It’s quite a tight fit.  I’ll put the tapcon screws into the window
frame tomorrow.  The concrete blocks have to be drilled, not an easy task.  Once
the screws are in place I will caulk the window. Libbie made her delicious pizza
once again, this time from scratch.  I continued to support the virtual
convention by resolving various problems. Dinner was Libbie’s cheese pizza with
a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched Titanic which was on
broadcast television, CBS.  It’s still quite a good movie.


May 25, 2020 Monday Rain


I set up my ladder outside to start caulking and of course ran out of caulk as I
was doing the side of the window.  I made a quick Lowes trip and was very
surprised at how crowded the store was.  I also found Windex on the shelf,
something I could not find at Walmart last week.  When I started caulking again
it began to rain.  I made a few more attempts during the day and was rained out
each time.  I eventually finished the job but will have to check it again
tomorrow under drier conditions.  This morning at 8:30 AM I made the AVSA
Virtual Convention live.  It seems to be going well however Susan and MAry
decided to resize the entire gallery and also split the gesneriads off into a
separate gallery. I built an additional gallery and page for them.  The selfie
page is truly amazing.  Beth is monitoring it nicely.  It’s nice to see how many
people around the world are communicating about violets. The FIT professor
running the book club put out a video today and some recommended reading.  I
downloaded the PDF file he recommended.  It seems like a Cliff Notes version of
the Odyssey book.  I’m learning more about the book by reading and watching
about it. For dinner tonight I mixed the crab into patties along with some other
ingredients.  It tasted pretty good and I thought it came out perfectly.  Libbie
was neutral.  We had this on buns with a slice of tomato accompanied by a glass
of Cabernet. I wouldn’t mind making this again. After dinner we watched the rest
of the Titanic movie.  The movie is very good but incredibly long.


May 26 Tuesday Troubles & Drive to Apex


I tried making two presentations go live on the AVSA Virtual website but they
only displayed a URL, not the embedded content.  Richard in Las Vegas saw what I
was trying to do and jumped in.  Thank goodness!  He eventually got the
galleries going by recreating the pages while I updated the ticker.  Libbie
popped in during the morning and said it was going to rain on the East Coast for
the next 3 or 4 days.  We made arrangements for Paulette to fetch our newspaper
each day and to take our trash to the curb on Wednesday night. We packed up the
car and were on the road by 1:20 PM.  We hit heavy blinding rain in Ocala and
spotty light rain the rest of the trip.  Our first stop for gas was in Troxler
at a Citgo where I also bought some crackers.  The ride through the countryside
getting to I-10 was quite pleasant.  Our next stop was Florence, SC at a Pilot
on 52.  Gas was 1.69 and we took 10.2 gallons.  That is pretty much an empty
tank. The gauge said 15 miles to empty.  Libbie was starting to panic because
there was only one bar left on the gas gauge.  After a quick gas and pit stop we
hit the road again.  We managed to get home at 12:30 midnight which is quite
good.  For dinner we had tuna sandwiches in the car.  The house looked great but
was a little smelly.  On the drive home Libbie used my phone and opened the
garage door when we got onto the Beltline.  This was to at least air the garage
out before we arrived.  While on the drive Libbie and I discussed the
possibility of getting a small Pod to take a load of boxes to Florida. We’ll
have to see what’s available.


May 27 Wednesday Packing boxes


It was slow getting going today.  Fortunately Richard put the additional videos
up already so I didn’t have to deal with them.  I ordered a 7 foot Pod this
morning.  The earliest they could deliver it was June 2.  I debated most of the
morning on whether to switch it out with a 16 foot version.   I eventually
decided it was too much work to try packing a 16 footer in less than a week and
left it at 7 feet.  I went into my shop and was overwhelmed by the magnitude of
the job.  Wow, wow, wow. It was a very rainy day all day as tropical storm
Bertha crossed nearby.  This was one of the reasons we decided to leave a day
early.  The rain is supposed to continue for the next 3 days. Dinner tonight was
takeout 3 meat szechuan and 2 egg rolls from our favorite Chinese restaurant,
China Chef next to the old Krogers.  After dinner I tried to get into the
Odyssey book but was pretty tired.


May 28, Thursday Packing


We spent the whole day packing books.  I moved several heavy boxes of books down
the stairs and also a few incredibly heavy bags of garbage into the big can.  I
called Anne Cain about starting the process to list our house and set up an
appointment for her to chat with us tomorrow at 1 PM.  The Virtual website
continues along with praise from all over the world. The packing job is
daunting.  There is so much stuff to pack away or throw away.  Goodwill would
not take the light fixtures because of mercury concerns. We will drive them to
the dump tomorrow.  They currently are in Libbie’s car. For dinner tonight we
went out to La Cocina.  I had a Margarita and a Quesadilla La Cocina. Of course
the meal comes with too many chips and salsa but it was very good.  I finished
the PDF of the Odyssey which was a good read and has me really prepared to read
the book.


May 29, Friday Real Estate


I did more packing and discarding this morning.  I managed to clear the shelves
with shoeboxes totally and get everything packed up. This was a huge task that
I’m glad is taken care of.   We took the light fixtures and the tubes to the
dump along with several heavy garbage bags of junk, mostly electronic parts.
Good riddance.  On the way home from the dump we stopped at BoJangles on Hwy 55
and picked up lunch.  Anne came at 1 PM and did a walkthrough.  We need much
paint, new counter tops and a lot of repairs to get this house ready as well as
a painted mailbox and pressure washing.  After Anne left Libbie and I went out
in a pouring downpour and  picked up 14 more boxes in Lowes then went next to
Lowes and got ribs and wine for dinner. I cleaned off some of the leaves from
the deck although it is still pretty slimey.  Libbie cooked the ribs on the
grill which we had with baked beans and a bottle of Chateau Ste Michelle. May
30, Saturday Party


We went out to the granite place on Chatham next to Brueggers. We picked out
some light granite and arranged for them to come out Tuesday to measure for
granite. I measured with my tape and came out with 56 square feet. At $28 per
square foot this comes in at $1600. without tax.  We’ll have to add to this the
price of a sink and a new faucet. I grabbed one of Libbie’s bigger boxes and
filled it with the art books in our bedroom bookcase.  This is way too heavy.  I
need to remove half of the books and cut the box down to make it lighter and use
a second half box for the rest. I was pretty tired but we got things together
and went to Anne’s little party at 6:30.  We had lots of wine and also nibbles.
Anne has a beautiful house.   We stayed until 9 PM.  IT was nice seeing everyone
once again - Ken & Anita, Ken and Lana, and Harry and Terry Rumley.  Nancy and
Art called in via zoom. It was a very nice night.  I had way too much wine.
Libbie mentioned that Terry seemed to be aloof and spent the night zooming with
Nancy and Art.


May 31, 2020 Sunday Easy Day


It was a slow day where I spent a lot of time trying to read the Odyssey book.
I finally have really gotten into it but I had to escape Libbie to do it.  She
seems to be in a constant state of chatter where I can’t get away.  The only
thing I managed to do was repacked the Art books from the big heavy box to two
homemade cut down boxes and move them downstairs.  The art bookshelf in the
bedroom is now empty.  I had to do a Walmart trip because the cereal and milk
were running out.  Surprisingly I had to wait in line outside due to crowd
control.  I was third in line.  As a person left the store they let another one
in. Around 6 PM I ordered an Extra Large three topping pizza from Dominos. It
was too much to eat.  We had 2 pieces leftover.  Dinner was an extra cheese,
mushroom and tomato wedges pizza with a glass of Cabernet.


June 1, 2020 Monday Packing


I finished packing up my desk today.  This wasn’t too bad of a job.  I did quite
a bit more reading of the Odyssey book this afternoon.  I have really gotten
into it although parts of it are pretty dry especially when he goes into the
derivation of Greek words.  Uggh. I took a ride to the Cash For Electronics
place in Cary to check out whether they were interested.  They wanted Model
numbers which I sent but the email address bounced. In order to send Libbie the
Odyssey book I tried removing the DRM and sending it to her Kindle.  The Kindle
does not accept epub books so I need to try again and send her a mobi book. I
stopped at the Cary Lowes for boxes but they were out of the Medium size.   I
picked up 2 large ones and a dozen small boxes.  I wanted to do dinner out at
the Cary Pub but found out they close at 7 PM so we ordered takeout from China
Chef again.   Dinner was eggrolls, 3 meat Szechuan and a glass of Cabernet or
two or three.  After dinner I continued reading “An Odyssey”. We received a robo
call this evening telling us the Pod will arrive between 7:30 AM and 10:30 AM
tomorrow.


June 2, 2020 Tuesday Pod Day


This morning after breakfast around 9 the doorbell rang.  It was our POD driver
wanting to know where to place the POD.  The thing is huge on the outside but is
the expected dimensions, 8 feet wide and 7 feet tall, 7 feet front to back.  We
watched him drive the POD using his hydraulic apparatus  and carefully nudging
it into position.  Once he left I started bringing out the boxes of books which
are the heaviest boxes. I put down two rows of boxes then started stacking them
into a second layer.  Once I had two layers I brought the file cabinet down and
placed it on top of the pile.  It looks like I can only get two layers under the
cabinet, a third layer will be too  high.  This leaves a few inches on top of
the cabinet that I will use for something light, possibly the backpack or
canister sprayers.  I had several calls to the counter people.  They don’t move
very fast.  They sent an estimate based on my measurements Saturday.  I could
have done this last Saturday.  Still no sign of a person to do the measurements.
I paid the full invoice even though the contract said to pay 50% now and 50%
once the job is done.  The invoice said the due date is June 19.  I estimated
that I have 60 days to protest the charges on my credit card if something goes
wrong. We made a dump trip late this afternoon.  The cars were really lined up
waiting to unload at the dump.  We were approx 10th in line.  The little Prius
was packed with bags of trash as well as a box of fluorescent tubes.  Libbie
also brought a tray of old Bluebird Greenhouse chemicals for disposal.  We will
still need a few more trips to dispose of mountains of trash accumulated over 40
years. Dinner was Libbie’s spaghetti with cheese sprinkled over the top.  After
dinner I continued reading the Odyssey book.  It can be dry at times and highly
interesting at others.  When the author gets into storytelling it is pretty
interesting.  When he digresses into the derivation of a word it may be
educational but pretty dry.  All in all I’m glad to be reading it.  I
successfully removed the DRM and converted to Mobi so I could mail it to
Libbie’s Kindle.


June 3, 2020 Wednesday Bookclub


I continued working on the workshop and office.  My goal was to finish them both
today except for the Computers.  I pretty much achieved that goal.  We decided
that tomorrow was not enough time to do both the kitchen and the garage so I
called Pods and reschedule pickup.  Instead of Friday June 5 the earliest they
could do a pickup is Friday June 12.  We were OK with that.  Delivery to our
house in Sarasota will be june 20.  This was an incredibly busy packing today.
Libbie made a trip to drop off stuff at the Dorcas shop.  They took it all.  I
helped her load the Prius with bags of junk and more chemicals.  We took that to
the dump where the line was not as bad as yesterday.  We easily breezed through
there and then stopped by Food Lion for wine and a few items Libbie needed.  We
chose to go to BoJangles for Chicken dinners for dinner.  I was running pretty
close for the book club but I made it.  I had a few bites of chicken and a
little rice then went into my Office and joined the book club discussion.   It
was a great time.  I was able to participate but did not get to the poll mostly
because my Mouse stopped working.  This morning as I write this it still is not
working.  It seemed to be sketchy yesterday which I blamed on no mousepad but it
was probably the mouse failing.  Dr Patterson had some interesting insight into
the book.  He is really into this thing.  He said he read it twice. I decided I
need better lighting for zoom meetings and of course a working mouse.   I’m
really enjoying the book and may go back over parts of it because my retention
is not what it used to be, especially when dealing with all these Greek names.
Dinner which was belated by the Book Club was Bojangles chicken, dirty rice and
a biscuit with Iced Tea, sweet of course.  When I came down to finish my meal
after book club I had a glass of wine with dinner.


June 4, 2020 Thursday  Garage Packing


Today’s cleanup action moved into the garage.  I started at the top cabinet
above the garden tools then worked my way down through the garage cabinet
shelves.  Once these were sorted through and packed I started working on the
toolroom.  The nails and screws were all over the floor and in various yellow
parts bins scattered everywhere.  I threw most of this stuff away.  I completely
cleared the shelves holding the yellow bins and took them out of the closet.
This was good enough for a day's work.  I was tired.  I took the 5 channel
stereo from the Family Room TV and the player with speakers from the upstairs
plant room to the downtown pawn shops.  The first one wasn’t interested.  The
second one was a real junk shop and took all my stuff for $75.  It was great to
get rid of all this stuff and it also kept it out of the land fill. We went over
to La Cocina today for dinner.  I had the Quesadilla La Cocina with a Yuengling.
It was a long tiring day but I’m making progress.


June 5, 2020 Friday Garage tool room


It was a day inside the garage today.  I went through the punch card cabinet and
either threw away or packed up the tools.  Many of the tools were rusty and I
have never used in the last 30 or 40 years.  I also started a little pile in the
garage of brass and copper to go to the scrap metal dealer. Libbie took much
glassware to the Dorcas shop and then both of us filled the car with big heavy
plastic bags of old tools, nails and general junk.  The bags were bleeding
through on the bottom and dumped nails on the garage floor that I swept up.  I
ended up using one of the cardboard plant trays as a bottom support for each
plastic bag to get it into the dumpsters at the landfill. I drained the gas from
the rototiller and folded up the handle.  I’m going to wrap it in plastic and
then box it up.  It doesn’t look like we will fill the pod as full as I thought.
It will only be half full of boxes.   I listed the card cabinet on craigslist
this evening.  I’ll take it down on Sunday if it doesn’t sell. We decided to
have takeout Chinese dinner again tonight.  We had eggrolls and 3 meat Szechuan
for dinner.  Accompanying dinner was a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner we
watched Josh and Jenna live stream from Universal Studios which is now open.
They were mostly in the pouring rain which was coming down pretty heavy.
Towards the end of the broadcast the rain got to the gimbal.  The picture was
rapidly going up, down, right, left and all over the place.  It looks like he
fell down but in reality the gimbal failed and tossed the camera around.  At
this point I went to bed after a tiring day of cleanup and discarding.


June 6, 2020 Saturday Tool Cabinet


I continued filling the pod and emptying the tool closet.  I got an email from a
guy named Buddy who wanted the Punch Card Cabinet which I listed on Craigslist.
I sold it for 50.  The big move today was getting the large bookcase out of the
Plant Room, down the stairs and into the Pod.  This thing used a half sheet of ¾
inch plywood for the backing.  The shelves were real pine 1x12 shelving.   I
could paint this a whitewash color for our bedroom to match the rest of the
furniture.  The guy showed up at 4 with his trailer and hand truck to get the
tool cabinet.  We transported the drawers in my car to his trailer in the street
while he and I managed to get the tool cabinet down from its perch in the tool
room.  Buddy wheeled it to the street.  He also took the extra nail gun and
nails that I acquired for free from Northern Tool.  I gave this to him for free.
It was great to just get rid of this. We went over to the Cary Pub for dinner.
We both had the daily special which was 2 chicken tacos with lettuce, tomato,
home warmed nacho chips and salsa.  The salsa was great.  We had this with a Red
Oak Amber.  Our server was Brooke who was wearing painted on short shorts and
looked pretty nice.   On the way home we stopped at Brewsters for waffle cones.
I had a Death By Chocolate which was excellent.    When we got home we watched
Josh and Jenna on Youtube which was a rerun of ithe reopening of Universal
Studio.  The place looks interesting enough to go there sometime.  I need to
read Harry Potter after I finish the Odyssey however I also want to continue the
FIT book club for the next month led by a different professor.  I went to bed
very sore and tired.


June 7, 2020 Sunday Packing


I’m rounding out the boxes to go into the POD.  I just about have everything in
there and there is plenty of room for more stuff.   The last items to go into
the POD were the bathroom scale and the light stand.  I still need to unbolt the
two vises - one in my shop and one in the garage, My biggest fear is the POD is
too heavy and they won’t take it so full.  My backup plan is to drive back from
Florida and unload some of the heavier items.  The issue here is that the heavy
stuff is on bottom so hopefully I don’t have to do that.  This would be a major
inconvenience and I most likely would need help. I tried reading the Odyssey
book a little today but I need to start writing down what I’m reading. There
seems to be too much information for me to keep facts  straight.  A notepad
would be helpful, considerably slowing me down but this is highly necessary. At
6 I ordered the XL pizza from Dominos with the coupon.  We get 3 toppings for
9.99.  The large pizza is 3 toppings for 7.99.  I was hungry.  Accompanying the
pizza was a few glasses of Cabernet.  We watched Josh do a relaxing stroll of
Disney Springs while having our pizza. It was a pretty good day.


June 8, 2020 Monday Packing


It was a much easier day as we took our last load of trash to the dump and
packaged up some pictures in homemade boxes.  The Synology continues to synch
the Shares folder which contains the photos that I digitized on the scanner.
There were 350,000 files that were being synched.  It looks like the Synology
maintains a database of synched files.  I think this is what it is doing because
the files exist on both devices so there is no transfer and writing involved.  I
believe it is doing a transfer to check but not write the disk because the disk
space occupied  is not increasing. For dinner tonight I finally made the Chicken
Parmesan in the air fryer which we had with Lima Beans and Cabernet.  We decided
today to leave early Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday since we’re not really
ready.


June 9, 2020 Tuesday Picture Packing This was last minute packing day.  The POD
is roughly ¾ full.  I put some ties inside criss-crossing the POD then took some
pics using my  phone of the open POD.   AS a last minute thing I boxed up some
clothes and also filled a suitcase with clothes and tossed them on top of
everything. I spent the rest of the afternoon making custom boxes for our glass
covered pictures.  I packaged many, many pictures to put into the car.  We spent
today also packing our car for the trip tomorrow.  Libbie wants a plant and the
dollhouse which we manage to put in there along with everything else.  I got the
projector and the reels of Film packed into a smaller carton than the large tub
I originally was using. For dinner we went to Chipotle and ordered a chipotle
bowl.  I put salsa, black beans, peppers and onions, corn lettuce, cheese, guac
and hot sauce in mine.  The meat was Carnitas.  I tried to go to bed early
because I set the alarm for a 3:45 AM wake up time.


June 10, 2020 Wednesday Travel, cell phones and flat tires


We got up early and did the last minute packing of the car.  We got going nice
and early at 3:56 AM.  When we were on the Raleigh beltline Libbie discovered
she forgot to bring her cell phone. I turned around at the Gorman Street exit
and went back.  We lost about 30 minutes doing this.  Once we were on our way
again we found that the I-40 exit off the belt line was closed due to
construction.  We went beyond the exit to the Poole Rd exit and turned around.
We ended up taking the I-40 ramp from this direction of the ramp.  We had a
breakfast stop in Florence at the Exit 170 McDonalds which I don’t think was
fully open yet.  It was a mess and Libbie said the bathroom was filthy.  We did
another gas stop at Hardeeville just before Savannah.  As we were traveling
South of Savannah the tie pressure indicator came on.  I pulled over to examine
the tires which looked OK but I took exit 60 and got air at a machine at a
convenience store.  One tire was down to 20 pounds.  The light came on again on
I-10.  We pulled off at the next exit and added more air to the bad tire.  Once
on I-10 again Libbie called a tire store in Lake Butler to find out about a
repair or replacement for our tire. On the way down highway 121 the light came
on again. We stopped at another convenience store in Raeford Florida and put
more air into the tire.  It hardly lasted 5 miles but we still were more than 5
miles from the tire place. We made it there with the tire still containing air
which was good news since I didn’t want to destroy the tire or the rim.  They
were pretty busy in the tire shop but we were patient and waited.  They had
excellent people working.  They took the tire off the car, found a screw in the
tire, took the tire off the rim and glued in a patch.   We had no choice but to
hang around and wait for our tire.  Once it was patched we paid the $26 bill and
were on our way.  Before getting on I-75 we gassed up at a Loves which also had
a Hardees.  Libbie picked up hamburgers and an order of fries for us while I
pumped the gas.   I-75 was clear sailing all the way to Sarasota with the
exception of  pretty heavy rain around Tampa Bay.  We were able to skirt much of
the heavy stuff but  still had moments of incredibly intense blinding rain.  We
arrived at 4:30 which wasn’t too bad.  It made the trip a 12 hour trip.
Considering all the stops for air and a tire repair we did quite well. For
dinner tonight we had leftover Chipotle with wine.  It was excellent as a
leftover.  The little tubs Libbie saved the food in worked out pretty well.


June 11, 2020 Thursday zombie day


I was not up to doing anything productive today.  I managed to unpack all the
picture frames we brought down in the car.  I hung one of them in the kitchen
table area to replace two Hummingbird pictures.  This was Libbie Mom’s
watercolor which was in our Downing Place Family Room.  I managed to get rid of
the Adirondack chairs we picked out of the trash a few weeks ago.  I also got
rid of the two boxes of glass and stucco scrapings.  One box went into the
normal trash today while the other I took to the condo dumpster.  I also brought
a pile of cardboard from the picture frames to the condo recycling bin.  I need
to clear out as much of the garage as I can because the POD is huge.  At one
point Libbie said “Can we cancel the POD?”  This house is small and we have a
huge amount of stuff coming here and very little room to place it into a new
location. I did a little bit of picture organization on my desktop computer in
anticipation of forming a Family page much as I did for the George and Mary
Condon pages. For dinner Libbie made spaghetti with cheese on top which we had
with some Cabernet.  After dinner we watched a replay of Josh’s trip to the
opening of Seaworld.  The landscaping in this park looks phenomenal and may be
worth a visit. Christian from Braendel painting said they would come tomorrow to
start our paint job.  The first step will be pressure washing the place.


June 12, 2020 Friday Pressure Washing


We watched our POD get picked up in Apex via the house camera.  It was picked up
around 9:30 AM.  They said it would be between 8 AM and 11 AM so it was right on
time.  The same guy who delivered it was the one who picked it up.  Libbie
trusts his driving of the hydraulics. This morning Braendel painting showed up
and started pressure washing the house.  I want to talk to them about painting
the sides of the house as well.  The pressure washing was amazing.  The paint on
the front section mostly came off in large chunks.   The old paint didn’t bond
very well and I’m not sure if it’s cheap paint or poorly applied paint. Indoors
I digitized a Super 8 Film which was huge.  It took many hours to digitize and
the film stopped 3 or 4 times through.  When it was done I turned it off without
rewinding because I wanted to go to the grocery store to get our dinner.  We had
shrimp peelers with rice and Cabernet.  I picked up Mint chip Moose Tracks ice
cream for dessert.   After dinner we watched Josh and Jenna at universal
Studios.  The park closes early at 7 PM.  Around sunset we went outside and sat
in our Adirondack chairs.  It was quite pleasant even though we missed sunset by
a little bit..  I need to get our little patio area built.


June 13, 2020 Saturday Window


It was a slow day.  After rewinding the Super 8 film I digitized yesterday I
hooked up the Sound Projector.  The audio channel has a pretty bad hum.  I
researched removing hum with audacity and also looked at replacement sound
projectors on eBay.   I also need to find the video tape I made 20 years ago
which also has the Super 8 sound recorded on it.  Then I get to make a decision.
The paint crew showed up this morning but it started raining so they left. We
went to Detweilers  after that for our proteins.  We picked up pork chops,
ground beef and steak as well as produce. When I got home I set up the saw
horses and put an impact window on top.  I needed to take ¼ inch off each side.
The Porter Cable power planer does a beautiful job of taking down the edges.  I
previously marked the ¼ inch line with a Sharpie and then did the trimming.  The
only negative was the plastic chips which manage to cling to everything.  The
blower is only partially able to remove the clingy plastic. Dinner tonight was
pork chops, grilled pineapple and sweet potatoes.  Of course we had Cabernet
with dinner.  After dinner we sat outside and watched a beautiful sunset which
now happens around 8:30 PM. June 14, 2020 Sunday  Windows and albums


Before the morning shows I fertilized the Bougainvillea, Epidendrum Orchids and
the Vinca garden in the back. I also borrowed the painter’s ladder and climbed
on the garage roof to remove the bracket for an old Satellite dish then put some
caulk in the holes.  Libbie and I then did a Walmart trip because I ran out of
cereal but also picked up soup and wetting solution for my contacts.  This time
I bought Bio True which claims to last 20 hours.  I had good success with this
stuff and was unhappy when I switched back to Alcon which I feel is not as good.
I worked on the window some more removing all the sheetrock around the window
frame. On our Walmart trip we forgot to get package tape. I am going to tape the
window then break it to remove it. All of this afternoon was dedicated to
working on sorting and labeling Mom’s pictures.  I managed to get one complete
album on my website.  I still have many many more.  These were the ones that
were scanned.  Libbie made her wonderful pizza today.  The crust was pretty
thin.  It was topped with mushrooms from Detweilers and accompanied by a glass
of Cabernet.  Before sunset I ran out to Lowes and picked up package tape and
some PVC 1x4s.  Libbie and I poured a glass of wine and retired to our
Adirondack chairs and recorded a video to send to Lana and Ken for their
respective retirements.  Lana goes out on June 30 while Ken starts June 22.
Their daughter who lives in Atlanta is organizing this.


June 15, 2020 Monday Painting Done


I started working on the downstairs window in the ballroom but was thwarted in
my attempt.  After taping the window with package tape I tried to go outside but
the garage door was taped by the painters.  I need to use the garage to complete
the job after removing the window.  Instead I went into my office and finished
scanning Mom’s 1950s album.   I also setup a Jalbum directory and captioned all
the photos.  This took the whole day and into the evening.  I thought I finished
the whole album but I found one more album page that has not been digitized. The
painters finished the house this afternoon.  It really looks the best I have
ever seen it. Libbie said it looks better than when we bought it.   The front
door was painted but the weather stripping was really torn up.  I took a trip to
Lowes and picked up new weatherstripping  and replaced all 4 pieces with the new
material.  Ersin came over and was excited.  He got his date of June 29th for
the citizenship ceremony.  The letter said he could have no guests because of
Covid concerns.  We need to put together a party with Joe and Angela. For dinner
Libbie made eggplant parmesan.  It was beyond yummy.  We had this with some
Cabernet.


June 16, 2020 Tuesday Window Removal


This morning I began working outdoors on removing the second ballroom window.
Taping both sides with package tape worked well.  I removed the lower pane
easily then broke out the upper pain and removed the broken pieces as a sheet as
intended.  I had an audience doing this.  Dean and Paulette were getting their
AC system replaced so they were outside as well as the AC guy and also Libbie
came out.  After lunch I installed the new bucks but only used 4 screws because
I didn’t have anymore.  I temporarily put the new window into the opening with
some struggling.  The flashing in the corners stopped the unit from going in
fully.  I did some rough trimming and fastened the window in place with two
screws for the night. I continued organizing photos from Mom’s albums.  Over the
years I did many many scans and never bothered to put them into any order.  Now
I’m using a wiki on glembocki.info along with jalbum to organize everything but
there is much to do. We had leftover eggplant casserole for dinner along with
some cabernet.  I sat outside waiting for sunset drinking a glass of water but
it was not to be.  The sky was too clear for a nice sunset.


June 17, 2020 Wednesday Window Secured


Before working on the window I mixed up a batch of roundup and sprayed the area
under the Adirondack chairs for our outdoor patio under the pine trees.   I also
used some around the foundation and in the front yard. This morning I took out
the window which was temporarily in place to close the opening.  A trip to Lowes
got me more Tapcon screws which I used to screw down the new bucks.  With
Libbie’s assist I lifted the window into place and used a block of wood to nudge
it tightly.  I took a break during the extreme heat of the day and scanned
photos from a new envelope of Mom’s which I had not opened before.  It had a
treasure which was a family portrait of the Cybulski family in 1921.  Wow!  It
was BW and clarity was pristine.  The paper itself is disintegrating so I cut it
off at the knees since the bottom portion of the picture is mostly gone. Once
the sun went away on the side of the house I resumed installing the window and
finished the outdoor portion of the installation.  Tomorrow I’ll rip and cut the
PVC boards to finish the inside construction then I’ll pick up a couple of
blinds from Lowes. I ordered some American Flags from Amazon for the party for
Ersin and Juliya.  I also ordered full spectrum LED lights Dinner was hamburgers
on the grill with baked beans and Cabernet.  The burgers were great.  After
dinner I sat outdoors waiting for sunset.  It wasn’t a great sunset tonight but
it was enjoyable sitting there anyway.


June 18, 2020 Thursday  Finish Trim


I ripped and cut the PVC 1x4 boards to trim out the inside of the new windows.
This went well today.  While at it I also cut up all the wood scraps on the
garage floor and filled the garage bucket.  I need to clear the garage for the
POD arrival on Saturday.  It’s not clear if it really will arrive but I’ll be
ready.  I also need to move the bookcase in the front room so that there will be
room to construct the bookshelves while all the boxes are in the room.  At one
point Libbie went to Selby while I stayed behind working on the trim. Nina
stopped by to pick up masks that Libbie left for her.  I had a nice chat with
her about her home in Italy that she can’t get to.  I’m not sure what would
possess someone to buy another home in a foreign  country. Dinner tonight was
Air Fryer Quesadilla.  Libbie cut the onion and pepper while I manned the fryer.
This really came out nice and ws delicious as usual.  Before dinner I went to
Lowes and had two blinds cut for the ballroom windows then drove down Tamiami to
Walmart to get Mexican cheese as well as ingredients for tomorrow night’s Quick
Taco Salad dinner.  After dinner we watched the spectacular sunset.  The clouds
had moved in perfectly as the sun was going down giving us a glorious display.
The wind had picked up which helped with the gnat problem.  They were blown away
from us until the wind stopped.


June 19, 2020 Friday Window Wrap Up


This morning I caulked the two windows in the ballroom.  Next step was to wash
the windows both inside and outside.  Libbie came home from the Post Office and
helped with some particularly difficult to remove handprints.  She used a
combination of Windex and a Scruffy.  This plastic sponge did a nice job. The
windows sparkle.   I then hung the two new blinds.  They really look nice.
Earlier I stood on the step stool with the blinds extended while Libbie used the
blower to blow the sawdust off the blinds.  The sawdust came from cutting the
blinds in the store. I then went into my office and resumed scanning slides.
Just for the heck of  it I checked the PODS website and discovered that our POD
has arrived in Sarasota and will be delivered between 7 and 10 AM tomorrow
morning.  Libbie later received a text on her phone notifying us of this.  I had
my doubts that it would show up on time and was quite delighted at this result.
For dinner I made Quick Taco salad.  This is beef and salsa cooked with bell
pepper and spread over Romaine Lettuce.   We dressed the salad with tomato,
cheese, nacho chips and sour cream.  It was a nice meal accompanied by Cabernet.
After dinner we went over to Joe and Angela’s to discuss the party for June 29.
It was a nice evening with our neighbors.  We did catch a little bit of Josh and
Jenna but for the most part did not see their Friday Night live at Disney.


June 20, 2020 Saturday POD Day


This is the first day of summer.  Our POD arrived around 9 AM this morning.  We
were very pleased at how everything transported so well.  It was all in its
place where we put it when the POD left Apex.  Amazing.  Of course, we spent
some care in packing and arranging it all inside the POD plus we strapped
everything down so it would not move.  We started immediately taking stuff out
of the thing.  The house is a real mess but the goal is to empty the POD then
unpack everything later and find a new home for it.  We have a lot of stuff and
I’m not sure if it’s all going to fit.  I really want the 4 drawer file cabinet
so I  moved that and all the drawers up to the office.  I’m disappointed that
the duck tape I used to keep the drawers shut has left a residue on the drawer
fronts and also on the sides of the cabinet. I read that vegetable oil helps to
remove the residue so I rubbed out the top two drawers with oil and got them
cleaned up.  I need to also go over them with Windex to remove dirt which the
oil won’t do.  I’m also hoping the Windex will remove the oil residue. We were
both tired by the end of the day so we chose to pick up an order of ribs with
rice and black beans.  At home we had the rest of a bottle of Cabernet with
dinner.  After dinner we sat outside and watched a nice sunset while finishing
the remaining wine.  We then watched a little bit of Josh and a fellow band
director named Tish do a live stream from Universal.  We both agreed that Tish
is quite a good streamer.  She’s knowledgeable and only talks when she has
something to say unlike Josh’s sister Jenna who we also like. I went to bed very
tired but managed to do some more reading of my Odyssey book. I’m at the point
where Telemachus is reunited with his Father Odysseus.  Kindle says I have 29%
left to read in the book.


June 21, 2020 Sunday POD Empty


The first thing this morning I got my hand truck and moved the last dozen boxes
out of the POD.  It is now empty.  Unfortunately there are boxes all over the
house and no storage places to put these boxes into.  I need floor to ceiling
shelves in my office for tubs.  The great news is the 4 drawer file is in my
office.  This will hold a lot of my hanging files and some office type
paperwork. I had a good zoom meeting with Candace and Joyce this afternoon.  We
discussed the new website and developed a new layout for the menu structure.
This was a productive meeting.  I am going to implement the template as a
placeholder.  Later in the afternoon I spent some time scanning more of Mom’s
photos and finished scanning the late 30s early 40s book.  I started a Jalbum
for these since I want to capture the documentation and didn’t want to get too
far ahead with scanning photos.  I have these and some from the 70s that need
insertion into a 70s album. I also have some previously scanned photos that need
addressing.  For dinner we ordered a Dominos 3 topping large pizza which was
quite tasty.  I got the usual extra cheese, diced tomatoes and mushrooms.  The
storefront is hard to get to because the parking lot as well as the store front
is all torn up thanks to construction.  It appears they are refreshing the store
fronts as well as the parking lot.  After dinner I went outside and tried to
watch the sunset but it was not spectacular tonight.   I retired to the bedroom
and put in some serious reading time into the Odyssey book. The next and last
zoom meeting is Wednesday night and I was only at 78% according to the Kindle
reader.


June 22, 2020 Monday Shelving


This morning I had sour milk in my cereal.  Libbie made me an egg muffin instead
for breakfast.  It was quite good.  Because of the bad milk I did a Walmart trip
for groceries.  Since I was going to Home Depot for floating shelves I visited
the Walmart next door.  Unfortunately Home Depot did not have floating shelves
but I did find a 3 step ladder that only weighed 8.8 lbs.  It was by Gorilla
instead of the Rubbermaid I was looking for.  I bought it because we probably
need it. At home I put it to use right away.  Libbie needed a quilt hung in our
bedroom.  I also hung two quilts in the sewing room.  I bought 3 8 foot shelves
in Lowes later in the afternoon.  I will use the 3 step Gorilla ladder to hang
these shelves above the door.  I need to desperately do something to store all
these tubs full of stuff we brought from NC.  I’ll hang this tomorrow. For
dinner tonight we had hamburgers with potatoes and onions cooked in the cast
iron skillet we brought from Apex this week.  It was yummy.  We had this with a
glass of Cabernet.


June 23, 2020 Tuesday Pressure Washer, Tiller


I went to Lowes to get some fittings to use the 50 foot pressure hose from Apex
but I only got one side of the equation.  I still need a fitting for the machine
so instead of messing around I got out my ladder which was buried under boxes of
moving stuff and set it up on the back porch roof. I moved the machine up to the
roof along with the soap, gasoline and hoses.  The machine started right up and
I began washing the upstairs wall. I’m not sure if it did any good or not but
tomorrow I want to  use the paint and seal the stucco. After the wall washing I
got out the roto tiller and tried tilling the spot where I used roundup.  The
grass is tough stuff and the little tiller is no match for it.  We need the
“Glembockinator” which is the chain drive tiller that we gave to Cole.   I
spread down the landscape cloth and put 7 bags of gravel over it.  We need much
more.  I took a trip to Lowes for roller covers and a roller pan liner and then
went to the garden shop and bought 10 bags of gravel.  This was a full day. The
flags arrived today.  They are quite small.  I thought 4x6 would be a good size
but it is not. They are quite small.  I also received the LED light strips for
the third light stand. In my office I planned to put up the shelves over the
door but only got one of them hanging from 2 nails.  It needs a drilled support
every 12 inches. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with cheese over it and some
Cabernet.  After dinner I briefly fell asleep on the couch watching Josh take a
relaxing stroll from the Polynesian to the Grand Floridian on the landscaped
path.   Once I woke up and went upstairs I lay on the bed and finished reading
“An Odyssey”.   It suddenly ends with his Dad dying.  The book was pretty good
and was not something I would have chosen on my own.


June 24, 2020 Wednesday Paint


I gathered all my tools, mixed the paint and carried everything to the roof.
Painting the stucco turned out to be easy.  The old bathroom window has a
serious stucco problem, it’s spongy and peeling away from the window.  This is
not good.  I got extremely overheated working on the roof and took many breaks.
Eventually I ran out of paint and quit the job. Libbie was nice enough to clean
the roller and brushes.  While I was painting Libbie worked on our little patio
and put 10 pails full  of volcanic rock she dug out of the patch in front of the
screen.  This will make a nice base for the little patio. Late in the afternoon
I made a trip to Lowes and picked up more paint and a new roller tray that fit
the liner better.  I also bought the remaining quick disconnect for the pressure
washer.  It did not have a price tag so the lady at self check let me have it
for free.  This is a $13 pair of brass fittings she gave away to me. We had an
earlier dinner of salmon and rice.  Because I had a zoom meeting at 7 PM we had
dinner at 6:15.  I did not have wine with my dinner because of the meeting.  The
zoom meeting went off as planned at 7.  It was interesting to get the different
people’s insights of the various themes running through the book.  Gordon
Patterson is a good observer of life circumstances.


June 25, 2020 Thursday Finish painting


This morning I went up on the roof in the back with the new can of paint and
finished painting the back wall.  It was early enough that it was comfortable
working while the back was still in the shade.  To get to the higher sections
above the windows I pulled the extension ladder up onto the roof and used it to
easily reach the tops of the windows above the breakfast area roof.  This
breakfast area roof was stopping me from using a step ladder to reach the upper
parts of the wall above the windows.  Tomorrow I’ll go back on the roof and take
the tape off the windows. We went to Costco and bought a case of wine.  Our
purpose was to see about ordering a cake but they do not customize so we went to
Publix and ordered a small sheet cake for Monday.  It will be a combo of
congratulations to Ersen and Yuliya as well as a happy birthday Olivia.  She
will be 2.   While in Publix we did some grocery shopping for the ingredients
for our Mongolian Beef. I did a little work on the shelves in my office, getting
all the horizontal supports in place.  The bottom shelf is a little crooked,
Libbie measured it down from the ceiling at both ends.  There was ¾ inch
difference.  The bark goes on sale today for $2 a bag.  I was too tired to get
it at Lowes.  I also discovered that I need one more fitting for the 50 foot
pressure washer hose. Dinner tonight was Mongolian Beef which we both had a hand
at making.  It was yummy as usual.  We had enough leftover for tomorrow night as
well.  I had too much Cabernet, 3 large glasses.


June 26, 2020 Friday Bark & Rocks


I went to Lowes and picked up the missing quick connect fitting for my 50 foot
pressure washer hose and also took advantage of the 5 for $10 sale of brown
mulch.  I  unloaded the mulch and moved it to the backyard.  Next I climbed onto
the porch roof and removed the blue tape from around the windows I painted.  I
couldn’t reach the tops of the window frames so Libbie passed the new 3 step
stool out through the window so I could continue. Next project was the mini
patio for our sunset chairs.  I moved the 10 retaining wall blocks from the
front hedge to the patio.  They were doing nothing in the front but looking
ugly.  I built a 2 layer retaining wall with 5 blocks per layer.  I raked the
volcanic rocks Libbie added to the patio then opened the 10 bags of rocks from
Lowes and spread them around.  I had a sudden shooting back pain which I feared
may be heart related to I immediately stopped and went inside into the air
conditioned living room, poured a glass of water, chewed 4 baby aspirins and sat
in my chair for a while.  The pain eventually subsided.  I then went back
outside and slowly spread the 3 bags of brown  mulch over another layer of
landscape cloth and put the chairs back.  It looks pretty good.  After this I
wanted a sheet of aluminum for behind the grill.  The grill is messing  up the
wall with black carbon and melting the vinyl door frame.  We went to the Venice
Lowes and bought a sheet of leather look aluminum sheet 2’ x 3’ then went to
Belkys for a Cuban sandwich and an Empanada.  Mr Belky let us sample some of the
filling in his Empanadas.  We then went over to Nokomis Beach and ate the
sandwiches in the same picnic shelter we used last month.  We didn’t finish the
sandwiches.  It was too much food. On the way home At  home I started working on
Mom’s photos, the early years and also took a look at the 2021 Show schedule
because Libbie is pressing for that.  With luck I will finish it tomorrow
(Saturday).  We had an unbelievable thunderstorm with a 32 MPH gust.  The mulch
bags blew across the yard with Libbie outside in the pouring rain chasing them
down.  She got totally soaked.  The chairs also blew over but didn’t go far.
This was a surprise storm that came down from the Northern part of the county.
Dinner tonight was the Belkys Cuban reheated.  We had this with the rest of the
bottle of Cabernet that we opened yesterday.  We ate the sandwiches informally
while watching a live stream of Josh and Jenna in Disney Springs.  We watched
her buy a $100 blanket throw that we wondered why you would need this in
Florida.


June 27, 2020 Saturday Paint prep


This morning I picked up branches around the yard from the storm yesterday.  We
almost tested our new impact window.  The extension ladder I left leaning
against the porch roof had fallen sideways and was being held up by where the
tip of the ladder caught the drain pipe. We were very lucky. I hooked  up the
pressure washer to the water hose and climbed the ladder to both soap the wall
and spray it off.  I also taped the window for painting.  This was the extent of
my outdoor activities.  Indoors I made quite a bit of progress on the 2021 show
schedule.  I also continued to work on the newest slide show of Tom, Vicki and
Arlene. Amazon arrived this afternoon with my floating shelves.  I put them up
next to the sliding door in the corner.  Libbie populated them with some of her
bottles and mini baskets.  They look nice. We still have one shelf left over
that we’ll put somewhere.  I ran out to Lowes and picked up a paint grid for a 5
gallon bucket.  This will allow me to carry the roller up the extension ladder
and paint the wall with the bucket suspended on the ladder. I don’t know why I
had not thought of this earlier.  Libbie added the rest of the snow peas and
another onion as well as more carrots to the left over Mongolian beef.  It was
quite good.  She made more rice for the meal.  Dinner was Mongolian Beef with
rice accompanied by a few glasses of Cabernet.  We tried to watch the sunset on
our new patio but the Sahara Dust in the atmosphere did not give a pretty show.
We got a pinhole effect of the sun peeking through the dust layer.


June 28, 2020 Sunday Painting


I used the paint grid and the 5 gallon bucket this morning and painted the new
stucco around the East window (office window).  While I painted Libbie ran out
to Lowes and picked up another gallon of paint.  I barely had enough to finish
the stucco.  When she returned I finished below the window to the break and then
decided to do the wall all the way to the front corner.  This really wiped me
out.  I was out of breath on each trip up the ladder.  I eventually sat in the
shade in the driveway with a glass of water that Libbie brought out to me.
After a shower and fresh clothes I was back in action.  I did a grocery trip to
Walmart and picked up the basics.  I attempted to do some more work on the show
schedule but got nowhere since I was tired.  I did record the Massenet version
of Cinderella from the Met live stream but did not do much else.  I decided to
debug the upstairs AC which can not keep up with the load.  I watched a youtube
video that said the two most important things to improve an AC are to clean the
coils on the condenser unit and to use a cheap filter instead of the fancy type
that tend to restrict flow.  I bought 2 cheap filters in Lowes and cleaned the
louvers on the upstairs unit when I replaced the filter.  I also crawled into
the attic and measured the temperature. It was 140 which is too high.  The
outside temperature was 90 and I would like to see that value down to 110.  I
will review the vents on the roof to figure out if anything can be done. Libbie
made her yummy pizza again.  It was different this time.  She used regular
tomato sauce without Basil and the cheese was Mozzarella.  She also put Baby
Bella mushrooms on the pie. During our pizza we watched CBS Sunday Morning which
YouTube TV recorded from this morning.  This was a nice way to watch this feel
good program.


June 29, 2020 Monday Party


This morning I soaped the coils of the 2 AC units and then hosed them off with
the garden hose.  I also poured Clorox down both drain lines of the indoor air
handlers.  This is about all I can do for the AC units.  I moved the ladder to
the other side of the house and taped the window.  Next step is to pressure wash
the house and then paint it.  I'll do the pressure washing tomorrow and the
painting the day after.  The window taping alone wiped me out.  Everytime up the
ladder caused me to have to stop out of breath at the top. I then went inside
and worked on the 2021 Show Schedule some more.  I added a few more categories
but it was not nearly enough.  The real problem is that this has to be done and
the taxes started pretty soon. My goal is to finish the taxes by the 4th of
July. I picked up the cake for Ersen and Yuliya.  It was beautiful. The flag was
on top and the base was surrounded by baby sharks.  It was a great cake.  Joe
and I put up the tent in the driveway and I moved the grill to the front of the
house.  I ran out to Target and picked up clear plastic drink cups for our wine.
Everyone started gathering at 6 PM for our 6:30 party.  Olivia was sleeping so
we didn’t disturb her but the rest of us had a fantastic party.  I had the
Carrot Tarator, chicken and ground lamb or steak.  It was all delicious.  Some
time during the night Olivia woke  up.  We put the candle on the cake and had
her blow it our while everyone sang Happy Birthday.  She then opened her
presents like a 2 year old.  Carol was quizizing us from the book of 100
questions that new citizens have to learn.  Most of us would flunk at becoming
citizens. In the end, a great time was had by all.  Yuliya provided togo
containers and all helped us pick up the chairs and disassemble the tent.  All
our chairs are piled up in the garage to be dealt with tomorrow.  The party was
finally over at 10:30 PM.


June 30, 2020 Tuesday  Pressure Washer


We woke up pleasantly happy after last night’s party.  I moved the hose around
and hooked up the pressure washer and proceeded to wash the Western wall.  I’m
pleased with how well the combination of the soap and the high pressure water
were able to remove the black stuff off the stucco.  I think it was a combo of
the soap loosening the grime and algae and the water pressure blasting it off.
This was the end of my outdoor activity for today. I managed to bring all the
chairs in from the garage where they were put after the party last night. Inside
during the afternoon I finished the Design Schedule.  Now I need to combine it
with the Horticulture Schedule for the complete Show Schedule. I made a late
afternoon trip to Lowes to pick up another gallon of paint to complete the wall
facing Ersens.  Dinner was the party leftovers consisting of carrot tarator,
marinated chicken and the delicious veggie salad.  The Met ran the elixir with
Pretty Yendy last night so I recorded it this afternoon.  On the first pass the
card ran out of space because I had 2 other operas on it.  I moved them to the
server and then did the recording again. This time it was a success. We went
outside after dinner and watched the sunset change various colors while I took a
few pictures.  I’m glad Google stores them on their server.  It makes for a
convenient storage facility.


July 1, 2020 Wednesday  West side painting


Dianne from down the street came over at 9 this morning and wanted the picture
of her deleted from my album which I did.  Oh well. This morning I painted the
new stucco around the bedroom window facing Ersens.  This went well.  I had
enough energy to climb the ladder multiple times unlike 2 days ago where I was
out of breath on each trip.  I almost got the whole wall painted.  There is a
small section at the front that still needs paint then I may give the window a
second coat of paint.  This will complete the upstairs painting. I started the
taxes by installing Turbotax and entering the SSA and pension data.  It was nice
that the thing was able to find my previous tax returns which I moved over from
the Synology Server to a directory called tax on the c drive. I also attempted
to record Walkure from the Met.  This was the good James Morris performance that
I saw at the Met. Unfortunately I forgot about the 4 hour recording which was to
end at 7 and didn’t turn it off until 8:45.  It was during our sunset watching
time that I remembered. For dinner we ordered a 4 meat combo and 2 egg rolls
from New China in Nokomis.   We had this with a glass of Cabernet. Joyce sent
some kind of thing that Winston wants to replace the website with iMis. This
would not be good especially since we want to get more frequent updates.  I
objected and Richard Craft thought it was not very good either.


July 2, 2020 Thursday Finished Painting


I went out on the ladder again this morning and finished painting the wall.  I
next went to the window and put a second coat of paint on the new stucco.  This
completed the wall.  While I was doing this Libbie was walking on the beach with
Dianne and Helen. I moved to the Lanai and taped around the BBQ grill.  Libbie
washed some of the carbon off the wall with 409.  I then painted the area around
the grill.  Once the paint was dry I put up the aluminum sheet we purchased from
Lowes Venice last week. This will protect the vinyl frame of the new door and
also keep the Carbon off the wall.  The aluminum sheet should be easier to clean
than the wall. I had to do a Walmart grocery run this afternoon because I ran
out of milk this morning.  I picked up some Tomatillos so I could make Shrimp
enchiladas tomorrow for dinner.  Dinner was sirloin steak with a baked potato
and sour cream. We had Bunny Tracks ice cream for dessert.  After dinner I
called Joyce because she wanted me to walk her through getting the new theme she
and Richard Craft had picked out.  The theme was 66 megs which is too big to
send via email so I coached her on uploading it to Google Drive where I was able
to download and install it. It’s a total mess as is, it needs some
configuration.


July 3, 2020 Friday Indoors today


For the first time all week I didn’t go up on a ladder.  The painting is done so
I put the screens back in. This morning I reset the AVSA website which clears
the database.  I did this to install the Enfold theme that Joyce purchased.  I
wanted to install the Church Demo files but it kept failing.  I found one post
that said to increase PHP Memory in the C Panel and also in Wordperfect.  I did
this but the Church Demo still did not install.  I guess I’ll just configure the
site as-is.  Libbie needed hanging pots so we went to Englewood where they had
some in stock.  We bought the pots then found some nice looking Purslane which
we also bought.  On the way home we stopped at Mr T a garden center that clearly
is above all the rest.  The plant selection was fabulous.  It is the best garden
center I have ever seen.  The inside was a potpourri of trinkets and junk.
Outdoors was the best selection of landscape plants I have ever seen. They had
everything.  In addition they have a large selection of statues.  We’ll
definitely be back. Libbie cooked some hot dogs for lunch but while we were
eating lunch she noticed an egret across the pond trying to swallow a fish
inside a net.  I drove her across the street and she took a garbage bag and got
the fish in the net.  It was in the pond so she stepped into the water to get it
and put it into the garbage bag.  This kept it away from the egret and saved the
birds life. This afternoon we watched Hamilton.  I fell asleep during some of it
but enjoyed the performance.  We had dinner during the built in intermission
then watched the rest of it to the end.  It was quite good although it was hard
to hear a lot of the words.  They were buried in the lyrics and I didn’t think
the sound was the best although we had the volume turned way up. Dinner was the
rack of ribs we purchased outside Detweilers today.  We had this with potato and
onion hash browns and a glass of Cabernet.  Dessert was bunny tracks ice cream.


July 4, 2020 Saturday fireworks


This morning I could not get the church demo of the enfold theme working.  I
read the forums and tried the suggestions to increase memory in both the host
and in the Wordpress config file. None of this worked so I set up a Wordpress
install in a sandbox directory on avsa.org.  The church demo installed fine over
there.  This was good so we now have the Church demo for reference and the real
thing on the namecheap site.   I did some quick configuration and then sent out
admin accounts to our small team. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone with
Joyce helping her become familiar with the enfold theme and where items are
found. She left feeling more confident. Dinner tonight was the rest of the rack
of ribs along with baked beans and some Cabernet.  Around 7:30 PM we took our
chairs to Stoneybrook Blvd walking over with Joe and Angela.  We set up our
chairs in the median under the Oak trees. We sat with Helen and Myron.
Surprisingly we saw Jim and Shelly from the condo.  They lived downstairs from
us.  They said they bought a house on Westbourne near Libbie’s friend Pat.  It
may have been the one we visited with all the sports crap on the walls.  We came
home after a very nice street party, easily about 50 people were in attendance.


July 5, 2020 Sunday Taxes


I finished the taxes this morning.  Surprisingly I will be getting back the
money I gave the IRS as voluntary withholding because of the huge loss on the
condo.  I added up the purchase price plus the improvements and came up with
335,000.  I had to subtract over 100,000 in depreciation from this number.  We
still had a $60,000 loss.  I was under the impression that capital losses were
limited to $3,000 per year but Turbo Tax calculated it differently.  I’ll accept
the Turbo Tax calculation.  Joyce continued to update the front page of the new
website.  I started filling out the menu structure.  I had to do a Walmart trip
for Libbie because she needed eggs and muffins. Libbie made her excellent pizza
this afternoon with a very nice thin crust.  We had mushroom pizza with cabernet
for dinner.  After dinner we watched Josh and Jennas live stream from July 4th.
They showed spectacular fireworks shows from past years. Now that my taxes are
done and the schedule is complete I can resume working on my office shelves
tomorrow.


July 6, 2020 Monday Busy Day


I had a lot to do today before we can potentially leave on Wednesday.  I planted
the Purslane in the front yard.  We bought these at the Mr T Garden Center in
Englewood.  After the planting I loaded up the back pack sprayer with Roundup.
The front yard needed treating before our trip since the weeds are overtaking
the landscape.  I also did a little roundup along the foundation and around our
sunset patio.   Next activity was to put the ladder on the palm tree next to
Paulette and Deans house.  I used the pole saw to cut down 3 Palm fronds and 2
seed pods which are huge.  I added 2 drippers to the water line on the Lanai for
Libbie then added watering to the Purslane in the front yard. I did not file the
taxes today as planned, I ran out of time. I also did not accomplish anything on
the new AVSA website rebuild.   At about 6 PM I started making the Shrimp
Enchiladas.  First step was a Salsa Verde with fresh Tomatillos that I husked,
boiled and ground up in the blender. This was combined with sour cream,
Jalapeno, onion and Lime juice.  The mixture was used to coat the Tortillas
before Libbie added shrimp and Jack cheese.  We made a 3 tortilla stack and each
had one for dinner.  Shredded cabbage with lime and olive oil topped the meal.
I ws not very keen on this, the shrimp did not add anything and the whole thing
tasted like an excess of Lime.   While trying to shred the cabbage we found that
our food processor did not work. We brought this from Apex in the Pod.  It needs
to go into the trash. Dinner was Shrimp Enchiladas with Cabernet and Mint Moose
Tracks ice cream for dessert.


July 7, 2020 Tuesday Packing Up


The weather looks not bad in the SouthEast except for some afternoon
thunderstorms which we’ll deal with tomorrow.  I tied the Palm fronds and took
them to the street for Thursday. Next I used roundup and treated all the visible
weeds in the front yard.  I took out the zip ties and anchored down all the
orchids so they wouldn’t unhook in a windstorm. Meanwhile Libbie gathered all
our chairs and brought them inside including the two plastic Adirondack Chairs.
She needed to mail a package at the Post Office so I gathered all the garbage
and trash I could find and filled the car for a trip to the dumpster at
Clubside.  Even though it’s been a week, the dumpster was empty.  There were not
many people at the condos this week which was good because we were able to dump
our garbage without any watchers. I really got tired at the end of the day and
was barely able to function helping Llibbie empty the hot tub. We got it drained
and the cover back on with only 2 screws.  I finish the screws when we get back.
We watched the return to Disney World by Josh and Jenna pretty much all day.
For dinner tonight we reheated the stacked shrimp enchiladas.  The tortillas
were pretty soggy but tasty. We had this with a glass of Cabernet.   After
dinner I crashed hard.  I was really tied. Tomorrow we’ll get up early and take
off for Apex.


July 8, 2020 Wednesday Rainy Travel


We left in the dark this morning at 5 AM. The trip up past I-4 was surprisingly
easy with little or no traffic. We stopped at a McDonalds at the Villages for
some biscuits for breakfast.  The indoor portion was closed  but I walked to the
counter and ordered our biscuits. As we were approaching Ocala we had a light
shower or two.  Libbie needed a bathroom break so I took the opportunity at our
turn off in Troxler to gas up while she did her thing.  Once again it was an
easy trip up through Jacksonville and through Georgia.  We stopped for gas again
just before Florence at Manning.  Rain was on and off through Georgia and SC.
The worst of the rain was on the Raleigh Beltline where there was ponding on the
road in many spots.  The house looked great when we arrived at 3:53 PM. The
total trip was about 12 minutes shy of 11 hours which was excellent. Libbie made
tuna sandwiches for our lunch which saved tons of time.  We also had cut up
watermelon slices.  Instead of throwing our watermelon out she cut it up into
bite sized pieces and put them into a tupperware.  They were a welcome treat.
Tonight around 6 PM we went out to Chipotle and picked up a Chipotle bowl. We
had this at home with the wine we brought from KB.   In general it was a nice
trip.


July 9, 2020 Thursday Disassembly


I used Yelp to get some quotes for painting.  The most promising was a lady who
painted Coleman and Nancy’s house.  She is coming tomorrow to look at the job.
We waited until 1 PM for a guy who texted that he would be here between 11:30
and 12:30 but then he said he already sent the quote which was $3800.  This
delayed us, Libbie was waiting to paint and I was waiting to pick  up groceries.
We finished the Chipotle from yesterday for lunch then I went to Harbor Freight
for a PVC cutter then Walmart for groceries.  My milk was sour this morning so I
needed more milk plus regular groceries for our Apex stay.  When I got back from
the store I started tearing the plant towers apart.  This  is a hard job - they
are incredibly nailed and fiberglassed together. I’m salvaging the solenoids but
nothing else.  I priced getting a 15 yard dumpster, it will be around $350 and
may be well worth it as a time saver. I managed to get one plant tray taken down
but all the wood and lighting parts are still in the playroom.  I may be tossing
this stuff out the window and carrying just the plywood downstairs. Dinner was
hamburger on the grill with a Vidalia on a bun.  I had some cabernet with the
burger and did nothing for the rest of the night.


July 10, 2020 Friday Smithfield


I continued working on the violet tower and tossed the wood out the side door.
I ended up with the entire tower disassembled but the plywood sheets still in
the playroom.  These will have to be carried down the stairs. The two ladies
arrived at 12:30 to give us our painting estimate.  They were quite thorough,
taking many pictures as they went around writing notes of what they found.
Libbie and I liked them very much and  hope their estimate is going to be
reasonable. Libbie finished painting a second coat on the window over the sink.
Now she wants to paint the kitchen crown moulding.  We left at 3 for Smithfield
and stopped for gas at Sheetz on 1010.  Gas was $2.05 per gallon.   The trip
down 1010 had very heavy traffic until 401 then it was clear sailing down a
country road.  The ride was very scenic, we didn’t have to take the Interstate
at all.  We had a nice visit with Mahlen and Brenda and I had a chance to drop
the MAAVS albums off. I went with Mahlen to pick up the BBQ at Smithfield BBQ.
I had the pulled pork with hushpuppies, cole slaw and potato salad.  Smithfield
BBQ is quite good.  While Mahlen and I went to Smithfield, Brenda and Libbie
toured the gardens in their yard,  The previous owner was quite a gardener.  We
left at 8 PM because I wanted daylight driving.  We took the Interstate home for
a very easy ride back in about 40 minutes.  It was Friday night so Josh and
Jenna were live streaming from home reviewing their climb to 100k subscribers.
Disney has invited them for a meeting tomorrow as an influencer.  Nice things
are in store for them.


July 11, 2020 Saturday Tower 2


Chris from All Around Power Washing and Management showed up this morning.  He
walked through the downstairs looking at the job.  We both liked him.  A few
hours later we got an estimate via email.  It looked pretty good and the
possibility that he can start next week is even better.  I chatted with Libbie
about the estimate and then sent Chris an email accepting his offer.  He said
they could start Tuesday between 7 and 8:30 AM.  This is good news for us. I
then continued on the tower demolition and managed to get the second tower
broken down and out onto the pile.  I still need to move the 4x8 trays out to
the yard.   This was quite a job of intense physical crowbarring. Now I’ll deal
with the lights in the ceiling.  One of them can get moved to the garage tool
room because the old T-12 fixture in there doesn’t work very well. This was the
end of my work day.  Lib and I watched Josh and Jenna at the first day Disney MK
was open to the public.  The previous visits this week were a passholder preview
and a cast member preview. Dinner tonight was Chinese takeout.  We had eggrolls
with 3 meat Szechuan.  A glass of Cabernet complemented the meal.  It was a
satisfying day.


July 12, 2020 Sunday Continuing Work


This morning after the Sunday shows I started taking down the 8 lights attached
to the ceiling.  I saved one of them to use in the garage tool room.  The lights
left holes in the ceiling.  I did a multiple trip today.  First stop was Walmart
for a pastry cloth but they didn’t have one.  I did buy Mushrooms and dental
floss plus a new toothbrush.  Next stop was Whole Foods to visit the Amazon
locker and get my key tags and the tube of silicon thermal grease.  I then went
to Home Depot at Crossroads and picked up my plaster and wall patches for the
holes in the wall but not for the ceiling holes.  I then went to Target and
found a very nice pastry cloth that cost $20.  Next stop was Harbor Freight but
they had no framing nail gun which is what I need for boxing in the duct and
also repairing the floor in the shop.  I picked up a pair of linemans dikes but
the checkout line was so long I bailed out and left. Libbie is finished with the
white crown molding in the kitchen.  I took the tape off the window and helped a
little with the scraping.  Libbie made her excellent pizza without a rolling
pin.  It was thicker than normal but quite excellent.  We had pizza with
mushrooms and a glass of wine.  This finished the bottle and Libbie said no more
bottles of wine. We’ll see. In the evening I watched many videos about roof
ventilation.  There is something called a hip roof vent made for the ridge of
hip roofs.  I watched an interesting one by somebody named exoman who has a
ridge vent he thinks is not working.  He chopped a hole in the roof and put a
traditional passive vent in the hole.  He said he could feel the heat escaping.
I would like to see a followup video.


July 13, 2020 Monday Continue demolition


The playroom disassembly continues.  Today I removed the plumbing and the
controller box from the wall.  I then started patching holes in the ceiling and
also patched up some holes in the walls downstairs in the living room and also
in the workshop.   I helped load up the fans and old AC unit for Libbie to take
to the Dorcas shop.  The bad news is they did not want them.  Libbie is going to
try Restore which is another business that takes old items and if they won’t
take the stuff it goes to the dump. I did some more research on nailers and
decided to buy a brad nailer at Home Depot on sale for $79 and also to rent a
framing nailer from Home Depot in Fuquay for $29 per day. Libbie cooked some
hamburgers for dinner which we had with baked beans.  When I went outside to
turn the grill off after 2 minutes there was a flash and an incredibly loud
;lightning hit nearby.  Libbie joked that who knew that may be the last time she
ever saw me, struck by lightning turning off the grill.


July 14, 2020 Tuesday  Disaster


The painters arrived this morning and got to work.  There were 4 of them and
they did a crappy, crappy, crappy job.  There was paint everywhere - doorknob,
weatherstripping, hinges, the floor, light switches and AC duct cover.  They
didn’t remove anything and just painted everything in sight.  The most amazing
crappy thing was they painted the fire extinguisher in place without bothering
to remove it.  Uggh. Every piece of wood they painted has running paint on it
without exception.  I was ready to sit down and cry.  We easily have almost
$2,000 worth of damage.  I will have to sand the walls and strip the woodwork
with a paint stripper. The new countertops on the other hand are a surprising
delight.  The installation crew was excellent and knew what they were doing.
They did a superlative job installing everything and making it fit correctly.
We are overjoyed with the new countertops.  For dinner we went out to Chipotle
and got a Chipotle bowl which was excellent as usual.  I had ice cream for
dessert. I went to Lowes to get more plumbing parts and from the parking lot I
talked to Chris about how unhappy we were with the paint.  I told him we want
the painting to stop and we would pay for whatever time and materials he had
into the job.  Libbie and I both want to be done with him.  I stayed  up late
and peeled the paint off the pantry doors because it was so thick.  I went to
bed very unsettled even though I was very tired.  Sleeping was very
intermittent, all I could think of was  how could we fix this mess.


July 15, 2020 Wednesday  Disaster fixup


This morning we evaluated the tragedy that is our painting job.  Libbie worked
all day on the breakfast area window and pass through.  I used a paint stripper
on the sill and got all the paint off there.  Everywhere we look there is
dripping paint.  Can’t  look back, have to move forward.  We got an estimate
from Megan for the downstairs rooms.  It was $3600.  Libbie talked to her about
our bad paint job.  She laughed and said they can sand and fix the paint.  I
took the pass through doors off and considered replacing them.   Even the front
door hinges are painted.  Horrible.  I got a bill for $1680 and told Chris this
way too much money considering we incurred $2,000 worth of damage.  He sent a
second bill for $750 which I reluctantly paid.  That’s a lot of money for
destroying doors, wood, hardware and walls.  John Salventi wants to talk to me
tomorrow at 9 about some work at Selby.  When it rains it pours! We went to
Foodlion and picked up a bottle of wine and then went to Bojangles for a chicken
dinner.  Dinner was a 2 piece chicken dinner with a biscuit and dirty rice.  It
came with Sweet Tea but we also had wine.


July 16, 2020 Wednesday Strippping


This morning I went to HOme Depot in Cary for a pail of paint stripper and a
package of sanding discs.  I bought 80 grit to remove paint.  Next stop was
Harbor Freight for a Palm Sander but they were out of stock.  I had to be back
at 10 for a call with John Salventi at Selby.  He wanted to set me up with
remote access to do some image file cleanup. I was able to get into the Selby
system but did not have access to the camera PC with the 2 different IDs that
John gave me.   He will have to ask the IT department for an ID with access to
the camera PC.   I next went to Lowes and picked up a Craftsman Palm Sander and
hooked it up in the kitchen eating nook.  It did a good job sanding off the
orange peel and running paint on the wall.  It did not work well on the trim.
I’ll have to address that some other way.  I went into the garage and set up
some saw horses to strip the paint off the cabinet doors.  I managed to strip
half of the cabinet doors and also remove the painted hinges. I picked up new
hinges in Lowes which are identical but white along with a set of white knobs.
They will work well.  The stripping job in the garage is a messy operation.  I
will not strip the doors this way, it’s too much work.  I’ll try sanding to see
how that works.  Libbie peeled the paint off the front door by hand and next
moved to the garage door. Libbie made spaghetti topped with cheese for dinner.
Surprisingly the only spice we had in the cabinet was red pepper flakes.  This
was great for me.  Dinner was spaghetti with cheese accompanied by a few glasses
of Cabernet,  We watched Cory’s World on you tube as he visited Hollywood
Studio.  We saw two rides then went to bed.


July 17, 2020 Friday Stripping


I continued stripping cabinet doors in the garage then continued sanding the
wall some more.  Midway through the day I decided to seek casement moulding in
Home Depot.  I picked up 3 of the 2 ½ inch sticks and 3 of the 3 ¼ inch sticks.
The narrow ones are for the pantry and the wider ones are for the passageway
between the kitchen and family room.  I took the trim off the pantry door frame
but did not touch the passageway yet.  I’ll use the new brad nailer to fasten
the trim. Our neighbor Joe sent me a video clip of a snake grabbing the baby
doves out of the nest. I told Joe I thought it was a Python and gave him a link
of a place to report Python sightings.  He sent them the video and they called
him back.  They identified the snake as a common Corn Snake. It was good to get
a positive ID. Dinner tonight was 3 meat Szechuan from our favorite Chinese
place.  We had this with eggrolls and Cabernet.  Dessert was Turkey Hill Denali
Moose Tracks. After dinner we watched Josh and Jenna’s Friday Night live stream.
This time they were at Epcot for the first time since the reopening.  The Covid
totals are really spiking now.  I hope this doesn’t lead to another shutdown.


July 18, 2020 Saturday Pi


I left early and drove over to the Amazon Locker at Whole Foods. My Pi and the
SSD were there.  The Pi I bought is a 3+ kit which includes heat sinks and a 2.5
Amp power supply.  The heat sinks have a peel and stick backing to attach them
to the CPU and the ethernet chip.  I used the Pi Foundation imager to write
raspbian directly to the SSD drive.  They took care of formatting the drive
which was formatted with a weird I had to google.  Linux needs Fat32.


Even though there is much to do with the stripping and sanding I retreated to my
office and installed Raspbian and then the Scargill Script which gives me a web
server and some tools to manage the device.  I stayed until the Apache Server
was up and running.  It looks like Scargill has fixed the issue with the CSS he
was using from a third party.  The third party website was no longer functional
so the menu text was not styled.


Just before noon I went to the kitchen eating area and finished sanding the
walls.  I made an attempt at sanding the crown moulding but it was not to be.  I
can’t get the drippy paint  off very well.  I am once again thinking about a
stripper paste to help.  There is a Citrus product which does not have the
chemical odor of the stripper I used in the garage.  I’m reluctant to use a
stripper because of all the residue it leaves behind.  So far, peeling has been
the best removal technique. Dinner tonight was Ny Strip steak with baked potato
and sour cream.  We finished the bottle of Cabernet we opened yesterday.  After
dinner I watched a little of Bruce and his home automation system or more
correctly his smart house.


July 19, 2020 Sunday Crown stripping


I went to Home Depot and picked up an arsenal of stripping products.  I got some
coarse sanding pads, some citrus flavored stripper in both jug and aerosol and
also a package of 2 inch 18 gauge brads for reinstalling the trim with the new
DeWalt brad nailer.  I was delighted to find that the aerosol stripper was very
effective.  I used a piece of cardboard to shield the ceiling but sprayed the
crown, let it sit for 30 minutes and then scraped.  The scraping was easy but
ugly.  Washing the crown with water and a stripping pad really worked.  All the
muck is gone. I’m really impressed.  I did all the crowns in the breakfast room
and the top of one door frame.  It was a lot of work, made an incredible mess
but for the first time it got the job done.  I had become increasingly
frustrated over getting the drips off the crown.  At last here was a solution.
It took all day to clean the crown and then there was the mess on the floor.
Libbie helped quite a bit cleaning up the drop cloths and the plastic sheets.
Dinner was Libbie’s fantastic mushroom pizza.  During dinner we did not have
wine but ate our meal casually in the family room while watching a stream of
both Cory and Josh at Universal Studios.  It was a fun stream.  After this we
found an interesting zoom discussion by a blogger named Prince Charming.  After
a little more YouTube TV I went to bed a continued reading the Kindle book
“Three Lost Girls” by a journalist about the Cleveland kidnapping and
imprisonment of 3 young girls for 10 years. Unbelievable that this could happen
at all.


July 20, 2020 Monday Paint Removal continues


I started later than normal today.  I’m having a hard time getting going this
morning.  Still sore and tired from yesterday.  I moved to the front foyer and
started sanding the walls.  When all the walls were sanded I set up the plastic
and stripped the crown moulding above the living room doorway.  This entire
foyer was a real mess with dripping running paint everywhere.   I was incredibly
tired when done.  Thank god for Libbie who cleaned my mess up.  Dinner tonight
was NY Strip cut into slices and grilled on the stove with onions and peppers.


July 21, 2020 Tuesday Slow Day


Happy Birthday Libbie.  I went to Lowes for sandpaper then to Publix behind the
Lowes shopping center.  I wanted to get Mint Moose Tracks Ice Cream which is
Libbie’s favorite.  They didn’t have any - the shelf where they are kept was
empty.  I then went to FoodLion and got the ingredients for an ice cream cake
which I assembled when I got home.  We made a trip to the Farmers MArket this
morning and picked up tomatoes, peaches, corn and watermelon.  Libbie wanted
this trip for her birthday.  She used the tomatoes to make BLTs for lunch.  They
were excellent. In the paint cleanup I washed the residue above the doorway into
the living room and above the foyer door.  I also got out the spackle and
patched up a few spots in the breakfast area and the front hall.  That was about
it for the day. We went out to La Cocina for Margaritas and a birthday dinner.
We had the usual Quesadilla La Cocina.  At  home I took out the ice cream cake
from the freezer and sang Happy Birthday.   Today Libbie heard from Vicki,
Barbara and from her Sisters for her birthday. I heard from John at Selby.  He
gave me new credentials which I tried but still could not get into the
digitization computer.  The credentials did work however.  I stayed up at my
computer after Libbie went to bed and looked around at the Selby directories.


July 22, 2020 Wednesday More of the Same


I moved into the back foyer and started sanding the walls and pantry wood.  This
was an easy job but I got tired pretty easily.  I also took down the CD racks in
the audio closet and Libbie moved out the white shelves. All this went to
Dorcas.   Now I have to sand and spackle the screw holes.  I’m not sure what to
do with the Internet related electronics while the closet is painted.   I’m
leaning towards painting it myself. Dinner tonight was Corn from the Farmers
Market, Lloyd's Shredded BBQ on a bun and ice cream cake for dessert. We have
been at this for 2 weeks now and the  house is no further along than it was when
we arrived here thanks to the crappy paint job we are still trying to recover
from.


July 23, 2020 Thursday Door Stripping


This was a productive day.  I took out the Miter saw and the nail gun and put
the mouldings up around the Family Room passageway and around the Pantry doors.
I next brought the bad doors from the garage out into the side yard and sanded
them.  The foyer entry doors were so bad the paint started peeling off.  Libbie
came out and helped me finish the last door while I started putting the doors
away as well as all the tools.  Rain was imminent according to the Radar.  It
was getting darker and we could hear thunder.  We managed to get everything
together before the rains came.  I moved the sawhorses out from under the trees
so they could get a good washing by rain. Dinner was the rest of the Lloyds
shredded BBQ along with Corn on the cob.  We had Cabernet with dinner then
watched Cory and a bunch of the hopper community at Epcot.  It was a fun night.
I paid attention to the 3 Caballeros ride in Mexico since we recently saw the
very long movie on Disney Plus.


July 24, 2020 Friday Real Painters


This morning we had real painters from High Mark Painting arrive around 8:45 AM.
They started taping, sanding and covering floors.  Wow.  This is what painters
are supposed to do. They arrived with their project manager and later Debbie,
the owner of the company, arrived. We were incredibly happy.  When everything
settled a bit I went out to HArbor Freight and picked up a Framing Nailer using
a 20% off coupon. The Framer was $79.  I also spent $22 on a box of 21 degree
nails.  Next stop was Costco where I picked up coffee and an eggplant casserole
for dinner.  I worked a little in the playroom and the workshop putting popcorn
repair on some of the ceiling patches.  I couldn’t get to all the patches
because Libbie piled junk in my way. Dinner was eggplant casserole with a few
glasses of Cabernet. After dinner we watched a little bit of resort hopping with
Josh and Jenna.  It wasn’t very interesting but we enjoyed their personality. In
my office today I screwed up the Pi server with ssd trying to configure Samba.
I ended up wiping away the entire SSD and installing Raspbian and the Script
again.  This time I was successful at configuring Samba.  I am able to access
the www share from any of my PCs.  Nice.  Now I want to feed it the list of
photos to display.


July 25, 2020 Saturday  Citristrip


I spent some time in the morning working on the slide show on the newly
configured Pi with SSD.  I’m happy so far with the functioning but was trying to
understand the Perl program that makes the index files from the directories. I
put this side for a while and went to work on the painting project.  I sanded
the cabinet doors and brought them inside for painting by our paint crew.  I
really like the way the painters, High Mark, are treating our house with
respect.  They have everything taped with paper on the parquet floor and all the
furniture under plastic film. They have one coat down on the dining room and
living room trim. It looks nicely done. I sprayed citristrip on one side of the
foyer entry doors.  The aerosol can ran out on this door.  I finished stripping
the door trim on the one side.  It looks pretty nice.  I have a jug of
citristrip that I was going to return in order to get more of the aerosol which
I really like.  It’s nice not having an applicator.  Libbie’s friend Rebecca
came to pick up the leftover pots and violet supplies from the garage.  She
stayed for over 2 hours while I was inside working on the slide show.  Later in
the afternoon I took down the sheets of plywood supporting the CD racks in the
audio room.  The wall now needs patching but first I want to get some of the
other stuff out of this room. Libbie grilled some Lloyd's ribs on the grill for
dinner which we had with leftover baked beans and of course a few glasses of
Cabernet.  After dinner I continued working on the slide show.


July 26, 2020 Sunday More Stripping


After the Sunday Morning programs I did a quick run out to Walmart for
groceries.  I picked up some entrees for dinners this week as well as bread,
swiss cheese and pizza cheese.  After this I got out the stripper and coated the
rest of the door frame going into the front foyer.  After lunch today I went to
work scraping and washing the door frame until I had all the paint off.  Libbie
nicely cleaned up after this messy job.  I then repeated the process on the back
door by request of Libbie who was stripping it by peeling the door.  I hit it
with the Citrus stripper and got the rest of the paint off.  Doing a whole door
was harder than just doing the door frame.  Libbie cleaned this mess up as well.
I then dragged out the air compressor and hoses to nail the shoe moulding in the
front foyer.  It was only about 5 brads but I couldn’t do this easily  with a
hammer.  The nail gun makes more sense. Dinner was Libbie’s pizza which she had
to make a new dough for this afternoon.   All day we had the TV on watching and
or listening to Josh and Jenna do an all day stream from the Magic Kingdom.
During dinner we both watched the stream as it was winding down.  The park
closes now at 7 PM.


July 27, 2020 Monday Lackadaisical


The paint crew showed up this morning as expected at 8 AM.  Meg came with them.
This is impressive. They are doing a very careful job even patching places where
nails have popped.  I was not engaged but I had a good morning playing with the
slide program and learning how it worked.  I discovered an issue in the program.
The setinterval statement in java is supposed to call the function to pick out
100 more slides but it crashes on my computer.  I had it call another function
which in turn calls the reload function and now it works.  I don’t know why.  I
tried writing on Bruce Winter’s blog but it didn’t work, the comment was lost.
I’ll try another way later. I did get out the popcorn and fixed the last two
areas in the playroom then took the spray can of sealer I found in the shop and
used it on the water stains.  It seems to do the job pretty good. I also did a
little patching of the walls in the workshop but more needs to be done.   I need
a way to clear the workshop of all the clutter and workbenches so I could
proceed with painting the room.  Dinner was pulled pork vinegar based BBQ from a
tub I bought in Walmart.  We had this on buns along with a side of Baked Beans.
There was no wine.  We had Tin Roof ice cream.


July 28, 2020 Tuesday Shop Cleanup


I sprayed the ceiling popcorn in the playroom.  Hopefully I won’t have to paint
it but it doesn’t look good so far.  The painted spots show.  I’m hoping they
need to dry further. I took the time to clean out the shop.  I need to clear the
back corner, remove the bench and the desk and prepare this spot for painting.
I emptied the parts cabinets for Goodwill and carried a lot of items out of the
shop such as the bulletin board, the wire shelf and the heater.  There is still
much to remove from the shop just to get the metal shelves free.  The painters
continue in the front rooms.  It’s really looking good in there. One of the
painters, Craig, pointed out the front door hinges should be replaced since they
are all painted up.   I went to Home Depot with one of the old hinges and
matched it up and bought 6 new hinges that match the reference copy.  The hole
pattern doesn’t match so they will need drilling and mounting.  The painters
offered to do the hinges but I’ll do that job since it involves drilling as well
as the screws.  In addition, removing the old screws is difficult because the
heads are covered in paint. I made Quesadillas tonight in the air fryer.  Libbie
cut the peppers and onions and prepared the chicken.   We had the chicken
Quesadillas with sour cream, salsa and a glass of water.  The meal was
delicious.   After dinner  I moved the Dorcas items from upstairs and into the
garage.  This turned out to be quite the task since in addition to many trips up
and down the stairs there were several heavy items such as the stool and the
rolling tool cabinet.


July 29, 2020 Wednesday One step forward, two back


The painting is going very well by our paint crew.  The front of the house is
done. I don’t like the lack of contrast between the trim and the walls.  I need
to talk to Meghan tomorrow about the possibility of backing the wall off one
step.  Online I found Behr Neo White which has a tiny bit of gray mixed in.  In
the workshop I cleared out the bench in the back corner and the desk.  Both
features are now on the dumpster pile.  I used the spackle and worked on the
walls in this spot. Libbie took the parts cabinets and the other items to the
Dorcas shop including the metal bench stool with the torn seat.  Libbie said
they balked at first but then decided it was metal and could be sold as scrap
metal. After dinner I was sitting in the Family Room and noticed a water spot on
the ceiling.  I ran up to the attic and felt around.  I found the bottom of the
HVAC duct was dripping water.  I spent some time on the plumbing drain and
removed it from the unit.  Water began pouring out of the AC.  Either the S trap
is plugged or the line is plugged.  It is probably the line.  I did not sleep
much last night because it seems like we are always taking backward steps.


July 30, 2020 Thursday ac repair


I went into the attic and started messing with the drain line.  I cut the line
loose and tested the s trap.  It was clear so the focus now moved to the drain
in the crawl space.  I initially was going to hook up a garden hose and clear
the line.  I went to Home Depot and bought some PVC fittings as well as a blow
gun attachment for my compressor.  I couldn’t get the garden hose hooked up
using the scrap PVC parts I had lying around so I switched to hooking up the
blow gun attachment.  I had to install a quick connect fitting on the device so
it could mate to my hose.   The blower worked great.  I could feel the
obstruction release at the end of the pipe somewhere  in the corrugated tubing.
I initially tried to dig up the corrugated pipe so I could snake out the drain
pipe end but the pipe is too long so I abandoned that effort.  Once the pipe was
cleared I tested the vertical  pipe to make sure it was clear coming down from
the attic.  I eventually went into the attic and tried blowing into it.  It was
clear.  I hooked everything up again and glued the pipe together that I cut.  I
also found out why the drain did not work.  It was plugged up with putty
probably from the original installation. I cleared the overflow so it should
work if needed.  Downstairs the painting continued.  Libbie took a bunch of
silver and coins to the coin dealer.  She came home with $95 mostly from my
silver coins.  He didn’t want the wheat pennies which she then gave away to one
of our painters.  There was $26.50 worth of wheat which was from Mom.  The coin
guy didn’t want them since there is no market for them.  He didn’t want the
silver plate stuff either which were wedding presents we never used.  She
brought those over to the Restore store as a donation.


The paint downstairs is looking great.  I wish I could work as long as these
guys do.  They put in a full 8 hours from 8 AM until 4 PM.  We had spaghetti
with cheese for dinner tonight.  No wine but I dressed my plate up with red
pepper flakes.  During dinner we watched an enjoyable youtube stream from Donna
Jaworski who is one of the Disney circle of friends.   She cooked Tonga French
Toast and Cheese Muffins.  I’m very interested in the French Toast recipe and
may make it in the air fryer.  To her credit she experimented and did the last
batch in the air fryer at the suggestion of a person in the chat.  We enjoyed
this aspect of the show.  It was spontaneous and real as opposed to those
network cooking shows that are highly staged and too fast for anyone to learn
anything.


July 31, 2020 Friday HVAC water


I checked on the AC system this morning and discovered that water was pouring
out of the overflow pipe into the pan.  I bailed about 5 gallons of water out of
the pan under the HVAC system.  Libbie also bailed water out of there and
carried the pails down to the laundry sink. I discovered the regular drain only
works when it is tilted forward.  I think the whole furnace needs to be tilted
slightly.  Tomorrow I’ll try a scissors jack from the car and prop it up.
Downstairs our painters continue their excellent work.  They got the dental
moulding painted in the family room but not the walls.  They will return Monday
to finish painting and the painter named Craig is supposed to power wash the
house.   Libbie was concerned that Hurricane Isiaias is supposed to arrive in
the Carolinas Monday bringing some wind and rain. I painted the ceiling in the
corner of my upstairs workshop and then moved into the Playroom and painted the
ceiling where I patched the holes and added new popcorn.  Hopefully this will
finish this room.  Libbie nicely cleaned the brushes and roller when I was done.
I did a Walmart grocery trip and picked up hamburgers for dinner.  I also bought
some Panko and cheese so we could  make chicken Parmesan some time next week.
Dinner tonight was hamburgers from the grill as well as corn on the cob.  We
broke our diet and had a glass of wine with the burgers.  Since it was Friday
night we watched Resort TV in Hollywood Studios.  They had dinner at a little
pizza place next to Mama Leones where Libbie and I had dinner many years ago
when we visited the Osborne lights.


Aug 1, 2020 Saturday Workshop


I took it easy today but concentrated my efforts on the workshop.  I put the
vent back into the ceiling and added a cardboard piece as well as a filter to
hold it all together The ceiling needs another coat of paint to cover up all the
misses.  I can’t believe how much whiter the new paint is over the older dark
paint. We picked up 2 more cans of ceiling paint at Home Depot today as well as
a plumbing pipe strap for the HVAC.  I went into the attic and strapped down the
drain pipe so it tilts downward as it leaves the HVAC unit.   I ran the unit
overnight with a heavy power supply on the line to tilt it downward.  This
worked so I made the decision to get some pipe strapping and a few hex bolts
which I used to screw the pipe strapping down onto the plywood.  The strapping
goes up and over the drain pipe forcing it to tilt downward.  I also set the fan
up in front of the furnace to blow on the wet insulation and plywood with the
hopes of drying it out. Downstairs I resumed sanding and spackling the walls of
the playroom and workshop as prep for painting.  This work is almost done.  I
didn’t touch the paint today.  I ended up doing misc stuff such as putting the
coat hooks back on the wall.  Dinner tonight was ribs from the grill along with
a mixture of Lima beans and freshly stripped corn kernels.  It had an off taste
which I isolated to the Lima Beans as tasting fishy.   We had Cabernet with the
meal and Moose Tracks Ice Cream for dessert.


Aug 2, 2020 Sunday Hardware & Painting Before painting today I changed the
hinges on one of the front doors.  I like this so much I’m going to do the same
for the closet doors.  I returned the silver hinges to Home Depot this  morning
and bought brass ones like I should have in the first place.


After a nice BLT lunch I put my paint clothes on and started doing the ceilings
second coat.  I finished up around 4 and switched over to putting the hinges
back onto the cabinet doors.  I had the wrong hinges and made a Home Depot
evening run to get the correct size which they were out of.  I ended up with
Plan B which was a brushed nickel hinge.  I just want to get the job done.


Libbie made her outstanding pizza with mushrooms tonight which we enjoyed with a
glass of Cabernet.  This finished the bottle from last night.  After dinner we
watched Cory and Stephanie with their family review foods at Sanana in Animal
Kingdom.  The dishes look very interesting and tempting the next time we are in
the Disney area.  The bread service as an appetizer looked incredible for $18
and included 9 different toppings for the Naan bread.  Yum.  It was fun to see
their two girls eating pizza and Mac and Cheese from the kids menu.


Aug 3, 2020 Monday Lots of Progress


I spent some time before our painters came for the day and screwed the new
hinges onto the cabinet doors.   Craig and Andrew came to finish the Family
Room.   It looks fantastic.  I went onto the roof and cleared the pine needles
over the skylights and blew the South roofs off including the garage.  I also
emptied the rain gauge which was filled with water and plugged up. I was able to
use the blower to blow out the little hole in the center of the collecting
bucket.  I then went to Lowes in Cary for Hinges and magnetic latches.  They
were out of 8 foot 1x4 that I wanted for the base in my shop so I went to Home
Depot and bought the wood instead.  I also checked on Lineman's pliers and found
they were $35 so I used a 20% off coupon in Harbor Freight and bought a pair for
$6.  They seem to be good pliers as well.  Once home I used them on the ceiling
light in the Playroom which I replaced but did not have a way to twist the
wires.  I also bought wire nuts that I needed to hook up the light properly.
This all worked well and now we have 2 100 watt LED light bulbs in the ceiling
fixture of the Playroom.  This brightens the room.  Yesterday’s ceiling paint
job looks great today.  There are no misses or streaks.  It’s hard to believe we
needed 2 coats of ceiling paint but that did the trick. After a BLT lunch I
started painting the workshop with the Ultra White.   At first I was having
trouble with the roller which would not roll easily.  I took the cover off and
sprayed WD40 into each bearing end.  This did the trick and the roller worked
perfectly after that.  Libbie joined me in the painting.  She did the edge work
while I continued to roller.  Tomorrow I’ll paint the new 1x4 baseboards on saw
horses in the garage.  We’re supposed to have rain from Hurricane Isiais
tomorrow so it will have to be painted indoors.   I may even have to set up the
saw to cut them indoors as well. Dinner tonight was Hamburgers on the grill
along with baked beans.  The hamburgers had cold mushrooms topping them but they
didn’t add any flavor, probably because they were cold.  After dinner I spent
some time putting the downstairs back together.  I moved the TV back to it’s
mount and did a general pickup.  The new paint looks elegant.  I went upstairs
at 8 PM to continue reading my book, “Bet Me” which I like although the humor is
getting old and repetitious.  I went down to the workshop late in the evening
before bed and evaluated the paint.  It needs another coat but I’m going to let
it alone since it’s only the workshop.


August 4, 2020 Tuesday productive


The storm passed by overnight. This morning the sun came out.  This changed my
plans for today.  I thought it was going to be a rainy day.  I set up the saw
horses and put the 1x4 on them.  After breakfast I painted the boards then
jumped into my car and drove over to Lowes on Glenwood.  They have the Chatham
Stone vinyl tiles in stock.  Somebody returned 30 boxes so I bought 4 of them.
I probably should measure the kitchen square footage and get the rest of the
boxes I need.  The tiles look beautiful in the kitchen where I opened one box
and spread it around to check out the pattern.  On the way back from Lowes I
stopped into Harbor Freight and bought a stud finder.  Mine is in Sarasota and I
need one here.  While I was gone Libbie painted the workshop window.  I set up
the Miter saw and cut all the 1x4 base for the workshop.  With the help of the
stud finder I was able to use the nail gun and put down all the base.  I need
caulk to make the job look neater.  I like the job our painters did in the rooms
they painted using caulk for the gaps.  I need to do the same in the shop. I’m
satisfied by how much progress I made today. Libbie lawed two pieces of chicken
which I coated with parmesan and Panko.  I then made chicken Parmesan in the air
fryer.  Libbie cooked some old carrots but they didn’t taste good so we ended up
tossing them.  After dinner I had set up the laptop and the TV to watch Tales of
Hoffman streamed from the Met.


August 5, 2020 Wednesday Bench Demolition


Craig showed up at 7:30 this morning and started pressure washing the house.  He
worked all day and finished up around 3 PM.  The house looks fantastic.  I can’t
believe it but he even got the bricks clean in addition to the fascia, soffits
and window frame.   Great job.  They only billed me $175 for the pressure
washing portion of the job.  The entire bill was $5,000.  I put the second coat
of paint on the corner of the workshop and also picked up the caulking from
Lowes to caulk the baseboards which I did.  Once that was done I moved the
workshop contents into the corner and started demolishing the benches.  After a
few hours I had the benches removed and placed outside on the junk pile.  The
wall is damaged with multiple holes which I will take care of after I paint the
ceiling. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with cheese sprinkled on.  This was an
exhausting day but I feel we are making forward progress.  I finished my book, a
romance called “Bet Me”.  It’s not clear what the title has to do with the story
but I’m glad I finished it.


August 6, 2020 Thursday Ceiling Paint


This morning I cleared the area under the workshop ceiling and put plastic
coverings over the shelves and the closet.  I then painted the ceiling which
went pretty well.  I expected to have to apply a second coat but the first coat
seems to be good enough.  I went back and did a little bit of touchup on the
misses.  The ceiling looks pretty good in the afternoon light.  I’ll evaluate it
again in the morning. We made a list of all the tasks remaining and then split
them into stuff we could do vs stuff we should have High Mark Painting perform.
Libbie called High Mark and heard that they can be here tomorrow at 11 to
estimate what we have for them to do.  This is good news because we can’t do it
all. There’s way too many items remaining. Dinner tonight was the second
eggplant casserole from Costco.  They come in a two pack and we had the first
one last week.  Libbie added extra cheese which made it really good.  There is
enough leftover for another night.  This is a pretty good deal because the two
pack costs $13 and yields 4 nights worth of meals or less than $3.50 per night
for 2.  What a deal! After dinner I watched a little bit of YouTube installing
stair runners then Cory's World before going to bed at 9 PM.


August 7, 2020 Friday Spackle


I started the morning by replacing the rest of the hinges on the front hall
closet and the foyer doors.  I only have to replace the hinges now on the front
door.  Debbie and Meghan came as expected at 11 this morning to give us a
painting estimate on the Playroom and the Master bedrooms as well as the damaged
ceilings from the HVAC overflow. They said they were pretty busy and it wouldn’t
be until the end of September before they could get to us. We agreed with this
and are hoping for the best.  I did a Home Depot and Lowes trip to return the
hinges that were the wrong ones and also bought some switch and outlet covers to
replace the missing ones.  I also bought a return grill that is a few inches too
short.  This was the best I could do.  I’m hoping to make up the difference,
i.e. cover up the gap, with a piece of trim from the scrap pile outside. I then
went to work spackling the workshop wall where the bench was.  I bought 2 six
inch patches today in Home Depot to cover up the holes made by the workbench
support 2x4.   This will require several sanding and plasterings. Dinner tonight
was corn on the cob along with the leftover eggplant casserole from last night.
It was a nice dinner.  After dinner we watched Resort TV1 do some resort hopping
by walking and riding the boat across seven seas lagoon.  It was another
productive day cleaning up the house.


August 8, 2020 Saturday Stairs


This morning I tried pulling staples on the stairs.  I managed to get one side
of 7 of the stairs staples pulled.   The lineman’s pliers from Harbor Freight
performed well but I need an awl.  Libbie and I went to Walmart this morning for
normal groceries.  While in the store I checked the hardware dept for an awl but
no luck.  Back home I went online and found that both the local Home Depot and
Lowes did not have awls.  There are some in North Cary.  I checked Ace and they
did have awls so I drove to Ace on the corner of Penny and Kildaire.  This was a
former Food Lion and is the largest Ace I have seen in a while.  It’s a hardware
store on steroids.  I bought the awl and tried it on the staples.  It is
definitely a game changer.  The sharp point of the awl is perfect for getting
under a staple so that it can be raised enough for the lineman’s pliers to grip
it and pull it out.  I only did 3 stairs this way since it was the end of the
day and was after I had sanded and spackled the shop with the second coat.
There is a possibility I can get a coat of paint on this tomorrow.  I did manage
to pull the duct up out of the floor but I damaged the edges of the particle
board getting it our.  I will have to cut it back when I put the patch in.  I
still need to get the duct out of the second hole in the floor by the door.
Dinner tonight was Quick Taco Salad. We bought a lot of the ingredients this
morning but wanted the salad to use some of the cherry tomatoes we received from
Martha this week.  They and the salad were delicious.  We had a bottle of
Cabernet with dinner and Blue Bell Ice Cream Cone ice cream for dessert.  This
had pieces of wafer cone coated with dark chocolate as well as fudge sauce and
nuts.  It was yummy.  On TV we watched Nick with Donna and R John eat a huge 8
scoop dessert at Disney’s boardwalk called the “Kitchen Sink”.  It was funny
seeing them get through this ice cream as we were eating ours.


August 9, 2020 Sunday Busy Early this morning I started working on the staples
on the stairs.  The awl is doing the job well.  I did the other side of the
stairs from the 7 I did yesterday.  The left side is harder but I did them.
This project is going well.  I skipped the Sunday morning programs and went into
my shop and sanded the spackle on the walls then applied another layer of
spackle to a few areas.  I went outside next and picked up the pine straw which
was piled where the dumpster is going to go. I also picked up the pine straw
that Craig cleaned off the roof.  This really winded me.  I’m terribly out of
shape.  I need to start walking once all this physical stuff is done. My next
activity was to remove the power line going out to the greenhouse emergency
electric heater.  This was easy using the jig saw to cut through the cable since
that’s all I had.  I then removed the cable snaked through the closet upstairs.
The plaster was still too wet to sand so I didn’t get back to it.  Libbie made
her yummy pizza from scratch today.  She did not have a dough in the freezer so
she made a new one.  IT came out thicker than she liked but I thought it was
yummy.  It had mushrooms on top.  While eating our pizza we watched Cooking with
Donna make 2 different kinds of Baklava and a Spanakopita.  I’m motivated to
make this by watching Donna.  She is amazingly relaxed.  We learned she was a
pharmacist before her husband died.  The show was quite long because she did two
Baklavas and then had to make the Spanakopita which itself took 20 minutes to
cook.  After the show I continued to work on the stairs.  When I was done there
were only 2 stairs left.


August 10, 2020 Monday Dumpster arrives We received a phone call at 6:45 AM this
morning from the dumpster driver. He backed it right next to the house where we
wanted it.  After breakfast Libbie and I went outside and put the pile of scrap
into the dumpster.  It barely fills half of it.  I want to put the fencing from
the front yard cage in there as well.  I tried pulling a staple or two but had
no success.  Another trip to Harbor Freight is in order to get a pry bar that
will fit under the staples. I went back inside and began painting the workshop.
This went well but another coating is in order.  The walls are not too bad but
the wood from the closet definitely needs another coat plus I only painted one
set of doors, the set that was still hanging.  Late in the afternoon I finished
pulling staples on the last 2 steps.  Now I just have to sand and spackle the
steps and they will be ready for painting.  Dinner tonight was leftover Quick
Taco Salad from yesterday.  This stuff is quite good and easy to make.


August 11, 2020 Tuesday Outdoors Libbie painted the shop side of the door white.
This is the upstairs workshop.  While she painted I went to Harbor Freight and
bought a pry tool set to remove staples on the tomato cage.  This did not work,
the staples are fastened down too tight.  I ended up using the lineman's pliers
to cut the fencing off each post.  This thing is built incredibly strong.  I
found the crossbars on the roof of the structure were fastened to the posts with
spiral nails that are not very easy to remove.  Eventually I got the whole thing
down and into the dumpster.  Libbie helped me toss the sections with posts
attached into the big yellow container which is our dumpster.  This wore me out
for the rest of the day.  I really wanted to get into the workshop today and
finish up the painting.  I studied the duct coming out of the floor in an effort
to figure out what to do.  I may have to patch the floor outside the closet and
then box in the ductwork inside the closet.  I’ll do this after I finish
painting.  I need to get this room behind me. Dinner tonight was BBQ and
ColeSlaw.  I found Amish ColeSlaw in Walmart.  It was pretty good.  I also
bought a new mouse for the laptop in Walmart.  I really like it.  Unlike the
past one this seems to be much smoother.  The other was a Walmart none brand.
This mouse is by Logitech.


August 12, 2020 Wednesday paint and patch


I did an hour or so outdoors emptying the shed extension into the dumpster.  I
had an old furnace in there as well as the large relay boxes from Bluebird and
some garage shelves. Indoors I painted the second coat on the walls and closet
wood including the doors.  Next I started patching the floor.  While Libbie went
to the Dorcas shop I took the opportunity to square up the hole in the floor
where the duct used to be.  The metal duct is now in the dumpster and I want to
put plywood over the hole.   After squaring up the particle board I cut a piece
of ¾ inch plywood to put over the hole.  I cut some pieces of 2x4 and used the
nail gun to fasten them to the joists.  At first the nails didn’t go in and
stuck out over an inch.  I found the on/off switch for the air compressor was in
the off position.  Once I switched the compressor on,  the nailgun placed the
nails correctly putting the heads flushed.  I finished this job nicely with the
floor patch.  Next job was the grate over the large opening in the wall where I
now have the monitoring electronics.  I put a 2x4 across the opening to
accommodate the smaller air return grill I purchased in Home Depot.  I screwed
into this board and attached a scrap piece of 1x6 across the bottom.  The whole
thing looks pretty good.  That was it for today. Libbie and I went to Costco for
coffee, wine and a frozen Lasagna.  We picked up an Italian Sausage Lasagna.  We
then went to the gas station to fill up Libbie’s car and also fill the 5 gallon
can for lawn mowing and pressure washing. Dinner was the Costco Italian Sausage
Lasagna and a glass of Cabernet.  Dessert was a chocolate brownie with mint chip
ice cream. The brownies came from our new neighbor Amanda Rhodes.  They moved
into the Troutman house and have been renovating it for the past 6 months.  She
came with her daughter Piper.  She is a very nice person and a gardener. They
cleared a lot of trees to make room for a garden. She gave us the brownies with
a card with her contact information on it.


August 13, 2020 Thursday  Imis This morning Libbie invited our new neighbor
Amanda over to see the greenhouse.  She toured the downstairs and the greenhouse
and back porch.  She said she may have some friends who are interested. I
continued in the workshop, this time boxing up the other floor vent hole in the
floor.  I added a piece of plywood outside the closet for the flooring and then
built a box over the part of the duct that sticks out above the floor.  I first
tried cutting the metal with my new tin snips but they are no match for the
heavy metal of the ductwork.  I ended up framing a box with 2x4s and then put a
plywood cover on the box.  I painted the whole thing white.  It looks pretty
good.  I had to temporarily raise the bottom shelf to allow me to access the
hole in the floor.  I wanted to use the brad gun to tack it back down but there
is an ethernet cable that I am going to keep.  This cable goes to the camera
monitoring the backyard.  Unfortunately I do not have cable staples to tack down
the cable this afternoon.


I tried my ID for Selby and I now have access to the camera PC.  Now I can get
to work. At 2:30 PM I had a Microsoft Teams conference with Amy and the EC to
see Imis in action.  It took me 12 minutes to get connected because it wouldn’t
work with my browser.  I had to install the Microsoft app and was finally able
to connect.   Amy gave a nice demo of the capabilities of Imis.  Unfortunately
for us on the website team Imis is not what it was sold to be.  Amy likes it for
the membership management and reporting.  We need to fit a better user interface
to the thing. I removed the gasketing across the top of the front door which was
falling down.  I chose to only replace the top gasket.  If we were going to stay
here I would replace all the gaskets but for now they seem to be OK.  I went to
Home Depot after dinner and picked up a new gasket by Frost King and also bought
the wire staples I need for the ethernet cable under the workshop shelves.  I
need to tack the wire down before I nail the shelf back in place.  My next area
of work is the garage closet.  I need to box up the hanging duct which is the
other half of the duct I boxed in upstairs. Dinner tonight was the rest of the
Italian Sausage Casserole which we had with a glass of Cabernet.


August 14, 2020 Friday Garage


This morning I put some of the workshop back together and also carried tools
downstairs to the garage.   The hardest and heaviest item was the air
compressor.  I need this thing to run the nail gun so it was a must to get it
into the garage.


On the closet ceiling I used the tin snips and cut slits in the protruding duct.
I then folded the duct sides in to try to flatten in on the ceiling. I was able
to flatten it enough so that a 2x4 on it’s side would conceal the duct.  I built
a 2x4 picture frame on the ceiling and then cut a piece of plywood to cover it.
I ended  up with a decent looking box on the ceiling.  I caulked some of the
seams and next will  paint it white to blend into the ceiling.  After this bit
of activity I spackled some of the holes where the shelves were removed.  The
shelves were greasy so I removed them and tossed them into the dumpster.


My last bit of outdoor activity was to start cleaning the main shed.  I tossed
hands full of pipes into the dumpster and other misc items such as leftover
pieces of flooring.  Meanwhile Libbie added some gas to the lawn mower and mowed
the backyard along the creek.  It has been a year since this part of the yard
has been mowed.       I went out to Foodlion and picked up peelers shrimp and
Broccoli.  I also started gathering ingredients for a one pan jambalaya recipe
from Cooking LIght.  The key ingredient was Andouille Sausage which I found in
Food Lion.  I also picked up diced tomatoes with chili peppers and Cajun
seasoning.  The seasoning brand I found was “Ragin’ Cajun”.  Dinner was peeler
Shrimp with rice and Broccoli.  We had a glass of Cabernet with our meal.  After
dinner we watched a little of Resort TV1 since it was Friday Night which is
their traditional streaming time.  Tonight they visited the Magic Kingdom.




August 15, 2020 Saturday Easy Day


I didn’t do much today.  I had a Walmart trip to get a steak and baked potato as
well s sour cream for dinner.  I started prepping the bathroom for painting by
spackling the crack over the door and taking off the towel bars.  I’ll probably
paint this room tomorrow although the spackle is going to have to be sanded and
another coat added. I worked a little on the Selby photos comparing a folder of
Orchids that shouldn’t have been there.  I also scanned a few Christmas cards
from Mary over the years and put these on the George and Mary page.
Surprisingly I was able to write the page today.  Several days ago when I tried
this I got a permission denied error.  I don’t know what changed. Dinner was Rib
Eye Steak and Baked Potato with Sour Cream.  We also had a glass of Cabernet.
Dessert was Breyers Chocolate Truffle ice cream.  Resort TV1 was at the Magic
Kingdom tonight so we watched that a little before heading off to bed.  I
finished the AWOL on the App trail book and miss it already.   I wrote reviews
in my personal list and also on Amazon.  This was a good book although it’s not
for everybody.


August 16, 2020 Sunday Zero Day I didn’t do much today.  I spent an inordinate
amount of time trying to get the George & Mary Dokuwiki working.  I get an error
when trying to do a save. I’m afraid the only answer will be to reconstruct the
site.  I was supposed to be painting today but chose to defer and played with my
computer instead.  At the end of the afternoon I emptied a lot of the wood,
pipes and steel from the shed and placed it into the dumpster.  This was out of
a sense of feeling guilty about not doing anything today.   I also listed the
auger, AC units and shelves on Crigslist.  I also need to deal with the file
cabinets in my shop.  They will probably go to Dorcas out of convenience.
Libbie made her excellent pizza this evening for dinner.  I sprinkled peppers on
mine.  The crust was nice thin and crisp.


August 17, 2020 Monday Craigslist, Bad burn


We started this morning preparing the Master bathroom with blue tape.  I also
pulled off all the shoe mouldings in prep for tiles later this week.  We
finished the painting except for where I put down more spackle over the door.
During our lunch of tomato soup Libbie somehow dumped the bowl of boiling soup
on her lap.  She got badly burned on her leg and her belly.  The leg is 3rd
degree but the belly is a second degree because it blistered.  She was in pain
for over an hour. After lunch I finished up the paint job on the remaining
plaster and also did a second coat in a few spots where I may have missed.  The
paint covered it pretty good.  We had a good response to our Craigslist ads.  I
sold one AC unit for $40 around noon and fielded eMails about the Auger, desks,
file cabinets and shelves.  A college girl picked up the desk with her Dad
around dinner time.  I ran out to Bojangles to get dinner.  I was supposed to
cook Jambalaya but with Libbie’s injury she wasn’t interested so I did a quick
run for chicken, biscuits, dirty rice and iced tea.  The meal was great.  I
returned from Bo’s in a thunderstorm.  It was a little difficult getting onto
Laura Duncan from the Bo’s driveway because it was rush hour and traffic was
backed up from the light at 64.  After dinner I got a call about the Auger.  The
guy named Billy drove here from Greenville, about 100 miles away.  He showed up
in a pickup truck with a woman at around 9:45 PM.  Now I have to get the rest of
the desks downstairs.


August 18, 2020 Tuesday  Little of Everything


I screwed down the squeaky bathroom floor to two of the joists.  This really
worked.  The squeak went away.  It took about a dozen screws.   I started
cutting tiles for the floor and only got 3 of them put down.  They are harder to
cut than I thought.   Earlier Libbie and I went to Lowes for new cutter blades,
a few outlet covers and a new spark plug for the pressure washer.  The pressure
washer started right up with the new plug.   I did some pressure washing of one
panel on the shed.   It really needs soap to do this.  I was just happy the
thing started. At around 1 today two beautiful graduate students from Duke
stopped by to buy the book shelves for $20.  They were cute in tank tops, short
shorts and blonde ponytails.  A definite delightful pick me up today. I listed
the Schwinn bike and sold it almost right away.  The guy buying it was a real
biker.  He was interested in electric conversions and may do that to the Schwinn
bike.  He and I also retrieved the electric mountain bike from the dumpster.  He
took that for parts for his electric build.  He said his wife will kill him.
For dinner tonight we went to Chipotle and picked up Burrito Bowls.  The
restaurant was surprisingly crowded.  We waited in line to be served.  We each
got Carnitas with Black Beans, salsa, corn, guac and lettuce.


August 19, 2020 Wednesday Productive


I resumed putting down tiles on the bathroom floor.  This project is going well
but slow.  There are a lot of cuts that have to be made around the doorway, the
vanity and the bathtub divider wall.  I’m happy with how it looks. I dealt with
several people online for Craigslist items.  The most promising was a guy in
Wilmington who wants to buy the This End Up desk.  He was supposed to send his
sister in law over to look at  it but she never came over.  Libbie sold the
quilt frame on a Quilting Facebook page.  The lady will be picking it up Friday.
I spoke with John this morning about Selby activities. He would like me there
next week.  I continued to manage images, this time a folder of Bromeliads in
the middle of the Orchids.  Amy at AVSA was supposed to set up a meeting with
Imis online but it has been postponed until next week.  This is too bad.  At
MAAVS I heard from Kitty.  She is no longer the treasurer.  I sent the invoice
to the new treasurer who is named Linda.  At around 5 PM Libbie and I started
making the Jambalaya.  It contains diced tomatoes with chilis, Andouille
Sausage, rice and chicken.  For me it was really yummy.  Libbie said it was not
her favorite.  This is too bad because I really loved it and can see adding it
as a staple in our diet.  After dinner we watched Resort TV1 do an unboxing of
their Silver Play button they received for 100k subscribers.  After dinner but
just before this I cut one more bathroom tile to bring the project to the
halfway mark.


August 20, 2020 Thursday  Tile


I spent the day tiling the bathroom.  I finished the job by the end of the day
which was a long day.  The job came out OK.  Unfortunately when I installed the
toilet it leaked from the tank in the back and put a lot of water on the floor.
The seal between the tank and the bowl seems to be bad.  I can either buy a seal
rebuild kit for $21 or a whole new toilet for $119.  The new toilet includes a
new seat and wax seal.  I’ll probably go with the new toilet while we still have
the dumpster to throw the old one into.  The person came by today to buy the
green desk.  I couldn’t believe it but it fit into a Honda CRV.  Happily that
thing is out of here.  We have done a lot reducing the amount of stuff in the
house but there is still a lot of old furniture here. Dinner tonight was the
leftover Jambalaya for me and chicken Parm for Libbie.  She doesn’t like how
spicy the Jambalaya is so this was a simple alternative for her.


August 21, 2020 Friday toilet


Libbie suggested we replace the toilet in the bathroom.  Because the tank gasket
was leaking we kept it off all night last night.  We were afraid of damaging the
ceiling in the halfway below.  We don’t need anything else to repair.   Lowes
had toilets on sale for $119 for an American Standard.  I picked one up as well
as a jug of pressure washer soap.   I set Libbie up with the pressure washer to
do the sidewalk and driveway as well as the mailbox.  The machine worked well
and the wand did it’s magic.  I like the dial a spray including dialing in soap
as needed.   Installing the new toilet went well.  So far it doesn’t leak.  It
came with a new wax seal and a toilet seat.  I made a trip to Academy Sports and
bought another pair of my sneakers.  At the checkout I found out they were size
12 4E but they didn’t look super wide and fit well so I kept them. They may be a
little wider but I suspect the sizing is marked wrong.  We had back to back
buyers late in the afternoon.  First came the lady from Greensboro and her
daughter to pick up the quilt frame.  We set it up in the driveway for them to
look at then loaded it into their SUV.  I had to put the 10 foot poles down into
the passenger foot space from the back hatch.  Once they were on their way Tim
from Wilmington showed up.  He was on a business trip to Alabama and flew into
RDU where he rented an SUV.  We loaded the This End Up desk into the back of the
van.  It went out pretty easily using the hand truck including going down the
stairs.  Tim mostly used the hand truck since he said he knew how to handle one.
At the SUV we tipped it into the hatch and pushed it forward.  This worked well.
For dinner we cooked the Costco Italian Sausage casserole.  We only ate half of
it and planned to pack the rest of it on ice for our trip tomorrow.  I packed a
suitcase and my computer and drill for the trip.  I also packaged up the
floating shelves and box of CDs to bring to Florida.


August 22, 2020 Saturday Travel


We got up early and made coffee then put the suitcases in the car and  left the
garage at 5:18 AM.  Our first stop was exit 181 in SC where I topped off the gas
and Libbie picked up 2 biscuits for our breakfast.  McDonalds was a little slow
because they skipped Libbie’s order so it took almost 20 minutes.   Traffic was
pretty light.  We had a bathroom stop at the new Georgia Welcome Center at the
border then did a gas stop at exit 7 at a Circle K where gas was $1.99 per
gallon.  I found a fruit stand near Lake Butler where we bought Tomatoes and
Peaches from a guy under a tent shelter. The tomatoes looked nice.  I-75 was a
little more crowded than I-95.  We made the trip uneventfully until 3 miles from
home while in the roundabout a white van next to us decided to make a left turn
from the right lane directly in front of us.  I slammed on the brakes and
skidded narrowly missing the side of the van.  All the Orchids and stuff in the
back came forward and tipped.  It was a close call. After unloading the car at
home I went to Publix for Milk and wine.  After checking out I found that I did
not have my wallet.  I ran home to get it and returned with the wallet.  I
picked up and paid for my groceries at the courtesy desk. Dinner was the
leftover Italian Sausage Casserole from Downing Place  We had a glass of wine
and for dessert Chocolate Moose Tracks ice cream.  It was a long but successful
day.


August 23, 2020 Sunday Easy Day


I messed around on the computer during the Sunday morning shows because I was
barely interested in them. We met Joe in the driveway and picked up our mail.
The rest of it should be delivered Monday morning.  Everything looks good around
here except we had thousands of dead ants in the hallway.  Not sure what that’s
all about.  I need to spray the foundation again although I’m not sure what good
that does.  The number of ants does seem to be less than when we first moved
into this house.  We both went to Walmart and picked up groceries and Libbie
went to the pharmacy to fetch lotions for her burns and her poison ivy. I took
it mostly easy this afternoon.  It was mostly a vacation day, I didn’t do
anything productive. Libbie made a pizza from scratch which was outstanding.  It
had a nice crispy but tasty crust.  Libbie also used some frozen mushrooms she
had from last time several weeks ago.  We had this with Cabernet and Chocolate
Moose Tracks ice cream.   After dinner we watched “Cooking with Donna” who made
a flourless chocolate cake and cookies.


August 24, 2020 Monday Selby


This morning I drove over to Selby and arrived there around 9.  Unfortunately I
could do nothing productive.  The Q Server was down so I worked on cleaning up
the F drive.  I managed to free up 1.8 Tb of space.  I wanted to hook up the new
flash transmitter and receivers, unfortunately the batteries on the charger were
dead so i couldn’t do anything productive there.  I left Botany at 11 since
there was nothing else to do.  The flowers while walking up the driveway were
beautiful as usual.  The big Plumeria was in bloom, there were some white
flowers on vines and I saw some beautiful yellow flowers on a plant as I walked
through the nursery area. At home I didn’t do much.  I felt lackadaisical and
just moped through the afternoon.  I fired up my computer in the afternoon and
fooled around a little with getting the photos from the old website into some
kind of listing.  So far I managed to get dumps from the database of a file ID
which is associated with a filename and a node ID which associates with the file
ID.  A separate spreadsheet associates the plant title with the node ID.  I will
have to write either a B4J program or a python script to associate the caption
with the filename.  Once I have this, with luck I can do an import into the
global gallery.  It’s not clear if there is an import but I need an automated
way to populate a gallery. Libbie was going to make Spaghetti for dinner tonight
but there was none in the pantry.  We had a pasta instead that I bought for a
recipe during the pandemic. IT was pretty good.  We had the pasta with cheese
and Cabernet.  Chocolate Moose Tracks was our dessert.


August 25, 2020 Tuesday Weeding, tidying up


This was another easy day.  I went out into the front yard and did some wedding
of the front landscape plants.  I needed to tie up the Bougainvillea in front of
the AC units.  I looked at the various trellises available from Lowes and
finally decided the best alternative was to make my own out of steel rerod.
Libbie and I went to Lowes and picked up 2 rods which I cut into 6 foot lengths
and pounded into the ground.  The two remaining 4 foot pieces were used as
horizontal cross bars.  I then tied the plant  up.  Surprisingly this thing is
covered with thorns but no blossoms.  I’m happy that it is growing so well.
Tomorrow I may give it a dose of fertilizer.  Also in Lowes I picked up a roll
of aluminum backed roof sealer for the back porch seams in the roof.  I’m not
happy with the aluminum color but it’s probably the best choice for a repair.
Tomorrow I’ll get on the ladder and mount the camera back on the house and also
put down the sealing tape.  I have the wooden roller from sculpture that I’ll
use. Libbie grilled a huge pork chop which we shared.  Along with this we had
sweet potatoes from the veggie stand on our trip down and then Lima Beans and
corn.  I worked on a B4J program to combine plant titles with file names for the
Gallery on the new website.  I didn’t get very far.  I’m going to read the CSV
files into a database then use the database to extract the titles to filenames
mapping as a separate listing.


August 26, 2020 Wednesday Roof repair


This morning I went up on the porch roof and put down the roll of aluminum
flashing over the seams.  I managed to cover one seam from the house to the
gutter and used the rest of the roll on the seam along the house wall
perpendicular to the seam going to the gutter.  While on the roof I cleaned out
the gutter and swept the pine needles off the screen cage.  Next I drilled into
the stucco and mounted the backyard cam on the wall next to the window.  I did
not run the power line yet.  This concluded my roof activities.


Inside I continued to work on the AVSA Photo Gallery.  I had a terrible call
with Imis this afternoon.  Richard and Candace were part of the call which I
don’t think went well.   We don’t have a clean way to interface our website with
the membership functions on Imis. This pretty much depressed me today.


Dinner tonight was the Lloyds Mustard Vinegar pulled pork on a bun along with
baked beans and a few glasses of Cabernet.  After dinner I ran out for a bag of
coffee beans at Publix.   I bought 8 O’clock coffee beans which were 100%
Columbian.


August 27, 2020 Thursday   Productive Day


This morning Tarzan Tree Service was trimming Ersen’s Palm trees.  Libbie asked
about getting our trees trimmed.  The quote was $100 which we agreed to.  Then
she mentioned she would like the Oak limb hanging over our driveway cut down.
Tarzan, yes that’s his name, said it is legal for us to cut it down.  He could
do the  job for $100 more dollars.  I agreed and started counting out all the
ones, fives, tens and 20s in my wallet from Craigslist sales.   I gave Tarzan
$200 cash.  They trimmed the Palms and took out the Oak limb in less than one
hour including shredding all the debris.  The big logs were hand carried to the
truck.  Joe also had some trees trimmed.  The tree company got a bonus - 2
additional houses in addition to Ersens original job. While this went on I was
on the porch roof putting down the aluminum sealing tape on the seams.  The roof
was hot to the touch but I used the rubber kneeling pad and scraped out the old
caulk, cleaned the old surface with a steel brush then applied the aluminum
strips.  I finished the job in the morning.  In the afternoon I hooked up the
security camera which I had mounted yesterday.  It didn’t work.  I’ll have to
first check the voltage to see if power is getting through the wall.  I suspect
it is not but I’ll find out.  In testing I found that I had the wrong camera
mounted anyway.  The other camera works on my workbench but it reports that it
is the guest br cam which really should be mounted in the back where I have the
other cam mounted.  I swap them both around tomorrow. Dinner tonight was a
hamburger with baked beans and a glass of Cabernet.  We had mint moose tracks
ice cream for dessert.


August 28, 2020 Friday Selby and Cams


I had a late start going over to Selby today.  I found that there were no DNG
files for the Broms on the Q drive so I started the Vice Versa program to begin
the process of copying the files.  I did a little bit of cleanup of some of the
jpg and dng files.  I could not do a compare of the camera folders because the
software doesn’t go into folders like Beyond Compare does.   I’ll probably take
a directory listing and use Beyond Compare or figure out how to use a portable
version of beyond compare. At home I climbed on the porch roof and took down the
camera I installed yesterday and swapped it with the one that was working on my
workbench.  I also found that the power supply connector was not putting out any
voltage.  I guess my spice is not working.  I used the other power supply and
did not pass it through the wall.  Instead I went under the window sash which
seems to work OK.  The window is still sealed with the wire going through.  I
used my phone on the roof to adjust the aiming of the camera. I got it aimed
where I wanted without too much sky or too much wall in the view.  We decided
not to drive tomorrow but instead will trim the hedges, spray the weeds and look
for tools that are needed. Dinner was a huge Pork Chop, Lima beans with corn and
sweet potato rounds made in the air fryer. We had this with the last of the
Cabernet.  Because it was Friday night we watched Resort TV1 at Hollywood
Studios for a while.


August 29, 2020 Saturday Roundup and hedges I mixed up 2 gallons of Roundup and
proceeded to spray the weeds in the front yard.  I went all around the house and
used all the liquid.  Once this was done I took out the hedge trimmer and loaded
a battery into it.  Unfortunately when I tested it I cut the cord for the shop
vac which was plugged in.  This tripped the breaker and also tripped the ground
fault.  Now I have to repair the cord with solder and heat shrink.  Bad! I cut
all of the hedge but got extremely tired.  I couldn’t even lift my arm to eat
soup because my arm hurt so bad.  After I recovered I went out and used the
garden rake to clean up the cuttings.  Once done I came inside and worked on a
Wordperfect version of the LSAVC website. I’m using the theme we bought for the
Virtual website in April.  I mostly forgot how it was supposed to be configured
but with perseverance and a  mild struggle I eventually got some sort of
configuration accomplished.  This site is housed temporarily on my
glembocki.info site but will be moved when I purchase new hosting on Sept 1. We
decided to do Chinese takeout this evening.  I went to Publix and picked  up a
bottle of Cabernet and some Mint Moosetracks ice cream for dessert.  For dinner
we ordered shrimp egg rolls and the four season dish which is veggies with
shrimp, pork and beef in a brown sauce.  It was fresh and great.  After dinner
we ate Mint Moose Tracks ice cream in the family room while watching the Resort
TV1 West Coast crew live stream from Knotts Berry Farm.  The rides were not open
but they had a food event going on.  The acres of concrete were a stark contrast
to the green we’re used to from the Florida parks.


August 30, 2020 Sunday  Cams and tools


After the morning shows I went outside and set  up the ladder under the sewing
room window.  I used the hammer drill and easily mounted the Alfawise cam on the
wall.  Next I set up the soldering iron on my office workbench and repaired both
the shop vac power cord and also the camera power supply.  The supply power cord
easily fits under the window sash like it did in the guest bedroom.  In
addition, this window has a screen in it.  The wire passed under the screen
without any problems. I had trouble today trying to get to the servers on
Namecheap.  I found there was a world wide outage involving a Century Link feed
and many websites were down.  The site went down at 8:30 AM and was finally back
at 11:30 AM.  In my office I continued searching for a good membership plugin
for AVSA.  I found a free download of eMember which is the plugin used by the
gesneriad society.  I’ll see how this works out. I went over to AMC theater
today with my receipt for the tickets I turned in back in March.  I am still
looking for a refund.  The lady named Amanda resubmitted my claim and said I
should receive a refund within 3 or 4 weeks.  I sure hope so but have my doubts.
Libbie made her pizza which came out excellent. We had mushrooms on the pizza
which I picked up on sale from Publix a few days ago. After dinner we had a
pretty good thunderstorm.  We ended up with .99 inches of rain.  I went outside
and checked the porch ceiling.  There were no leaks.  I’m pretty convinced the
aluminum and rubber tape was a good idea.  At the time I wasn’t sure if this was
the correct path but the more I think about it, this is the ultimate solution.
Putting more caulk over the seam would not do the job especially if the seam
flexes under wind load or walking on the roof. I watched Josh stream from the MK
this evening.  He was really into the sunset pictures and wouldn’t give up. The
pictures continued from the parking lot at the end of the stream.


August 31, 2020 Monday  productive


This was a productive day but I’m not sure why.  I messed around a little with
websites trying to copy the LSAVC stuff to a temp Wordpress site on
glembocki.info.  After this I spent the rest of the day removing the shelves in
my office, spackling the holes first coat and then installing the shelves again.
Unlike last time I got them pretty level this time.  I used the ceiling as my
guide. All my tools are gathered for the trip tomorrow and my clothes are
packed.  Libbie and I took the garbage to Clubside then went to Chick Fila A and
picked up chicken sandwiches for dinner.  We had Mint Moose Tracks Ice cream for
dessert.  Ready for the trip tomorrow.


Sept 1, 2020 Tuesday Drive


Up this morning at 3:45 then on the road at 4:30 AM. We sailed through Tampa
which is usually a mess.  As usual we hit a thunderstorm through Ocala.  It was
hard driving in blinding rain although I have seen worse.   We made the mistake
of stopping at the Oak Mall in Gainesville for breakfast.  Traffic was terrible,
there were many lights and the restaurant was ½ mile down the highway through
the lights and with the traffic.  We won’t do this one again.  We lost 25
minutes for this stop.  Next stop was Traxler for gas at 2.25 credit card rate.
We had a nice drive in the beautiful morning mist on the Spanish Moss through
the countryside. Next stop was for gas at Santee, SC.  2.05 per gallon credit
card rate.  The trip was very easy.  We arrived home around 3:30 PM.  After
settling down we then went out to Costco for wine, chicken and a frozen Lasagna.
We also stopped at Foodlion on the way home for Libbie’s cheese and some Breyers
Heath Bar Ice Cream.


Sept 2, 2020 Wednesday Slow start


This morning I tried transferring the LSAVC domain and with the help of support
managed to get the domain transferred to my email address.  It previously was
owned by an old eMail from Marjorie’s employer.  She retired 7 years ago so the
email was no longer valid.  Now I can transfer the domain pointers to point to
the Namecheap hosting.  I purchased a year of hosting for lsavc on Namecheap for
$17.28 which included a security certificate. On the AVSA front I ended up
sending an eMail stating that we were not going to use the Imis web hosting for
any user facing interface.  We’ll see how this plays out.  The big issue is that
we need some kind of license to debug an interface from Wordpress to Imis.
Without that license I can’t proceed but I have enough other stuff to do anyway.
I was supposed to nail down the shoe moulding in the bathroom which I did not
complete.  I did manage to purchase 2 pieces of moulding from Lowes and also
remove the nails from all the existing mouldings that I am going to use.  I also
moved the air compressor into our bedroom in prep for nailing the shoe
mouldings. I have  one tile that has too large of a gap to be covered by the
moulding.  Outdoors I put the letters on the mailbox and talked to Craig Hardee
when they stopped by to admire my work.  We explained that we were fixing up to
sell. When I went out to Lowes to get the trim wood I also went next door to
Target and picked up a Chromecast 3rd gen which is what we have in Sarasota.
Libbie requested it so she could watch the surf cam of Joe’s camping trip.  We
saw the girls in the surf and Joe on his paddle board. I also set up the
Chromecast to stream pictures from AutoPaige Emily which is the album of Joe’s
Google pics of the girls.  Google reports there are 15,400 pictures in Joe’s
album.  Libbie is happy that pics of the girls are playing on our TV.  Not bad
for a $29 purchase. Dinner tonight was more of the Costco chicken with potato
salad.  I stayed up a little late gathering some pics that Joyce wanted for the
website.  These were pics from the Houston and Buffalo AVSA shows.


Sept 3, 2020 Thursday Bathroom Finish Up


I dragged the air hose and nailer into the bathroom and started nailing down the
moulding.  This job went very well.  I ended up having to go back to Lowes to
get another piece of ¾ inch moulding.  The area in front of the vanity needed a
wider moulding to cover the gap.  When I do the kitchen floor I will not make
such a wide gap.  To assist this I cut up a scrap of tile into small blocks to
use as spacers.  This should help keep the distance. I got the contract for Imis
today.  Wow, they foolishly spent a lot of money for nothing.   Unfortunately
it’s for 5 years prepaid $24,000.   What a waste of money. I managed to record
Nixon in China which was streamed from the Met.  I like the music from this.
Dinner tonight was chicken Quesadilla in the Air Fryer.  Libbie shredded the
rest of the Costco chicken and sliced up the peppers and onions while I
assembled the Quesadillas in the air fryer.  They came out great as usual.  We
had this with the last of the wine. Yesterday I started practicing on the
Clarinet after a too long absence.  Today it was a little better.  I printed off
a Blues Scale and struggled with some of the notes, having to look up some of
the fingering in the fingering charts. Sept 4, 2020 Friday Chain Saw


I decided to do cleanup jobs today starting with installing the weatherstripping
on the back door.  It was taken off to degunk all the paint on it from the first
paint crew.  Libbie managed to clean it using soap and hot water and scraping
the paint with her fingernails.  It went back up fairly easily.  Next I repaired
the chain adjuster on the saw using the new parts I purchased almost a year ago.
The kit came with 2 new gears, a threaded shaft and a nylon bushing mount.  I
ran the saw with the new parts but it had difficulty running.  Even with the
poor run I took out the Holly in front of the house and trimmed the branches on
the Magnolia.  After this I went to Home Depot and bought a tuneup kit made for
my Model, an Echo CS352.  It came with a new air filter, fuel filter and spark
plug.  I replaced all these as well as the chain but did not use it.  Tomorrow
morning I will do more outdoor work with the saw. Indoors I did computer work.
I added more photos to the Global Gallery on AVSA but am not happy with how slow
the gallery comes up.  It takes forever. On the LSAVC website I changed the
nameservers to point to the Namecheap hosting.  I then began the job of
configuring the LSAVC website.  I did most of this work while Resort TV1 was
streaming from the Resorts. It was our first look at the Carribean Resort.
Dinner was the Costco Italian Sausage Lasagna which was cooked for one hour in
the 375 degrees oven. After dinner I continued to configure the LSAVC website.


September 5, 2020 Saturday Chainsaw


I used the tuned  up chainsaw and assisted Libbie with taking out azaleas and
other brush including the hollies.  I also did more trimming on the Magnolia and
took down a dead pine next to the driveway.  The Pine started leaning the wrong
way so I took out the come along and chain.  Using the come along I pulled the
tree the other way but it still did not land where I wanted it to.  I cut up the
tree into logs and hauled them down to the street for pickup by the town.
Indoors I continued to practice the Clarinet.  This is getting better.  I still
am having trouble getting through more than a few lines before I’m winded.   I
also need to do a better job reading music especially the higher notes as well
as notes below the bar. I ran out to Home Depot for self closing hinges for the
cabinet doors in the back foyer.  I put the magnetic latches on and they don’t
work.  I also stopped by Foodlion on the way home for wine and ice cream for
tonight.  The self closing hinges seem to be better, I put a pair on one door
but the door is not centered in the opening.  I’ll finish the other doors before
deciding what to do about this one. Dinner was the leftover Italian Sausage
Lasagna from Costo with a glass of Cabernet and Chocolate Truffle ice cream for
dessert. For the LSAVC website I needed to access the old website files.  To do
this I set up a subdirectory called legacy and copied the old files there.  I
also copied the old database and adjusted the userid and password.  This
surprisingly worked well.  I can access the old website although a lot of the
files and photos are not accessible because the url needs the word legacy
inserted.  Tomorrow I will try to do a global change in the database.


September 6, 2020 Sunday Productive Day Since I found that my flooring will be
available tomorrow in Lowes I got serious about doing the small chores around
here that were hanging on.   I finished the hinges on the cabinet doors.  All
the doors now close in the back foyer.  Next was the blank wall plate over the
telephone outlet at the desk.  I drilled 2 holes into the formica and sheetrock
and mounted a white blank.  I also changed the remaining front door hinges,
finishing up the renewal of all the old painted hinges.  This was great.  I am
now free to begin the flooring project.  I need to start putting down screws to
clean up the squeeks.  I did this successfully on the bathroom floor.  Now I get
to do it on a larger scale.  I did a Walmart trip for groceries and met Anita in
Walmart. She is doing well in her new job.  This morning on the legacy LSAVC
website I managed to edit many more of the links adding the word legacy to the
URL so it would work correctly.  I even tried editing the database using
PHPmanager but had limited success.  Editing each node manually  seems to be
easier.


Before dinner I put the new people sensing light switch in the back foyer.  This
turns the lights on and keeps them on for 5 minutes.  It replaced our 40 year
old version.  Getting a cover for the light may be a challenge.


Libbie made her pizza from scratch today.  Due to a miscommunication between
Libbie, Alexa and me in the grocery  store I did not get mushrooms which was too
bad.  The mushrooms taste great on the pizza when she makes them.  We watched
the Cooking with Donna episode today.  I may make the bacon wrapped chicken she
featured.  It looked easy.  She spread some cream cheese with chives on pre
splayed chicken breasts then wrapped each one with bacon.  The air fryer chicken
breasts worked out the best.  I could easily do this.   I copied the pdf for the
recipe.


September 7, 2020 Monday Labor Day


I started screwing down the squeaks in the kitchen.  This is amazing at how only
one or two screws into a joist can clear up the noise.  I ran out of screws,
this package was leftover from building the stairs on the deck a few years ago.
My flooring is available for pickup at Lowes.  I chose to go to Lowes and
combine a pickup trip with getting more screws.  At Lowes I picked up the screws
at the contractors side of the building then pulled into curbside pickup in spot
#1.  I had to wait almost 45 minutes for them to get a forklift to bring the
flooring down from the upper shelf.  Once the flooring was ready 2 young ladies
brought it out and loaded my car.   On the way home I stopped into FoodLion and
picked up more ice cream and Mexican Cheese. We watched Josh and Jenna stream
all day from both Epcot and the Magic Kingdom.  During some of this time I
finished the move of the LSAVC website to Namecheap using the Wordpress
platform.  Missing is the archived conventions.  I’ll add those back one year at
a time but in the meantime the site is live.  On the AVSA site Joyce wants the
new site to be live by the end of the month.  There is so much to do everywhere.
Oh well, one thing at a time. Dinner tonight was chicken Quesadilla in the air
fryer.  We are using up the Costco Rotisserie chicken.


September 8, 2020 Tuesday Flooring


I started the kitchen flooring this morning.  It was slow going trying to cut
around the door frames and getting the basic lengths correct.  I was hoping to
get to the kitchen island but barely got down 3 or 4 rows of tiles for an all
day effort.  This is about 4 feet into the room which is 22 feet long. The drama
continues on the AVSA web site.  Tonight I spent an hour on the phone going
around in circles with Glenda.  I don’t think the call was worth anything.  We
need to purchase an additional license to access Imis. Unfortunately I did not
get to practice the Clarinet for the second day in a row.  I need to up the game
and get going on learning music.  I have been too lackadaisical about learning
Clarinet. Dinner tonight was spaghetti because it was easy, although super easy
for me because Libbie did all the work. I set Libbie up this morning next to the
deck with the pressure washer.  She used bleach and power washed both the side
deck and the back deck.


September 9, 2020 Wednesday Flooring


I continued putting down the kitchen floor tiles today.  I spent all day on this
with the exception of a trip to Lowes to get 2 new floor registers which are
white instead of brown.  Also the old ones were rusty and dirty.    On the way
back from Lowes I picked up thinly sliced chicken breast tenderloins, bacon and
cream cheese in Food Lion.  For dinner tonight I made the bacon wrapped cream
cheese stuffed chicken.  Libbie cooked some carrot chips.  I saw the bacon
wrapped chicken dish on Cooking with Donna this past Sunday and decided to try
making it because it looked simple enough.  It came out pretty good in the
airfryer for such a simple meal.   Now Libbie wants me to make chicken wings.
Since we’re in Apex many of  my spices are not here. I’ll see what I can do.


September 10, 2020 Thursday Painters and Flooring


Six painters showed up at 8 AM this morning.  Project Manager Meghan did a walk
through with her crew and assigned painters to each room.  We had the Playroom
walls painted, Joes closet, the sewing room ceiling. The Master bedroom walls,
ceiling and closets and the kitchen and Family Room ceilings.  Since Libbie and
I were banned to the front Living Room we stayed there on the couch.  I worked
on the new AVSA website loading 2 more galleries with photos.   I also started
looking at the java required for the membership functions. Around noon they were
out of the kitchen so I resumed the tile work.  It’s going pretty good.  I made
it all the way to the kitchen Island including going around the desk.  The desk
was a challenge to cut tiles for.  I had to bend over under the desk and had no
way to tap the tiles into place because there was no way to get enough force on
the end of the tile.  The tight space had no hammer swinging room.  After quite
a bit of struggling I eventually got it all together.  I ran out to Foodlion at
noon today and picked up wings which I coated with baking powder and Ragin Cajun
spices.  It was too salty for me. I want to try it again with my own spices.
After dinner we had a peaceful evening with just music playing.


September 11, 2020 Friday Flooring


Two painters showed up this morning at 8 to finish the Master bedroom.  It
needed a second coat and also needed all the blue tape removed from yesterday.
They nicely finished this by noon and the room looks great.  Libbie began
cleanup of all the dressers and other surfaces that were covered with dust from
the sanding of the spackle. Meanwhile I resumed crawling around on the floor
putting down floor tiles.  I finished behind the refrigerator including
undercutting one side of the door jamb into the dining room.  I still need to do
the other side of the door.  In the afternoon I went to Walmart for groceries
and gas.  I picked up some thin sliced chicken breasts for dinner as well as
more cream cheese.  I wrapped the chicken around a layer of cream cheese and
wrapped 2 slices of bacon around each piece.  I cooked this in the air fryer for
20 minutes at 400 degrees.  For dinner we had the wrapped chicken breasts
accompanied by baked beans.  After dinner I finished the ‘S’  photos for the
gallery.  There were 600 of them.  Next up is the ‘R’ photos which have twice
that amount.  Since it was Friday we watched Josh and Jenna streaming from
Hollywood Studios.


September 12, 2020 Saturday  Flooring


I had a good day putting down flooring.  I can’t believe the job is going so
well.  My goal was to make it as far as the stove and with a lot of work I
accomplished that goal.  There’s only a short distance left to the doorway but
it involves cuts around the cabinet, the HVAC duct and the 2 door jambs.  In
addition, I have to figure out something to do about the transition to the back
foyer.  There is a narrow strip on the floor but I will need a wider one.
Tomorrow morning I will visit Home Depot and see what they have.  Online they’re
showing a 5 ½ inch wide threshold of unknown material.   During my breaks I
worked on downloading pictures from the old photo gallery, renaming them as I
downloaded each one.  During this at one time the htaccess file on the server
was changed to deny all and only allow certain IP addresses in.  I don’t know
how this happened so I did a site backup and a backup of the database.   I then
edited the htaccess and reversed the IP deny using the FTP access to the site.
This restored the site allowing me to continue.  In late afternoon Libbie and I
watched some YouTube videos of Hauser and his Italian girlfriend.  They are
pretty hot together.  Around noon today I mixed a batch of wing spices, my own
this time instead of Ragin Cajun, and filled a one gallon bag with the wings and
spice.  I let this sit in the refrigerator until dinner.  Dinner tonight was the
wings with baked beans.  The wings were better this time since they were not as
spicy as 2 days ago.


September 13, 2020 Sunday  Last Tile


After the morning programs I continued the last of the tiles.  This was a little
tricky because I had to cut around an HVAC duct, undercut two door jambs, cut to
the cabinets and then do something about the door threshold.  The slab and the
house decking were at two different levels.  I used the oscillating saw to trim
down and cut into the plywood to make it more level with the concrete slab.  I
then went to Home Depot and bought a 5 inch wide threshold to cover the gap
between the two floors.  I also picked up an aluminum strip to transition from
the dining room into the kitchen.  The last tile had to come from a new box.
This means the box won’t be returned.  That last tile effectively cost $54
because of this.   At this time Meghan of High Mark Painting came for their
$2100. dheck.  I showed her the tile job and the fact I had to open a new box
for the last tile. I’m half way between deciding whether I should repaint the
old blue trim or buy new trim.  The advantage of the old trim is that it is cut
to size saving me some work. It will be cheaper too. On the way home from Home
Depot earlier I stopped in the grocery store and picked up mushrooms for the
pizza.  Dinner was Libbie’s excellent pizza  which came out with a very good
crisp crust this time.  It was a mushroom pizza.  We had ice cream for dessert.
September 14, 2020 Monday Trim


Libbie painted the blue shoe mouldings.  I set up the Miter saw and started
cutting the new shoe mouldings to replace the badly painted white ones.  One I
had all the new moulding cut the newly painted blue mouldings, now white, were
dry.  I used the brad nailer and nailed everything down.  It looks great but
needs the caulking to finish the job.  I was too tired to do this so will
postpone it until tomorrow. Libbie also 2 coated the transition threshold
between the kitchen and the back foyer.   We are putting down polyurethane on
this piece.   The can says wait 24 hours before using.  I will nail it to the
floor tomorrow.  Still an issue is whether I should use caulk under the
threshold to further secure it. Dinner tonight was Costco Italian Sausage
Lasagna.  This is pretty tasty and an easy meal.


September 15, 2020 Tuesday Top Step


This was a slow day.  I was sore and tired but worked on the top step of the
back stairs.  I removed the partial step then cut away the particle board on the
landing and installed a full top step.  Part of the difficulty in mounting the
step was undercutting the door jambs.  They are sitting on the particle board
which also had to be removed.  With the oscillating saw and some hard chiseling
with my crowbar I managed to remove the particle board enough so that the
replacement stepe slid under the jamb.  I used the nail gun to fasten down the
step.  It looks pretty good.  I called a guy on Craigslist today to replace the
shrubs in front of the house.  He quoted $430 to replace them if I buy the
plants. Libbie and I went to Lowes looking for replacement Hollies and struck
out.  We next went to Home Depot and bought 8 Hollies for $174..  Jesus is going
to come here at 10:30 tomorrow to do the work.  On the way home we picked up a 2
piece chicken dinner, biscuit and dirty rice from Bojangles which also came with
Iced Tea.  After dinner we watched a little of Resort TV1 then when Libbie went
up to bed I switched to the live show with Ted and Mollie which is a Polka Band.
Tonight they had a third person, a guy who played Clarinet along with accordion
and a sax.  Fun!


September 16, 2020 Wednesday  Stairs & Shrubs


The finish nails on the back stairs need counter sinking but I did not have a
punch here.  All my punches are in Sarasota.  I did a triple trip to Lowes.  I
returned the one leftover box of kitchen tile, picked up my special order of a
light switch cover and bought a package of 3 Craftsman punches. I punched all
the nails on the stairs then spackled and sanded the holes.  While doing this,
Jesus arrived with his tools and chain saw.  He cut all the hollies down then
started with his pick and axe cutting away the roots.  He worked at this for
about 3 hours chopping away.  I would never be able to do this.   By the end of
the afternoon he had replaced all 8 bushes and hauled the old bushes to the
street.  The bill was $430 for the labor plus $40 for bark and topsoil. The job
looks great although I would not have planted then so close to the sidewalk.
After this Libbie and I went out to the Amazon dropbox at Whole Foods and picked
up a hair dryer she wanted.  It’s a Revlon item with a built-in brush for salon
type drying.  We saw the ladies on Suncoast 7 recommend this thing.   Next we
did a grocery run to Walmart for normal groceries.  Before dinner we watched
Mollie and Ted on Youtube perform their Polka music.  These two are lively
players and are very talented. Dinner was vinegar based pulled pork on a bun
accompanied by baked beans.   After dinner we watched a little more of Ted and
Mollie before Libbie went to bed.  I stayed up and watched some more then
watched a few misc YouTube videos.


September 17, 2020 Thursday Septic and stairs


I put a request for carpet cleaning quotes on Angie's List.  One guy called us
right away and then showed up at our front door.  He was the highest rated
cleaner on both Angie's list and Home Advisor.  We walked through and he quoted
$310 to do every room.  It’s roughly $35 per area.   It was raining outside
today but I wanted to plane the doors so I set up to do this in the garage.  I
power planed the knee wall door and Joe’s closet door. While I was at it I put
the handles back on all of Joe’s doors and also on the knee wall.  During lunch
the septic tank guys showed up with their excavator.  I showed them the layout
of the system.  They managed to pull the cleanout plug off and turn the pump on.
The water came out pretty good out of the cleanout with the pump running.  The
issue still is that the water is not making it up the hill.  I’m beginning to
wonder if the pump is powerful enough to get that high.  Libbie painted the
stairs the first coat.  She and I went to Home Depot and bought 23 feet of stair
runner.  I also bought crown staples and screws for the dining room threshold.
The dining room threshold screws fit perfectly.  I needed longer screws than
what came with the threshold strip. For dinner we reheated the leftover Costco
Italian Sausage Lasagna.  After dinner we watched a fun show with Ted and Mollie
doing a virtual Bechyn, MN Czech festival.  Libbie got her wish in that Mollie’s
Dad joined the show playing his accordion.  One of the chat comets was correct.
Mollie inherited her smile from her Dad.


September 18, 2020 Friday  Door plane


I set up the saw horses in the garage and hauled the last 3 doors down to the
garage.  On the saw horse the power planer did a great job.  After bringing them
back upstairs and hanging them again I’m very pleased with how they open and
close without binding.  The two bedroom doors no longer scrape the carpet and
the Master Bath closet door closes nicely.  Libbie put down a third coat of
paint on the back stairs.  They are looking nice.  I watched a few videos on
Youtube installing stair runners.  Two questions remain for me - do I use carpet
tape and do I need carpet pads.  I think both cases have an answer of no.  There
were some videos of people installing runners without pads and without tape.
The carpet has a non slip backing which I believe will serve both as a non slip
runner and as padding. I put down some spackle in the internet closet in
preparation for painting it.  This room will be tough because of all the
electronics in there. For dinner tonight we had 3 meat Chinese takeout along
with eggrolls.  I picked up a bottle of Cabernet to have with dinner.  In the
evening we watched a little of Resort TV1 in the Magic Kingdom then switched to
Ted and Mollie’s special Friday night live Polka stream.


September 19, 2020 Saturday Carpet Runner


I loaded the stapler, spread out the carpet runner on the stairs and began
stapling at the top of the stairs.  A few hours later I reached the bottom.  The
job went well and looks pretty good.  I went out to Home Depot and then Lowes in
search of a gold metal strip to transition from the carpet to the stairs.  I
found one in the Linoleum department.  I also picked up some 2 inch long brass
screws because the ones that come with the strip are not long enough.  I need to
get past the particle board down to the plywood layer.  This was the end of my
day except that Lib and I went to Foodlion in search of dinner.  We browsed the
steaks but settled on Shrimp and Old Bay seasoning with a side of rice for
dinner.  We haven’t been having wine lately but I picked up a Red Blend by
Prospero winery. Dinner was Shrimp peelers with white rice and broccoli.  We had
the bottle of Prospero Red Blend with the meal.  After dinner we watched Ted and
Mollie B’s Polka show.  It was the June 30 show.   They have been broadcasting
every Tuesday night during the pandemic because their gigs and appearances have
been canceled for this year.


September 20, 2020 Sunday Paint closet


I finished the stair project by putting the threshold strip down at the top of
the stairs which transitions the old carpet to the runner on the stairs.  I
planned to work on the audio closet today but I helped Libbie with the
downstairs bedroom closet instead.  We took all the paint cans to a large stump
hole in the backyard.  I emptied all the cans, about 20 of them,  into the hole.
Some of the cans had a solid block of paint in the bottom and couldn’t be
emptied.  The wall behind the paint can shelves in the closet was badly covered
with mold and would be impossible to paint.  I decided to remove the shelves
from the closet.  This was quite an effort and is going to require some spackle
and sanding to restore the closet before it can be painted. I had a long 2 hour
meeting with the EC about the new website.  It was an information presentation
by Candace and I.as to what we’re doing and on what schedule we’re on.  Glenda
seemed to not get what we were doing.  Her questions ran around in circles and
ended up being no question.  In the evening I heard from a girl named Keira who
wanted to buy the elliptical.  She arrived at 7 Pm with her Dad and brother.  I
disassembled the machine in the Playroom and they carried it down the stairs and
into their car.  It’s nice to be done with that thing and get it out of here.
Afterward we watched some more of Mollie and Ted and their Polka show.  It’s
such fun, lively, happy music.  Libbie posed a question.  Are we becoming our
parents?


September 21, 2020 Monday Spackle


I removed the rest of the stereo electronics from the audio room.  This got me
to pack up a box or two from the workshop and include some of the cables and
power strips from the audio room.   Libbie washed the dust from the two shelves
while I spackled the downstairs bedroom closet.  This closet was not previously
on the list of items to be painted.  I then moved into the audio closet and
lightly sanded then did some touchup spackling.  I sanded it later in the day so
that it’s ready for paint, however the bedroom closet is not ready.  It needs
more sanding and another coat of spackle.  I did another Craigslist post today,
this time I listed the 8 foot folding table.  Dinner tonight was spaghetti with
cheese sprinkled over the top.  After dinner we watched The Mule, a Clint
Eastwood movie that had Molly and Ted’s Polka band.  The movie was pretty good.
I enjoyed it although I’m not sure i would ever have watched a movie with drug
cartels.  Our whole reason to see it was the Polka band which had a small cameo.


September 22, 2020 Tuesday Paint closets


This was not a great day.  I did final sanding and spackling on the bedroom
closet.  Libbie began in the closet painting the trim with Polar Bear.  Our can
of paint wasn’t any good and Home Depot could not match the number because it
was an old one and their system changed.  The  lady scanned the paint on the can
instead.  When we got it home and tried it on the wall it was dirty gray.  I
brought it back to Home Depot for a refund and ended up using a can of white
paint leftover from the back porch painting of a few years ago.  I used a roller
and painted both closets.  In the meantime I had some girl screwing around with
me about buying the folding table on Craigslist.  I finally asked when she is
going to pick it up and there was no reply.  I finally listed the table on
Facebook just before dinner.  I couldn’t believe it but I had a dozen replies.
I chose one that wanted to pick it up today.  She came at 9 PM and bought the
table for the full asking price, $25. Dinner tonight was grilled hamburger on a
bun with a side of Baked Beans.  After dinner I enjoyed watching Mollie and Ted
in their live stream on YouTube.  She has some nice country songs as well as
beautiful religious songs.  I would like to see an album of her religious songs.
I was very unhappy with the Septic company.  I called them to find out what the
status was from their investigation last week.  They never even scheduled the
excavator to come back.  I also called the Pods company and talked with a
pleasant girl in Reno. We’re getting a POD on 9/30 with pickup on 10/12,
Columbus Day.  This gives us 10 or 11 days to fill it.  It will be in Sarasota a
week later. Overall this was a fairly unhappy day because not much went right
today.


September 23, 2020 Wednesday Closet & Eye Doctor


This morning I started tearing apart the garage closet.  I decided it was
easiest to remove all the shelves before painting the walls.  I took out all the
shelves and cleared the stuff out of the closet.  I went to my eye appointment
at noon.  It was quite different.  I called from my car, had my temperature
checked and washed my hands.   I had Dr Amy;s new eye doctor.  He was OK and
competent but I preferred either her or Dr Ira.  I didn’t feel I got a good eye
exam.  Once I got home I resumed the closet.  I heard from Emily who never
showed up last night.  She now wanted to come Friday night.  I told her the
table was picked up.  Too bad for her.  I got the garage closet fstripped down,
vacuumed and put a coat of spackle on the holes and pock marks on the walls.
Tomorrow it will be sanded and spackled again.   A guy named Cliff bought the
old Echo chainsaw for $35.  Good deal for me.  I thought it was going in the
trash.  For the new AVSA website photos I managed to get another letter of the
alphabet done.  I’m transferring photos from one site to another and naming them
according to their violet name so the filename is picked up as the displayed
Title. Dinner tonight was grilled hamburgers on a bun along with baked beans.
After the eye doctor today I went across the street to Walmart and picked up
some groceries including thinly sliced chicken breasts so I can make the cream
cheese stuffed chicken in the air fryer again sometime this week.  I don’t like
the Cary Walmart as much as Apex but it was convenient today. I watched some
Polka “how to” videos on You Tube today then Libbie and I tried doing some basic
Polka steps.  It’s pretty easy.


September 24, 2020 Thursday photos, closet


I sanded the closet walls and then applied another coat of spackle to some of
the spots.  Later in the morning Anne Cain came over for a walk through and to
take pictures of the interior and exterior of the house.  When she left I was
tired.  The house is looking great however I discovered I have to plane the
greenhouse French door and remove the plastic from the glass, something we never
did 5 years ago when it was new. The rest of the day was spent doing AVSA
website stuff.  I removed the duplicate photos and built the ‘D’ gallery. Dinner
tonight was bacon wrapped chicken stuffed with cream cheese.  We had baked beans
as a side dish.


September 25, 2020 Friday  Paint


 I did the final sanding and vacuuming of the garage closet first thing in the
morning after breakfast.   Painting began with the roller then Libbie joined in
with her brush and cut the edges in.  I also painted the newly boxed duct in the
ceiling so that it matches the ceiling.  I spread out the canvas on the garage
floor and painted the removable shelves.  Later in the day I did the other side
of the shelves and one edge.   This should finish up the closet painting. Now
it’s time to address the porch ceiling and porch door to the greenhouse. I did a
quick Food Lion trip to pick up Fettuccine and Heavy Cream for dinner.  I used
the wild caught gulf shrimp I purchased earlier and made Vodka Shrimp Pasta but
without the Vodka.  It was delicious, definitely an 8 out of  10.  For the
occasion I bought a bottle of Prospect Red Blend which I really liked last time
we had it.   After dinner it was time for Resort TV on YouTube streaming from
the Animal Kingdom. There was a severe thunderstorm after dinner.  Doris was
visiting her in laws in Cary this week and reported that they had huge hail
stones.  That part of the storm was showing purple on MyRadar but it went North
of us.


September 26, 2020 Saturday Door Plane


I removed the door to the greenhouse and set it up outside on saw horses for
planing.  I had to remove the hardware to plane the edge.  While it was on the
saw horses Libbie and I tried scraping the plastic residue off the glass.  We
never removed the protective covering and now it is stuck to the surface of the
glass.  A combination of rubbing alcohol and scraping did the trick.  Libbie
painted the edge of the door and touched up a few spots where it is
delaminating.  After it was dry we moved the door back into place but did not
put the hardware back.  At 5 PM we watched the virtual Alpinefest with Ted and
Mollie.  They are a lively and fun couple.  The music is great.  Libbie wants
their CDs.  I will order a set closer to the time we leave for Sarasota.
Alpinefest is a tribute to the Swiss in Joseph, Oregon which is a very
mountainous region in Eastern Oregon. Dinner was the leftover Vodka Shrimp that
we had informally while watching Ted and Mollie.   Libbie added additional
Marinara and whipping cream to the leftovers.  It was delicious as usual. I
finished up putting the photo album in place on the new avsa website.  This was
quite an effort.  I’ll now resume my efforts at the login screen using
javascript.


September 27, 2020 Sunday Minor touch ups, file organization


Today was a day of doing last minute stuff around here.  I put all the covers
back on the AC ducts in the playroom then put the hardware back on the door
between the greenhouse and the porch.  I also used the white spray paint and
painted the new popcorn plaster around the water heater.  Libbie and I went to
Walmart to get her prescription then headed over to Lowes where I picked up some
blank outlets for the switch and outlet next to the whole house fan, another can
of white ceiling sealer for the back porch and a hardware kit for the workshop
folding doors.  I used the new hardware and remounted the door which was off
since I painted it earlier this month.  On my computer I cleaned up files,
specifically those for Jalbum.  I had them in three different places, twice on
shares and once in the partition named web.  I moved family Jalbums to the web
partition so they could be displayed in life bits.  I also found various
postcards and our Russian trip blog in the archives.  I need to move these into
more accessible folders.  I moved the Russian trip scans into imagedb folders
but have not moved the blog posts yet. We had Libbie pizza with mushrooms for
dinner which was outstanding.  The mushroom flavor really came through.  After
dinner at 8 PM we watched day 2 of the Alpenfest which was live streamed by Ted
and Mollie.  The music is lively, happy and great.  These two are a very
talented couple.


September 28, 2020 Monday Touchup


Today I spray painted all the water stains in the porch ceiling.   Unfortunately
the spray dried in the air and landed below as a powder covering the floor and
the hot tub.   Next I climbed the ladder in the greenhouse and took down the
electric heater.  I need to pull the cable back through the wall so the wall
could be patched.  I didn't do this yet, perhaps tomorrow. I spent more time on
my computer organizing the Jalbums and other neglected files spread across a few
directories.   I also took a look at purchasing a GFCI for the outdoor outlets
which I’m sure does not have one because I removed it years ago.  I see one GFCI
in the garage electrical panel.  It may be for the bathroom outlets but I didn’t
test it.  For dinner tonight I made chicken quesadillas which used the leftover
chicken breast. After dinner we watched a late August performance of Ted and
Mollie.  What a lively and fun couple. September 29, 2020 Tuesday Carpets,
Ground Faults


The carpet guy came early today, at 8:30 and went right to work.  We moved some
furniture out of his way and let him go to town on the carpets.  They are really
good now although they’re still wet.  We worked with Anne over the internet
signing papers and preparing our listing documents.   Libbe helped me trace the
outdoor circuit to find the breaker that needs replacing.  I need to replace it
with a Ground Fault breaker. I went to Lowes in Cary and found a breaker which
was a pain.  Nobody was there to help me in the electrical aisle despite a call
over the store PA.   I ended up taking a pair of dikes and cut the breaker loose
from the Lowes security hook.   I decided they could try arresting me, I only
want to buy a breaker.  I next went to Harbor Freight and bought two tool bags,
one for the Palm Sander and one for the Jig Saw.   I also unbelievably bought a
digital VOM for $6.  I will use this for any circuit testing. I installed the
GFCI and while the power was off I removed the external conduit coming from an
outlet on the porch that went to an outlet in the doorway.   This was put there
because of the fish pond we had on the back porch. Next Libbie and I
disassembled the last of the light stands.  Not sure why we need another one but
it is going in the POD which arrives tomorrow.  Things are moving along except
for the septic system. We may have to abandon that project if they don’t come
Oct 6. Dinner tonight was a Costco eggplant casserole.  This was a good deal,
only $7.99 for 2 which yields 4 meals.  After dinner it was Polka Tuesday.  We
watched Mollie and Ted performing their polkas with a few new songs tossed in.


September 30, 2020 Wednesday Pod and sales


The POD arrived this afternoon a little past noon.  The first thing I did was
move the big steel desk down into the POD.  This was an ordeal.  I then listed
the shelves in my workshop on FB.  A guy came out to pick up the shelves right
away for $25.  I had several other inquiries about the generator but it’s still
here. Today was a day of mostly packing and moving but no construction progress.
Anne came over at 5 PM to measure the  house and finish the listing.  We go live
tonight. Because it was so late we went out to Bojangles for a takeout chicken
dinner.  After dinner we watched Resort TV1 interview a colorful realtor in
Orlando, Victor Norwaki.  He was an off the wall Disney character who chose his
house because it had a view of the Disney fireworks.  I thought the house was
awful with the fence in the back and the view of some tower.  The rooms were
unique with a train running around the ceiling suspended by hooks.  Oh well, you
can’t account for people’s tastes.


October 1, 2020 Thursday Listed


We got the house listed overnight. Immediately at 9 AM today there was a
showing. It seemed to be a realtor couple. We used the time to go to Lowes and
get a key made.  Meanwhile I continued to collect junk and fill the desk
drawers.  The desk is in the POD and when full I’ll put the Sofa on top.   Our
listing photos are pretty terrible.  We plan to take better photos and send them
to Anne. At AVSA Joyce played the ex president card and asked that the process
move along better with Imis interfacing.   A few hours later I heard from
Winston.  I’m not sure if I’m ready yet but it needs to be done. We did a
Walmart grocery trip and looked for a laptop for Libbie.  There were none so we
went to Cary where the story was the same.  Amazingly there are no low end
laptops with touch screens available. For dinner tonight Libbie made sloppy Joes
from her Mother’s recipe which is labeled “Club BBQ”. We had this with Baked
beans and a glass of Cabernet. The for sale listings of household junk is still
active.  This morning I sold the steel garage shelves and in the evening the 2
drawer file cabinet was sold.


October 2, 2020 Friday disappointed


Today was a day of disappointments.  Joe told us the listing pictures were
terrible.  Libbie has been saying the pictures are bad.  I finally looked at
them and was disappointed.  This belongs in a real estate book of “what were
they thinking?”    The window washers showed up this morning.  What a great job
they did!  The windows sparkle.  Mike the owner told us houses don’t have grids
anymore.  I googled it and he is partially right.  Our house needs the grids
because the windows make it look like a vacant house.  I’ll put the grids back
on.  Anne said she will bring a camera and flash over Saturday.  We don’t think
that is going to be great since the composition is so poor. I had over 5
inquiries for the sofa hide-a-bed.  Unfortunately I held the bed all day for a
woman who never showed up.  When I messaged her she said she couldn’t find a
helper to help move it.  Never again!  This is the second time I have been left
holding the bag.  While the windows were being washed Libbie and I moved the
Family Room sofa into the POD.  I moved the red file cabinet into the POD as
well as the shelf boards that were stored in the garage.  Slowly the thing is
being filled. Dinner tonight was leftover club BBQ in a bun with a side of baked
beans and a few glasses of Cabernet.   Since this was Friday it was time for
Resort TV1 with JOsh and Jenna and family.  They were at Hollywood Studios.


Oct 3, 2020 Saturday Photos, POD packing


I sold the generator first thing this morning for $120.  This was a super low
bid but I’m glad it’s out of here.  A person from Garner came in his truck and
picked it up.  I told him it just needed a good cleaning.  Hope he has some good
luck with it, there should be nothing wrong.  It has always been hard to start.
It was even noted as being a hard starter by Consumer Reports. Shortly after 9
Paul and Anne came over with Cameras, flashes, tripods and did a nice job of
photographing every  room.   While they were here it gave me a chance to carry
stuff down from the workshop to the garage.  I cleared out the office and the
workshop which was great news. Later in the afternoon I went to Walmart for some
dinner ingredients and to get some cleaner for the grease spot where the
generator was kept.  While there I found an autonomous floor cleaner making the
rounds inside the store. I made a you tube video of it and posted it on
Facebook. Libbie dashed out to the Quilt shop for pins so I took the opportunity
to move the Lazy Boy out to the POD as well as several boxes.  We wrapped the
recliner in a bed pad and some towels and tied a bungee across it.  I then
stacked boxes on top of the desk next to it.  We finished the day by adding 2
tubs of Orchid Bark and the tub of Christmas decoration. Dinner tonight was
Vodka Shrimp Pasta without the Vodka.  Libbie cooked the Pasta while I mixed the
sauce and cream with garlic and basil. After dinner we watched the last
performance of the Grand Society Orchestra at Disney.  Josh was pretty emotional
streaming this


Oct 4, 2020 Sunday   siding


I worked on the hole in the office wall where the cables used to go through in
the morning.  Around noon I took the old siding piece and door lower moulding
off.  Fortunately I had a new piece of siding in the garage as a replacement
which I cut down to 81 inches and replaced the old siding.  I had to use the old
nails because I didn’t have any siding nails long enough.  To reattach the 2x4
door trim piece required a trip to Lowes for long screws.  I found some hex head
screws for sale individually as opposed to a whole pack of deck screws which
would have been in the range of $15 to $20.  I also bought some heat tape for
the exposed water pipe in the greenhouse.   After caulking the new siding I
found the Historic Tan and painted the siding and trim board. At 4:30 I had a
very nice young couple come for the steel shelves.  They were Missy and Chad.
The shelves did not fit in their car so I offered to drive them over and also
gave them the small four foot particle board bookcase.  Libbie and I drove the
bookcases over to Brier Creek which is by the airport and then came home via I-
540 using our transponder for the tolls.   The signs on the road indicated the
toll at .70 but my statement shows an actual toll of .48.  This must be a
discount for using a transponder.   Libbie made her outstanding pizza from
scratch because she had no dough.  It came out great.  During our pizza we
watched Donna cook some foods from her home state of Rhode Island.  These
included spicy chili dogs, lemon ice, milk coffee and clam muffins.  These
looked interesting.


October 5, 2020 Monday scrap, real estate showing


This was a busy day.  I started first thing with the paint covering up the
spackled holes in my office.  Next I packed a few boxes in the garage and put
them into the POD.  We had a showing scheduled for noon today so I loaded up the
car with our scrap copper and took it to the scrap yard near Garner.  It took a
while to weigh in each of the metals but we ended up with $112.  We took Tryon
Rd home so that we could stop by Waverly place on the way home and pick up a
Chik Fil A lunch which we had  at home.  She and I were nibbling on the waffle
fries on the way home and pondering why they tasted so good.  They have a good
potato flavor.  McDonalds fries are good but they don’t have the flavor we get
in the Chik Fil A version.  In the afternoon I continued working the POD,
wrapping the cherry furniture in the living room in sheets and packing it in
firmly.  I’m now down to the dirty stuff.  The Grow Boxes, Smoker and flower
pots.  Most of my stuff is now packed away in the POD with tools in the garage
still to go. We heard from the showing agent this evening.  They had concerns
with the septic system showing a leaky tank.   I told Anne we are having Bobby
Jones Septic service out tomorrow.  I talked with them tonight and the guy I
talked to didn’t know an earlier tech had diagnosed a blockage.  He was going to
come out to pump the tank.  I told him no.  We need the excavator to fix the
blockage.  I will probably have to call them tomorrow to get this straightened
out. Dinner tonight was leftover Vodka Shrimp Pasta.  Libbie found a bottle of
Vodka in our kitchen cabinet so we used that in the Pasta.  It was supposed to
have Vodka when we made it but we didn't think we had any.  Our liquor cabinet
has a good selection of booze here in Apex.   The person who looked at our house
today was our neighbor Amanda’s friend.  I’m hoping she likes it enough to buy
it with a decent offer.


October 6, 2020 Tuesday Septic pumping


Great news this morning Terry and Effron from Bobby Jones Septic service showed
up with the excavator.  They drove it through the woods up the powerline to the
septic line.  They opened several holes in the ground and eventually found that
the pump was pretty weak and could not pump the liquids up the hill.   They
pulled the pump and discovered it was caked in sludge severely limiting it’s
pumping ability.  They have a new pump to drop in but it’s 110VAC.  I swapped
the breaker around to bring 110 VAC to the tank.  Terry had an electrical outlet
on the truck which I took and installed at the pump.  I used my Harbor Freight
meter to verify the outlet was wired correctly and delivering 110 VAC.  The
voltage was actually 121 VAC. The pump guys pumped the liquids tank and washed
it out.  They did not pump the upper tank. They said the drain was in their way
and they were not allowed to touch it.  They left.  Libbie went out there with
the pick and pulled the drain which we put in the garbage can.  While I was on
the hill with the excavator guys we had a couple pick  up the Hitchcock Chair
which I listed on FB for $25.  Around 6 PM a guy who knew Anne Cain came to pick
up the legal file cabinet.  That thing was incredibly heavy.  I helped him get
it in his SUV.  Dinner tonight was hamburgers from the grill on a bun and a side
of baked beans.  It was Polka Tuesday so we watched Ted and Mollie do their
music show for 90 minutes.  It was one of their best.


October 7, 2020 Wednesday Septic finish


The guys replaced the pump in the pump tank and dug up about 5 feet of leach
field to clear roots.  In place of the corrugated pipe they installed 2 tees and
2 cleanouts.    This completes the repairs but  we still don’t have the solids
tank pumped out.  Libbie dealt with the septic company about scheduling the
pumping.  It looks like it may have to be next week which would delay my plan to
drive on Saturday. We discovered the door to the greenhouse threshold was
rotted.  Apparently one of the showings had picked away at the rotted wood
leaving it on the first step.  I removed the threshold and the first step then
went to Lowes and picked up 2 new wood steps for $13 each.  On the way  home I
stopped at H-T to get Thomas’s sauce but I bought the one labeled “Original”.
Libbie wanted the Thomas’s marinade.  I returned after dinner and exchanged the
2 bottles for 2 bottles of marinade.  It was the same price.  Tomorrow will be a
busy morning and no time to swap marinade bottles because we have a showing at
12:30 PM.  Making matters worse is the tools and stair screws are packed in the
POD. Dinner was hamburgers and baked beans.  Libbie juiced up the baked beans by
adding the leftover sloppy joe to it.  They were the Bourbon beans which were
good to begin with.  This kicked it up a notch.  Yumm.  After dinner we enjoyed
music from Ted and Molly on YouTube.


October 8, 2020 Thursday


I went outside in the greenhouse early in the morning and started working on the
new threshold using the new boards I purchased in Lowes last night. It went
pretty well except I had to get the nails out of the POD because they were
packed away.  I like the final job, it looks nice.  At 11:30 two trucks from
Bobby Jones showed  up to pump the tank.  They said the tank is 48 inches deep
and it had 40 inches of sludge in it with about 8 inches of water on the top.
Any more sludge and it would back up into the house.  Anne came with her clients
while the septic pumper was here.  I paid them before we left for our walk to
leave the house.  We first walked to the top of the hill and then across the top
of the property. I showed Libbie the new clean out caps coming out of the ground
where the root killer is supposed to be dumped in.  We came down the Longo side
and then out to the street and past the new house which is replacing Ellington's
torn down house.  They don’t have foundation vents which means it is being done
correctly.  By the time we got to the corner we saw Anne’s client drive by so we
headed back.  The show was over.  When we got home we jumped into the car and
went to Jersey Mikes and picked up a Turkey sub each. I then went out and had
multiple stops.  First stop was Academy Sports for Sketchers lace up shoes then
the Costco gas station to tank up.  Next stop was Lowes for concrete and a wax
seal.  I will fix the downstairs toilet tomorrow after our clients leave.  Last
stop was Whole Foods for Mulling spices.  I also bought pears but they charged
me for peaches which were twice the price I was screwed.  I will return with the
slip and pears to get my money. Libbie made Spaghetti with cheese. I put a
little crushed red pepper on mine.


Oct 9, 2020 Friday Pods and trash


Libbie took a car full of stuff to Dorcas when they opened while I picked up
trash and pesticides around the yard and in the garage to fill my car.  The
closet with the garden tools had 2 shelves of junk which I cleared and put into
a pesticide pail for the dump. When Libbie returned from Dorcas we both went to
the dump to get rid of our trash.  There was a 2 PM appointment for a showing so
this was a good time to leave and get rid of our last minute junk.
Unfortunately while at the hazmat center we got a call that the appointment was
cancelled.  On the way back from the dump we stopped into Food Lion for Shrimp
for dinner and wine. When we got home I helped Libbie move the Plumeria into the
garage because it is supposed to rain tomorrow.  I forgot about the groceries in
the car and left the ice cream and the shrimp in the back seat for over 4 hours.
Not good!  For dinner we ordered 3 meat Szechuan and egg rolls from the China
Chef.  We had this at home with a few glasses of Cabernet then watched our
normal Friday night Resort TV1. This time they were in the Magic Kingdom.


Oct 10, 2020 Saturday Toilet


This morning I took the downstairs toilet off it’s mounting bolts.  The wax seal
is pretty much gone.  Rather than putting in a new seal and then dealing with
rusted bolts and gaskets on the tank I went to Lowes and bought a new toilet for
$139 plus $10 or so for a water connection.  I ended up going back to Lowes for
toilet shims and caulk.   I like the new toilet.  After putting in the shims I
caulked the base.  This  house is getting rebuilt from top to bottom one fixture
at a time! It’s a rainy day outside so I didn’t do any outside activity.
Libbie and I took the old toilet and the cardboard toilet box to the dump. Late
in the afternoon Effron showed up with his trailer and family.  He loaded the
tractor on the trailer and then started moving blocks with my wheelbarrow.
Dinner tonight was Shrimp peelers with a  side of rice.  A few glasses of
Cabernet accompanied the meal.  We watched Ted and Mollie do one of their
Tuesday shows after dinner.  This one was just before Memorial Day in May.
Super enjoyable.  During the show I got onto my computer and ordered 3 CDs of
theirs and also added a $25 tip.


Oct 11, 2020 Sunday Rainy day


Today I repaired the floor in the closet and finished packing the POD. The
padlock is now on.  Libbie made her excellent mushroom pizza for dinner.  I went
online and booked a room at Comfort Inn on Commonwealth in Jacksonville.   Lots
of last minute things got addressed today. We had an 11:30-12:30 showing today
so we went over to Longo's driveway and stayed there for the duration.   These
people from Cary came through with an offer later in the evening.


Oct 12, 2020 Monday Sold!


Early in the morning around 1 AM I read my email and found an offer was made
through our Realtor Anne Cain.  I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.  In the
morning I opened the POD up and started putting everything inside, even stuff we
were holding back on until a sale. The great news is the POD pickup window was
from noon to 3 PM so that gave us the morning to gather more stuff and stuff it
in.  We really don’t need more stuff!  We still had another showing at 3:30
which came late at 3:50 and stayed beyond when they were supposed to until 4:20
PM.  We had another showing at 5:30 PM which we found out later was the buyer
and their family, 2 boys and a girl who all seemed to be college age and beyond.
While out in the street we chatted with our neighbor Charlie and told him the
house was sold.  We also met Larry who showed us pics of his new granddaughter.
When we got back from our isolation Libbie put mushrooms on the Costco casserole
and then topped it with extra cheese before putting it in the oven for final
cooking.  She precooked it before our showing but then turned the oven off for
the duration of the showing.   We had a glass of mulled Apple cider with Bourbon
before dinner then Cabernet with dinner.  The final offer documents came through
online so we signed them and sent them on their way.  I called Anne and
mentioned that our last name was spelled wrong for Libbie.  I’m not worried
about it but it is a legal document so needs to eventually be fixed.  The house
is now under contract. It was a long journey to get here.


Oct 13, 2020 Tuesday Busy, busy, busy


First thing this morning I renewed both the MAAVS domain and the avsa domain and
hosting with namecheap. I took advantage of their 20th anniversary special which
was 20% off on domain renewals.  I listed some of the bigger tools like air
compressor and miter saw.  Somebody bought the miter saw immediately.  She also
bought the 8 foot ladder.   Later in the day I sold the Makita compressor and
the pressure washer.  Hooray! A trip to Home Depot yielded 21 degree nails and a
2x4.  Wood 2x4s are now just under $7 each. Out in the greenhouse I put up a
piece of the 2x4 to hold the foam board which is collapsing from the weight of
the wet insulation.   I also  cut the CPVC pipe and installed a shutoff as well
and put a cap on the pipe going to the Monstera.  Our due diligence check came
today for $3,000.  The realtor’s daughter brought it over.   She came a few
minutes late.  I labeled her a slacker along with her step father who has
trouble meeting on time commitments.   Libbie and I both worked emptying
cabinets into tubs and put the tubs into our respective cars.  I booked a room
at the Hampton on I-10 in Jacksonville.   Hilton allowed me to pay with cash and
points so it was $27 for a room with a King. Dinner tonight was leftover
eggplant casserole.  After dinner we watched the Ted and Mollie live Oktoberfest
version of the Tuesday Polka party.  It was fun as usual.  I tried changing some
outlet covers in my office late at night but I had the wrong screwdriver and was
too lazy to go downstairs to get the correct one.


October 14, 2020 Wednesday Drive to Sarasota


This morning I got the pilot light in the Fireplace lit but found that the
batteries in the IR receiver were dead.  I ran to Food Lion and bought store
brand batteries for the receiver and the remote transmitter.  The receiver needs
4 AA batteries and the IR transmitter needs 2 AAA batteries. I did last minute
packing, taking all my clothes and putting them into a box along with the
clarinet and misc stuff I found laying around.  Except for the garage, my stuff
is mostly cleared out. Libbie left a few minutes before me, I left at 10:50 AM.
We met each other at exit 181 in SC For gas and McDonalds lunch.  I had a simple
hamburger and shared Fries with Libbie.  We sat outside and ate in my car
because of Covid concerns over indoor dining.  A few hours later at exit 21 we
had our first troubles of the trip.  An accident left us stranded just past the
exit for about one hour.  We eventually got off at the next exit and took US 17
parallel to I-95 before getting back on 95.  Traffic was heavy but moving from
that point.  An accident over the river South of Savannah had us stopped once
again.  It wasn’t as bad this time with google estimating an 11 minute delay.
We saw an amazing sunset over the Georgia wetlands.  We then saw the remnants of
it as I was making the turn onto I-295 and I-10 West.  We arrived at the Hampton
Inn at 7:30PM. After checking in and bringing our suitcases up to room 211 we
walked next door to a Mexican Restaurant, Cinco de Mayo.  We each had a frozen
Margarita with the chips and Salsa.  Dinner for me was 2 cheese Enchiladas with
Pork and peppers and onions over the top and lettuce, guac and sour cream on the
side.  Yummy. On the way back we went to the wrong hotel.  Libbie tried to get
another room card printed and found they didn’t know who we were.  Too many
Margaritas for a funny moment.  Despite the bad day of driving it was an OK day.


Oct 15, 2020 Thursday Sarasota arrival


Hey world, slow down.  We’re half way through October already.  We had the
Hampton breakfast which was a wrapped Southwest Omelet.  It wasn’t bad and the
coffee was good.  On the way out we stopped for gas at a Kangaroo in front of
the hotel.  It was convenient to the hotel and to I-10.  Both Libbie and I
filled our cars and got on the highway.  I drove straight through to Sarasota
and made it to Knightsbridge in exactly 4 hours.  Google said I was 4 minutes
early.   Libbie stopped at a Rest Area near Brooksville but came soon after me.
I did not see her get off the highway.  The trip was uneventful this time.  We
met Joe right away.  He gave us our mail which took quite a bit of time to sort
through.  We received two packages from Aetna which contained masks, hand
sanitizer, sunscreen, first aid supplies, etc. There was some useful stuff in
there.  Nice!   Anne gave us the inspection date of Oct 21 for the house.  I
won’t be able to attend because the POD comes the day before. We had a late
lunch of Chick Fil A sandwiches and waffle fries.  This means we weren’t very
hungry at dinner time.  Instead we chose to have Campbell’s bean soup which has
Ham in it.  It is quite a filling bowl.  We also had cheese and crackers.  After
dinner we watched Cory on You Tube in California.  He was visiting the grave
sites of Disney greats such as the guy who wrote “When you wish upon a star” and
the animator who created Goofy among many other artists who contributed to the
success of the Disney Company.


Oct 16, 2020 Friday Selby & Pressure Washing


Much to do today.  I started early this morning and did 4 check deposits.  Two
of them were early Amica checks from June and two of them were reimbursement for
violet websites, both AVSA and LSAVC. It was nice to be back at Selby this
morning.  I got there around 8:30 AM.  I continued to clean up images and do
file compares.  The time seemed to go fast.  It was nice to see everyone back in
Botany - Sally, Liz, Bruce, Shawn and John.  Both ladies were nicely dressed. On
the way home I stopped at Costco for gas then I went to Lowes for a gallon of
pressure washer soap.  When I got  home Libbie and I had soup for lunch then
proceeded to hook up the hoses and wash the sidewalk and the driveway.  Libbie
started with the sidewalk then I took over half way through the driveway and
finished it to the road.   The driveway really looks nice. After washing the
driveway I took a quick shower then jumped into the hot tub for one cycle. For
dinner we ordered takeout from Beckhams on the Trail.  We each had a rack of
ribs with rice and beans.  We had a glass of Cabernet with dinner.  After dinner
we watched Resort TV1 at Epcot this evening.


Oct 17, 2020 Saturday Office


Libbie worked on emptying boxes so the stuff in the next POD has a place to go.
We did a Walmart shopping trip and I managed to get my prescription refilled.  I
left it back in Apex so I was wondering what it would take to get a new
prescription.  I ended up paying 10, it usually is free.  It was worth it since
it gives me a 90 day supply.  I still need to measure my pressure to see if it’s
in control with just a tablet.  I went back to the store after lunch to retrieve
the prescription which was ready at that time.  I worked in the office on
sanding and spackling the holes in the wall where I straightened up the shelves.
Tomorrow it should be ready for paint.  I found a can of the upstairs wall paint
in the garage so I should be good to go. Libbie made a nice dinner of Ribeye
steak, baked potato with sour cream and Cabernet.  We had Happy Tracks Ice cream
for dessert.  After dinner we watched a little more of Ted and Mollie.  We
learned Ted’s Father had passed away.  We just saw him on the show 2 weeks ago.
Life is certainly precious - here one day and gone the next.


Oct 18, 2020 Sunday Overwhelmed


We watched the normal Sunday morning shows but first I used the upstairs wall
paint color and touched up the spackle in my office.  Later in the morning I
attempted to start moving some of the plastic tubs onto the shelves.  I
discovered I have way too much stuff.  I started discarding things.  I’m not
sure why a lot of this stuff even made its way here.   Later in the afternoon we
watched Donna cooking and making Halloween treats.   Two that I am interested in
are the Cider Donuts and the  Hades Nachos.  The Nachos had cheese wiz on them,
Libbie suggested Queso cheese instead. Libbie made her delicious pizza from
scratch today.  She also put mushrooms on, wow was it good.  I tried making
Mulled Apple Cider but forgot about it and the cider spilled over the top of the
pot.  The glass cooktop has burned on sugar from the cider.  Libbie tried a
number of concoctions to clean it  up but it is still stained with burned cider.
I went back through my journaling this evening to make a table of events for the
past three months.  We took several trips back and forth to Apex, more
importantly I’m amazed at how much work we have done since May.  I don’t know
how we did it all.  Thank goodness the bulk of the work is done, now it’s just a
matter of dealing with all the furniture we don’t want.


Oct 19, 2020 Monday  Little of everything I went to Selby in the morning and
continued doing the image cleanup. I took a dir listing of JPG and CR2 home in
order to match them up to see if there is anything missing.  I’ll work on this
over the next day or two.  I’m not sure which language to use.  I originally
thought it should be Python but I’m now leaning towards B4J because of the
string handling and debug facility available.   I could use some of the code
from the online convention registration reporting. At home I repaired the
irrigation pipes and then tested it.  The sprinkler next to the Lanai door
popped it’s head once again.  This happened minutes after I fixed it.   I need
to crimp the sprinkler micro hose and twist a piece of house wire around it.
Indoors I worked a little in the office, scanning some construction pictures
that were taken by Libbie’s Mom.  The new CDs I ordered from Mollie B came in
the mail.  I opened them immediately and ripped them on the office computer.
They are now safely on the Synology.  I tested one by playing it on Sonos.  I
then continued disposing of stuff and also cut a 2x6  to fit the workbench and
mounted it on the back of the 5 foot wide workbench.  I then screwed down the 4
foot outlet strip to the 2x6.  Next step is to do some vacuuming and dusting
before moving the bench against the wall. Dinner tonight was some leftover pasta
from a box of odd shaped pasta squares I had purchased during the pandemic.
Libbie cooked these with tomato sauce and then we topped it with cheese.  After
dinner I watched a large number of Ted and Mollie videos.


Oct 20, 2020 Tuesday POD day


We received a call at 6:55 from our POD driver that he was on his way.  The POD
arrived at 7:30 AM.  The contents were perfect, nothing was out of place, they
did not jostle it once again. PODs does a nice job of shipping and delivery. We
started unloading boxes and crap immediately.  By the end of the day the only
items left were the sofa and the desk.  Our house is a disaster with junk lying
around everywhere.  I did a lot of purging that should have been done back in
Apex.  I really don’t need a lot of the stuff we brought with us. I took a break
at noon today because Bruce Holst of Botany scheduled a zoom status update for
all the Botany volunteers. We were tired by the end of the day and didn’t cook
anything.  We decided to do a Chick Fil A takeout.  The place was surprisingly
crowded with a long double line at the drive up.  They were efficient as usual.
I thought Chick Fil A was only a lunch time phenomenon, it looks like it extends
to the dinner hour as well.


Oct 21, 2020 Wednesday Unloading


Libbie was not up to herself this morning.  She was a little dizzy and not well
which was very unusual for her.  I left at 9 for my Dr appointment.  I filled
out the paperwork, had my weight and blood pressure checked and got a flu shot.
At 9:30 Dr Bidle came in for an interview.  It is strange that I need an
interview for a physical.  My blood work is now scheduled for early Dec with a
wellness exam in mid December.  Back at home I resumed emptying the POD.  Libbie
was well enough to help me carry the sofa around the side of the house and
through the back slider into the ballroom.   Next job was to free the desk.  I
had to empty the drawers and slide a big carton out from under the desk to move
it.  I used the hand truck and easily wheeled it into the front foyer.  An
attempt to slide it up the stairs failed, it was too heavy for me to move and
still keep controlled.  As a last resort I removed one of the side drawer
cabinets which significantly lightened the load.  With Libbie’s help I was able
to then slide what was left of the desk up the stairs.  I now have to put it
back together, slide it into the office, carry the drawers upstairs and move
into the desk which includes setting up my i7 computer, Manon 3.  I’m looking
forward to this. Dinner was hamburgers on the grill with baked beans and Mac and
Cheese.  Libbie made a special Mac and Cheese with milk, pasta and cheddar
cheese.  She topped it with Panko.  I’m not a Mac and Cheese fan but I liked
this stuff.   Overall it was a pretty good day.


October 22, 2020 Thursday   Desk Reassembly


I spent time on the computer most of today.  First I tried running the Python
Script against the Orchid camera files without much success.  I also tried
copying files from the desktop to the Synology in preparation for taking the
computer down when I move onto the desk. I also completely scanned the photo
album that Libbie had of our Downing Place house construction.  I want to make
an album from beginning to end of our house. I put the desk back together
upstairs in the hallway.  It was a struggle to reach inside especially towards
the back of the deck.  Somehow I manage to get everything assembled then moved
into my office where I put the legs back on.  Now I only need to move the
computer onto the desk.  This is going to be a challenge.  Hopefully I will end
up with the monitor, the keyboard, mouse and speakers.  Temporarily I will
probably have the I-5 available since it interfaces with the printer and the
scanner.  Eventually I will move the scanner onto the other platform. We made
Shrimp Pad Thai for dinner tonight.  It was yummy.  We doubled the ½ teaspoon of
red pepper to give it a little more spice but remained faithful to the rest of
the recipe.  The Garlic was pretty strong, Libbie thought it was because we used
an old Garlic.  After dinner we watched Cory at Give Kids the World.  They
outfitted the grounds with Christmas lights because they can’t have kids due to
Covid fears.  We may have to take a trip there.  It’s $25 to walk through.  We
may get a hotel and do the lights, the Orlando Wheel and maybe Bok Tower
gardens.


October 23, 2020 Friday Set up Computer


I cleaned out the POD and then spray painted the huge gouges we made in the
floor.  Hopefully this will not be noticed.   I moved all the stuff off the
table in my office then set up the I 7 on the gray desk.  It works which was a
pleasant surprise.  This desktop machine rode on the edge of the POD next to the
door.  I next carried all the desk drawers upstairs and put them in.  It is nice
to have a desk again and more importantly drawers to put things into.   Libbie
and I watched a Selby Seminar on GoToMeeting about BErtha Palmer’s gardens at
Spanish Point.  It was quite a good experience and we learned a lot.  After the
meeting we went to Walmart for basic groceries.  For the house I requested a
quote for a well.  Guest Well gave me a quote of $5k which was $3k for the well
and $2k for the pump.   I want good landscape watering and may go for this. Anne
texted me a picture of the Radon setup the inspection company did in our Dining
Room.  In order to insure good results I turned the Humidivac fan on full time
instead of on the once a day timer. Libbie reheated the leftover Shrimp Pad Thai
which we had with a glass of Cabernet for dinner.  We watched Resort TV1 since
it was Friday night but around 8 PM the internet went down and stayed down,
Synology reported that it didn’t come back until 7 hours later at just after 3
AM.  This was our first long term outage. Fortunately our LAN still worked so we
were able to play bedtime music at night and I was able to spend some time on my
desktop computer working on a Python script for the Selby Orchid files. The
Python script was on the Synology NAS.  The Mesh network continued to work and
only the gateway to the internet was dead.


October 24, 2020 Saturday Office Unpacking


Today was a day to concentrate on my office.  I decided to pick up one box at a
time from the guest bedroom and deal with it no matter what.  I managed to get
through all the cardboard boxes in the  guest bedroom.  During this marathon I
discovered the warranty for the encapsulation as well as the survey done by
Smith and Smith back in 1980.  I scanned both and sent them to Anne.  I’m not
sure if she needed them or not.   I also found many DVDs of which I tossed out
quite a few.  I don’t need glamour images.  I need to sort through many, many
more but today was not about sorting junk, it was all about finding it a home
even if only temporary.  I made quite a bit of progress.  In the afternoon we
went outside and looked over Joe’s new red VW beetle.  It’s pretty and probably
OK for a local car.  It’s not very reliable as a long distance traveler.   One
of the DVDs I found was a compilation of 1983-1985 Family VHS tapes which
included New Bern, Hilton Head, some Christmas’s, Bluebird Greenhouse early
construction and go karting on the Downing Place driveway.  Libbie and I watched
it together on Plex.  It is over an hour long. Dinner tonight was steak on the
grill and baked potato with sour cream.  We had Cabernet with the meal and
Libbie baked an Apple Pie for dessert.  It was yummy as usual.


October 25, 2020 Sunday Spanish Point


After the Sunday morning programs we decided to go for a walk at Spanish Point.
Were we surprised. The place looks loved and cared for.  The welcome center was
moved from the stupid location it used to be in.  It’s now in the Gazebo before
the burial mound.  The walkways have new shells and many of the gardens have
been restored.  It looks better than it ever has. I really liked the plantings
around the butterfly garden and the sunken garden.  I took lots of pictures in
an attempt to identify the flowering plants.   This was an incentive to me to
get a well installed so that we could have plantings like this and maintain them
with irrigation. In the afternoon I continued working on boxes and tubs in my
office.  I have completely moved out of the guest bedroom which is good news.
Now I want to hang the pictures.  I also edited the Python program to generate
the list of missing JPG orchid images for Selby.  I sent these to John.   In the
late afternoon we had 0.56 inches of rain which was a good deal.  It was getting
dry and I was considering turning the irrigation on.  Libbie made her fantastic
pizza with mushrooms. In the evening I started sketching out the bookshelves in
our front dining room and also watched Resort TV1 touring the Halloween
decorations in Fort Wilderness.  These were over the top wow.


October 26, 2020 Monday Shelves & Wells


I went to Selby this morning with my list of missing jpg files.  John printed
all 49 pages of the list and reviewed them.  He decided we had missed multiple
days when processing the files.  I managed to start processing one of the days.
I also created JPG files for a batch of files called “Florida Specimens” that
Liz needed for loading into the Brahms database.   On the way home from Selby I
stopped into Costco for coffee, wine and dish detergent.  I also picked up some
frozen blueberries and a frozen pack of Italian sausage casseroles. Once home
after lunch I started cutting some cardboard to model how the bookshelf cabinet
would be in front of the entryway into the room.  Libbie looked it over with me.
We decided the way I have the corner cut at an angle is acceptable in order to
allow passage through the doorway.  Now I need to find a suitable material for
the table top.  I heard from Phil of Guest Well after emailing him this  morning
that I was ready to sign but needed someone to locate the well near my garage.
He called late in the afternoon and said he could have someone over in the next
45 minutes. Two guys showed up in a pick up and looked around.  They recommended
putting the well between the two bushes in front of the AC unit.  This means I
would have to move the bushes. I was not in favor of this solution.  The most
important thing about the visit was locating the tank and the disconnect box.  I
will need to install a disconnect on the wall with 12/2 going from a new breaker
to the box.  I brought 3 boxes in the POD from Apex.  I may have discarded them
thinking I would never need something like this again. Dinner tonight was Lloyds
prepackaged shredded pork BBQ on buns with a side of Baked Beans,  After dinner
we tried watching Dinners with Donna but the audio and the tiny box for her and
the guest did not work.  We turned it off after 10 minutes.  Later we watched
Josh’s high quality video of the Christmas Lights at Give Kids the World.  This
was really good.  We need to go there.  We went to bed early. I was tired at
8:30.


October 27, 2020 Tuesday Well Power


Our POD window was between 10 and 1 today.  The driver showed up around 11 AM to
pick up the empty from our driveway.  This is a good service. It got all our
stuff moved at a reasonable price.  This mostly put my day’s activities on hold
until the POD was gone. I removed the electrical panel cover in the garage and
figured out what was needed to hook up well power outside.  A trip to Lowes
resulted in some conduit and fittings.  I started by punching a hole in the box
and mounting a threaded conduit adapter.  Three feet away I marked the wall
where the conduit  will pass through.  I spent some time looking for a hammer
bit to punch through the blocks but didn’t come up with anything.  I’ll probably
drill smaller holes and use a chisel to break through.  In the process of
looking for a hammer bit I emptied a few more cartons in the garage and found
boxes of stuff I don’t really need.  I don’t know what to do!  I have been
throwing all the tools into a carton which is growing in size. While at Lowes
today I also picked up some of the wood for the bookshelves including a nice 20
inch wide 8 foot long glued board for the top.  I didn’t do much with this stuff
since I was concentrating on the well pump power line. Dinner tonight was
spaghetti and tomato sauce covered with cheese.  After dinner we watched a new
episode of Polka Tuesday.  This was the first show after Ted’s Father’s funeral.
The guest was somebody named Ed Siwiec who was talented with a beautiful voice
and incredibly good Clarinet playing.  In the mail today was a come on that I
responded to.  The postcard had our home value and address and an insurance
quote of $850.  Since our Cypress Insurance renewal that I received yesterday
was $3,000 I made the call.  We’ll see how this works out.


October 28, 2020 Wednesday Well Power


This was a busy day.  I started by drilling through the cinder block garage wall
for the conduit. I used small drill bits and a chisel to make the 1 ¼ inch hole.
Once this was done I stripped a length of 12/2 of the outer jacket and ran just
the 3 wires inside the conduit to a new 220 VAC 20A  breaker purchased
yesterday.  Once this was hooked up I mounted the disconnect box outside near
where the well is going to be.  I took a  Lowes trip with Libbie.  I picked up a
6 foot pre wired  waterproof flexible conduit and a 25’ roll of #6 copper ground
wire.  I was on the fence about the ground wire but eventually decided to add
one. I’m not sure if it’s required or not but for less than $25 I added one.
This completes the well wiring project for now.  I’ll go back and add clamps if
needed after the well is installed and hooked up. Dinner tonight was the Costco
frozen sausage and beef lasagna. We had this with a glass of wine.  It’s pretty
good. I received the new insurance quote from a company called St Johns
Insurance for $2170 which is nowhere near the postcard rate which was $850.
October 29, 2020 Thursday  Selby & Misc


I went to work to Selby this morning and continued processing Orchid images.  At
the end of the day I ended up with 1,141 Orchids processed.  This involved
importing into Lightroom, exporting as a JPG and then syncing to the server on
Q. On the way home I stopped at Harbor Freight for a razor scraper for Libbie to
scrape the gunk off the stove top and also stopped at Costco.  Costco was pretty
crowded with slow moving old people.  I bought a Shark Vacuum for downstairs and
also chicken salad, bread loafs and wine. I worked a little on some of the  tubs
and boxes but generally did not do much work this afternoon.  I found my Vote by
Mail ballot along with the car registration renewal which have been missing.  I
decided to start at the top file cabinet drawer and work my way down. This is
what eventually uncovered the missing papers. I registered the car online and
also filled out my election ballot. I certainly did not vote for any Democrats.
As bad as he is I feel Trump is our best hope for an economic recovery while
still maintaining our freedom.  Biden is a do nothing gas bag, all talk and do
nothing.  Unfortunately all indications are that the gasbag will win.


Oct 30, 2020 Friday Closing Documents


I spent some time sifting through documents in my office looking for any
indication of a title.  I finally found 2 references to 2 different title
companies.  One was from the land surveyor Earl Smith and the second title
company was on a 1993 mortgage refinance document.  I scanned these and sent
them to the closing attorney.  I also scanned the seller info sheets for the
attorney.  I called in our Social Security numbers since I didn’t want to put
them on the emailed form. We then drove to the mall and deposited our ballots in
the drop box.  The mall is really, really empty.  All the stores were boarded up
and were sort of creepy.  Using the mall as a polling place was a great use of
the space.  After dropping off our ballots we went to Walmart to get groceries
and most importantly, toilet paper. Once home it was time to get to work.
Libbie and I spent an hour in the front yard weeding by the street.  It was
really needed.  The yard looked terrible.  We discovered that somebody marked
the power lines and cable lines to the house.  We didn’t see this happening but
happy that it did.  I took pictures of all the cable markings for future
reference. Back inside I started working on  my explanations of the inspection
report.  I worked on this all afternoon and into the evening finishing up around
9:30 PM.  I sent it to Anne and feel very good about it.  There is work to be
done but not a large amount.  Hopefully I will not have to address the
electrical panel but I have my doubts.  It may be necessary to have an
electrical contractor rework the panel.  This will cost some money. Dinner
tonight was some wings in the air fryer.  They were delicious. We had Cabernet
and Butternut Squash to accompany the meal.  Josh and Jenna were at the MK for a
Halloween stream but I didn’t pay much attention to it because I was busy doing
the response to the inspection report.


October 31, 2020 Saturday Water Heater


This  morning I was spending some time in my office organizing files and
shredding old papers.  Libbie came in and told me there was water running as a
stream on the garage floor.  I went downstairs and found water leaking from the
panels where the elements are located.  It’s time to replace our 25 year old
water heater.   Libbie and I ran the hose out from the water heater to the
street.  The spigot at the water heater bottom would not drain.   I went to
Lowes and bought a water heater pan which had a drain on the side.  While in
Lowes I picked up a hose adapter and PVC fittings to hook a hose up to the pan.
I positioned the pan under the spigot and disassembled the spigot while poking
into it with a small screwdriver blade. The Spigot was just plugged with sand or
calcium.  I worked it all  out and then the water started flowing.  We left it
draining while we had a zoom conference call with our buyers.  They had lots of
questions about the house.  We spent an hour talking about the house and all the
unique features such as the solar system, the greenhouse watering and the
greenhouse top.  It was a very good conference.  We like our new buyers. After
the zoom meeting we went to Lowes and picked up a new 50 Gallon water heater as
well as two connecting pipes and a shutoff.   Hooking everything up was
straightforward.  Once it was done I turned the water on and then flipped the
230VAC breaker on.   We had hot water in about 30 minutes which was surprising.
Dinner tonight was hamburgers and squash which we had with a few glasses of
Cabernet.  After dinner we watched a special edition of a Polka Party with Ted
and Molly.  IT was live from 8:30 until 10 PM and was enjoyable as usual.  The
time changes one hour back tonight so it wasn’t as late as it seemed.


November 1, 2020 Sunday Spanish Point


After the morning show we went to Spanish Point for our weekly garden walk.  The
place is getting better with each visit.  It was a beautiful but warm day.  We
saw the butterfly house all set up in it’s new location.  It had been moved from
Selby downtown to Spanish Point. Once we got back we did a little tour of Joe’s
new Rubbermaid racks on the wall.  They sure look good!  I may have to do
something similar. In preparation for the well this week I dug out the two
Bougainvilleas from next to the AC. We temporarily put them into flower pots.  I
also transplanted the Bromeliad to the side of the house near the other
Bromeliads. For the rest of the day I went into my office and started shredding
the old tax tax returns from the 90s.   I think I have become my Mother.   At 4
PM I came downstairs to watch Dinner with Donna.  She made some sweet desserts
but I was really interested in her enchiladas.  I will have to make this.
Libbie made her excellent pizza.  She had to make the dough from scratch this
time around.  It was a nice pizza once again topped with mushrooms.


November 2, 2020 Monday Selby & Detweilers


I went to work today at 9:30, leaving the house around 9.  I continued
processing orphaned orchids that had not gone through the system.  I also
discovered a bizarre collection  of specimens that were all labeled wrong. I
deleted around 25 of them.  When I got home Libbie and I decided to go to
Detweilers for our proteins.  We picked up Salmon, Italian Sausage and Pork
Chops as well as a Key Lime Pie. Our CDs of Toledo Polka Motion came today in
the mail.   I sat down at my computer and ripped them all then copied the MP3s
to the Synology in the Subsonic directory under “Polka”. Libbie grilled our
Italian Sausage and also cooked some onions and peppers.  We had these on
delicious freshly baked hot dog buns from Detweilers.  Dessert was Key Lime Pie.
After dinner we watched a little of Cory’s  live stream from Sunday night.


November 3, 2020 Tuesday Finish Water Heater


This morning I drilled a hole in the cinder block for the water heater pan
drain.  It was then time to go to our appointment downtown to transfer the title
and get plates for Libbie’s car.   The registration ran out a few days ago at
the end of October.  The process went smoothly.  They took us early so Libbie
was done a little after they were supposed to take us for the appointment.   I
was not allowed to go into the building so Libbie did her own registration and
title work.   After the DMV we went over to Selby for the Orchid show.  It was
nice but not as  spectacular as past years.  The gift shop was very
disappointing.  The book selections are minimal and the plants for sale were
incredibly puny.  There wasn’t much to buy. In the afternoon I finished up the
water heater job.  I had to make a trip to Lowes for Hydraulic cement.  Patching
the old hole went well. I also used the hydraulic cement around the pipe
openings.  I’m happy with how the job turned out and it’s one more thing off the
list. Dinner tonight was the last of the Italian Sausage along with Onion and
Pepper on a fresh baked Detweiler's hot dog bun.    After dinner we settled down
for an evening of Polka Music because it’s “Polka Tuesday” with Ted and Mollie.
Thanks to Libbie my name showed up on the Birthday list.  Mollie sang Happy
Birthday followed by a round of Sto Lat.  What a nice night.


November 4, 2020 Wednesday Well Drilling


This morning the Well Drillers came at 8:30 AM and started by digging a deep
hole to contain the water coming out of the well. In the process they cut a
cable which we think is Dean and Paulette’s Internet cable. It’s not clear who
is responsible for fixing this cable.  The drilling went on all day long.
Meanwhile I finished shredding the tax returns and took the bag of paper mulch
down to the garbage. The well drill guys were helpful in that they moved the old
water heater to the curb.  It was in the way of their drilling machine. I began
working on the new feed on Drupal for the index that Carolee had fixed up.  I
finally got a new simplified feed working.  Now I need the view to complete the
job. Dinner tonight was Salmon with Butternut Squash and a glass of Cabernet.
The disposal seems to be jammed this evening.  It won’t drain.  I’ll deal with
it in the morning.


November 5, 2020 Thursday Well Hook up


The guys worked all day today continuing to drill the well.  In the afternoon
they dropped the pump into the hole and hooked up the wiring and the pressure
tank.  The well has 35 gallons per minute.  They set the pressure at 55 PSI.
That’s a pretty good stream coming from a one inch pipe.  This will be useful.
When it was all done they cleaned up and put the dirt back into the hole that
had all the water.  The mound is now a squishy mess.  They also piled up the Sod
next to the house although I’ll probably go get some plugs to repair the lawn or
hire a landscaper. I worked on loading the annual  index and was somewhat
successful but it doesn’t display correctly.  I’ll have to try again possibly by
cloning the previous content feed.   I also found 4 bad dates I sent back to
Carolee. In my office in the afternoon I worked on the drawer front.  I thinned
down the expanded fiber board and used epoxy to fasten it down.  I was able to
hold the boards against the drawer front with some clamps I found in the garage,
Today was Lorraine’s birthday so I gave her a call.  She was surprised but we
didn’t chat long because she was at a steakhouse restaurant for her birthday
celebration. Dinner was a delicious grilled pork chop with Butternut squash and
Cabernet.  After dinner which was after dark I loaded a few of the broken patio
stones from the well project into my car.  I disposed of these in the Clubside
condo dumpster which was empty.  Today was trash  day.  They made a huge bang
when they hit the bottom of the dumpster.  The rest of the evening was quiet.


November 6, 2020 Friday Happy Birthday Libbie came down the stairs this morning
singing Sto Lat which was nice.  Around 8 I got a call from Vicki for Happy
Birthday.  In the same instant of time Arlene tried calling then called Libbie
who told her I was on the phone with Vicki.  When Arlene called she and Rich
sang Sto Lat which was very nice. Today was spent trying to get the AVSA website
back online after adding the view and feed for the new index.  The permissions
needed to be rebuilt but kept timing out in the process of rebuilding.  Finally
late at night they rebuilt which put the website back on line.  I have too many
projects going.  I did a trip to Lowes for some pipe and glued 2 one inch elbows
to the gate valve at the pressure tank of the well.  Then I added a reducer
taking it down to ¾ inch PVC.  The intention is to install a solenoid box near
the power meter on the sidewall for irrigation and hook this to the ¾ inch PVC
pipe.   The pipe would then continue on to the corner of the house where I would
install a riser pipe and a hose spigot for water near the driveway.  This would
be for car washing and misc plant watering.  I did not finish this job like I
would like to because it was time to pack up for our trip tomorrow. Dinner
tonight was ribs with beans and rice from Beckhams.   Before going to Beckhams I
went to Publix and picked up some Mint Moose Tracks ice cream which we had for
dessert.


November 7, 2020 Saturday Travel


We got up early this morning and gathered our stuff into the car for the trip.
I made coffee and we were soon on our way. We left around 6 AM.  I needed gas at
Brooksville exit 301 where I stopped in Raceway for a fill up while Libbie went
next door and ordered biscuits for breakfast.  We had a thermos of coffee in the
car.  The biscuits were $8 which was the highest I have seen.  While driving
through Lake Butler we encountered rain which came down pretty good.  I’m glad
we were not on the Interstate.  At the intersection of I-95 and I-295 at the
airport exit there were multiple accidents on both sides of the highway.
Several tractor trailers were jackknifed off the road.  We crept through traffic
for around 15 minutes.  It wasn’t too bad of a delay.  At least we kept moving.
The Southbound side was backed up a lot more. Our next gas stop was Richmond
Hill outside of Savannah, Exit 90.  We gassed up at Loves ahd had a bathroom
break.  Travel was surprisingly easy.  One more gas stop at exit 170, the Pilot
just North of Florence was our last stop.  Libbie had tuna fish sandwiches for
us in the car for lunch and she also picked up some crackers for us in Loves.
She also got us each a banana.  We arrived in our driveway at 5:31 PM.  It was a
very nice trip.   My first visit was to the thermostat to see what was going on.
When the new one didn’t light up I took the covers off the furnace and found the
controller card fuse was blown.  We went to Advance Autoo Parts on Hwy 55, the
old Ace Hardware, and bought a pack of 2 fuses, 5 Amps for $5.50 which was a
little steep.  On the way home we went to FoodLion for wine and ice cream and
then to China Chef to get our takeout dinner which Libbie ordered from the Food
Lion parking lot.  Dinner was 3 meat Szechuan and 2 eggrolls.  We had this with
many glasses of Cabernet.   After dinner I determined the old thermostat had
blown out my new fuse.  I put the second one in the control board and tried the
new thermostat.  It worked!!!!  From bed in a not so sober state I programmed
the heat cycle of the device but I doubt it came on during the night.


November 8, 2020 Sunday Repairs


I went up on the roof first thing this morning and removed the cap from the
water heater flue.  I was quite pleased that the flue pipe was double walled.
Down in the laundry room I found the same thing.  I removed the straight pipe
and found that the elbow and the down pipe was indeed double walled.  The
inspector has lost all credibility with me.  I bought the plastic plug for the
relay box and it fit perfectly into the hole.  This was an item on the list.  I
bought screws and a draft hood adapter for the water heater but still have not
installed them.  We filled the hot tub and found the skimmer housing is cracked.
I bought Gorilla water leak tape and tried patching the crack both inside and
outside.  It worked on the crack but the gasket seems to be leaking.  We put a
flower pot pan under this leak since it’s not very bad. I was extremely
exhausted by late afternoon when Joe, Paige and Emily called for my birthday. It
was a nice video call.  They were both nice girls showing their cards and
talking about their experiences.  Fun!!! For dinner we ordered pizza from
Dominos using the 9.99 coupon for 3 toppings on an Extra Large pie.  I ordered
mushrooms, extra cheese and diced tomato as the toppings.  We had this with
Cabernet and Chocolate Moose Tracks ice cream for dessert.


November 9, 2020 Monday The List


I started tackling the list early this morning by drilling holes in the water
heater flue and installing screws at each pipe junction and also onto the draft
hood.  This completed the water heater.  Next stop was the attic to remove all
the extraneous inactive junction boxes.  I tore out a bunch of wires and
junction boxes and cleaned everything up.  I need to add one junction cover
plate which I picked up in Lowes. I discovered I did not have a gas can or 2
cycle mixture.  I got a skim milk container and poured some 2 cycle oil in it.
I ran to the gas station to pick up more gas to fill the container and also top
off my car gas tank.  The chainsaw started right up and made quick business of
trimming the trees.  I took a branch off the Red Maple and also a branch off the
Oak tree next to the deck. This finished my ChainSaw activity. Next was to
tackle the hot tub which is leaking at the skimmer.  I bought a pan in Lowes and
attached a hose to it.  The hose goes to the crawl under the porch.  I drilled a
hole in the side of the hot tub for the hose and also drilled a hole in the
cover over the crawl to pass the hose through.  I also bought some Velcro like
strips and attached them to the back of the CO detector.  On the way home I
stopped in Food Lion for breakfast cheese and also some new AA batteries for the
CO detector.  I added up all the activities so far and 12 out of 17 are
completed which is 70% or barely a C. I hooked the new pan up under the hot tub
leak and routed the hose to the access hole in the floor.  We then used the hot
tub for the first time.  The skimmer seems to be leaking more when we use the
tub.  The pan seems to be working at catching the drips and routing them down to
the crawl space since the water level in the pan is no higher than the hose
outlet. Libbie baked the Costco Beef Lasagna for dinner.  It was very good, the
best Costco Lasagna yet.  We had this with some Cabernet and Chocolate Moose
Tracks ice cream for dessert.


November 10, 2020 Tuesday Repairs


The hot tub repair didn’t work.  The skimmer is leaking at the patch.  At least
the pan is catching the leaks.  I talked to Anne and she said we have to get
somebody out there to fix it for closing.  I called Rising Sun Pools and they
are supposed to get back to me with an estimate.  We haven’t heard from them
yet. I worked in the knee wall removing the Arduino and junction boxes.  Two of
the boxes remain.  I had to run out to Lowes to get screws for the junction
boxes to fasten them to the wall.  I also picked up insulation foam for the
refrigerant line of the HVAC outdoors and installed it.  I installed the missing
drawer front that I repaired in Florida then began tackling the outdoor outlet
that was not GFCI protected.  I installed the GFCI breaker on the porch and
finished this job but I could not find the cover for the outlet which means I
can’t check the job off as complete.  I took out a $40 subscription to the
Contrarian Investor today.  I’ll use it as a screen for CEFs that pay decent
dividends.  We will have a lot of money going forward that I want to
productively place. Dinner was the leftover Costco Beef casserole with a few
glasses of Cabernet and ice cream for dessert.  After dinner we watched a little
of Cory visiting the Christmas Lights at Give Kids the World  We bought tickets
for the event during his stream.  I chose Dec 3 tickets which is the day after I
get a blood panel done at my new Doctor’s office.   At 8 PM we then switched
over to Mollie and Ted for their Polka Tuesday show with guest Fred Zewich.  It
was thoroughly enjoyable as usual.  During the day I sent the promo to both
Arlene and Vicki.  I was quite surprised that during the show we heard from
Vicki that “who knew there was a Polka Hall of Fame?”.  This came as Ted and
Mollie introduced Hall of Famer Fred Zewich who told us that Mollie and then ted
were subsequently inducted into the Hall of Fame.  Fred in 2017 followed by
Mollie in 2018 and Ted in 2019.  I easily passed out once I hit the pillow.  It
was a productive day.


November 11, 2020 Wednesday Paperwork


I finished the last of the tasks this morning by putting a clamp inside the
crawl for the rear spigot.   I bolted the clamp to the wall.  We then took a
trip to the dump to empty the refrigerator contents and get rid of other bags of
garbage.  I sold a bunch of items today - the garden cart and wheelbarrow, the
hammer drill, hand carts and framing nailer.  Today Libbie drove to Chick Fil A
for lunch and dropped me off at Lowes across the street from the place.  I
purchased a GFCI outlet cover and screws for the faucet handle.  The sad part is
that I lost the faucet handle when I took it off. I paid $180 to Rising Sun
Pools which is 50% of the repair cost for the skimmer.  They will order the part
and schedule the work.  Anne said I should leave a check made out to Rising Sun
for the balance.  The attorney sent all the forms to be notarized.  I filled
everything out and took it over to the Postal store in the Kroger shopping
center.  Anne said she will pick up the forms after they were notarized.  When
she arrived she discovered one of the forms was missing a stamp.  Anne went with
us to the notary and we got the missing stamp done.  This part is now complete.
Dinner was the last of the Beef Lasagna which we had with a glass of Cabernet.
After dinner I watched some more of Cory at Give Kids the World then switched to
Ted and Mollie before going to bed.


November 12, 2020 Thursday Rainy Day I listed all the tools and mowers.  A guy
came from Jordan Lake and bought all the garden tools for $60.  This was great.
I had a lot of people say they only wanted some tools, others said they would
wait till it stopped raining.   I called Spectrum Internet today and had a hard
time disconnecting the service.  They do not prorate so there will be service
until Dec 8. I paid the Sarasota taxes today so I don’t forget to do this before
the end of the month. Around 2:30 a woman and her son bought the Toro Self
Propelled mower.  The son wants it for his lawn mowing business and was pretty
happy.  Later the guy came over for the $25 mower I bought for the self driving
mower.  Unfortunately while clearing the garage I gave him my toolbox and
skilsaw.  He was pretty clueless as to what a skilsaw was and I doubt if he knew
how to use any of the tools.  It was unfortunate but I wanted this out of here.
Dinner was Spaghetti with cheese and a very nice Cabernet that is Bourbon Barrel
aged from Mondavi.  After dinner we watched the Nov 10 Mollie and Ted broadcast.
It’s still enjoyable even though we saw it already.  Their guest was Ed Zewich.
His Cd looks interesting.


November 13, 2020 Friday Our Buyers At 9 this morning a flooring guy showed up
to measure the place for hardwood floors.  They are also looking into closing
the Dining Room door with a wall.  We think the cabinets are on the way out,
probably our new granite countertops as well.  We enjoyed the Lewis’s.   After
the house we went outside and walked the property line.  We found most of the
stakes and also showed them the septic field. After this show and tell we
resumed cleaning up the house and discarding items. I wrapped up the chainsaw in
double garbage bags and put all the hand tools I want into a tub.  I tried to
put our quartz rock into the car but it was covered with ants so I sprayed Raid
on the rock.  This was a big mistake since it really smelled bad. I went into
my brokerage accounts and tried to make sense of what worked and did not work.
A few of the preferreds lost a lot of money but the bonds did extremely well. I
need to take all this into account and purchase wisely when the time comes with
our house money. Dinner tonight was ribeye steak with baked potato and sour
cream.  Along with this we had Mondavi’s Cabernet aged in Bourbon Barrels.  This
is a premium wine and is quite good. After dinner we watched a little of Josh at
Epcot but I wasn’t interested.


November 14, 2020 Saturday Last Day


This morning we both ran around disconnecting stuff and loading the car.  I took
the Google Hubs and the Sonos as well as all my tools, the chainsaw and the come
along.  We left the keys and door openers on the bookshelf above the desk along
with the survey, generator manual and crawl warranty.  Libbie took a last pic as
we sadly left our home of 40 years at 11 AM. The trip was easy.  We got gas and
a Big Mac with Fries in Florence. I ended up on Chaffee Rd in Jacksonville at
sunset with the dash reporting 60  miles to empty.  We got into the hotel at
5:45 PM.  After checking in and washing our hands we walked next door to Cinco
Di Mayo where we each had a Margarita on the rocks, salsa and chips and then
ordered the Enchiladas supreme.  The Enchiladas included 4 tortilla enchiladas -
a bean, a chicken, a beef and a cheese.  Lettuce, sour cream and a tomato
crowned the Enchiladas.  Total was $26 plus a $5 tip.  We walked back to our
room, 105, and spent the night reading.  It was a pretty good day despite 500
miles of driving.


November 15, 2020 Sunday Sarasota


We had breakfast in the Hampton Inn this morning.  It wasn’t great, an egg patty
wrapped in foil.  I had a bagel with cream cheese to go along with it.  On the
way out we filled the tank at a Kangaroo before getting on 1-10 at 8 AM.
Traffic was very light because it was Sunday morning.  It was an enjoyable drive
through the countryside around Lake Butler.  We arrived in our driveway at noon.
We met with Joe in the street who gave us our mail.  The regular mail was not
delivered although it was supposed to be delivered Saturday. We spent the
afternoon unpacking the car and finding places to put all this stuff. I spent
time this afternoon with a spreadsheet analyzing good dividend paying stocks,
some with a chance for growth.  Since the closing check is coming next week I
want to have an idea of what to do with it. I did this while Cooking with Donna
was on.  She was making a Thanksgiving feast but used chicken in place of
Turkey.  I am going to try her chicken cranberry recipe with corn casserole.  It
looked great and got good reviews from her partner, RJohn.  Libbie made a dough
from scratch for our pizza dinner. Dinner was pizza with mushrooms and a glass
of Cabernet.  We had dinner during the Cooking with Donna show but we turned
away towards the end to watch the SpaceX launch of 4 astronauts on Demo-1.  It
was pretty cool and as could be expected, a perfect launch.  From launch to
booster landing they make it look easy.


November 16, 2020 Monday Back to Selby


 I went to work this morning at Selby from 8:30 to 12:00 resuming my image
processing and management.  I also took directory dumps of all the Orchids and
Broms so I could compare them at home looking for Orphans. On the way home I
stopped into Lowes and picked up a new one inch elbow and reducer.  I cut the
old elbow off and glued this one down 3 inches away from the foundation so the
attached pipe could clear the power company conduit and the internet cable
lines.  I’m still short an elbow or two for the new spigots on the house corners
but I chose not to go back to Lowes since I was tired. We were going to have
Quesadillas for dinner but there was no Salsa and no Sour Cream.  Instead Libbie
grilled some chicken using Kansas City BBQ sauce.  It was delicious.  We had
baked beans and Cabernet with dinner.  After dinner we watched Ted and Mollie on
one of their older streams.  They sure do produce happy music.


November 17, 2020 Tuesday Getting Around


After breakfast I went over to Lowes and picked up the supplies to do the
plumbing job of hooking up the irrigation to the well.  Unfortunately I didn’t
get to this.  Libbie and I drove to Englewood to Mr Ts garden center.  Libbie
couldn’t find the New Guinea Impatiens color she wanted but we picked up several
plants then went to Gulf Breeze Nursery on the same Highway in Englewood.  We
got some Geraniums, Lavender and other plants.  We ended up spending $50 in each
place.  On the way home we drove through Venice Beach and visited our favorite
Cuban Deli, Belkis.  We ordered one Cuban and then a Combo plate because the
woman in front of us was having one.  It has pulled pork, rice, beans and
plantains.  We got this for dinner.  We took the Cuban Sandwich home and ate it
there instead of at the beach.  The sandwich was so good but it really wiped me
out.   After recovering a while I went outside and started hooking up the well.
I picked up  a prebuilt 3 port manifold at Lowes this morning and put this in
then hooked up one of the solenoids to the existing irrigation in front.  When I
turned it on the results were surprising.  The line on the East side of the
driveway and along Dean and Paulettes house activated as expected but then some
of the sprinklers in the front yard also activated.  This was a little shocking.
There is backflow going on somewhere. In my office I configured the Python
script to compare the brom and orchid camera files to the jpg files.  I’m
surprised there were any orphans in the Orchids.  This was the first run for the
Broms. Dinner was the pork combo plate we bought at Belkis.  Wow, was this ever
good.  We had pulled pork, rice and beans and plantains along with a glass of
Cabernet. Since this was Polka Tuesday we watched Ted and Mollie after dinner
for another enjoyable evening of happy and upbeat music.


November 18, 2020 Wednesday Irrigation


I did the Selby thing this morning and worked on the last of the Broms.  I had a
list of about 16 broms that were missing jpegs.  Half of them were of photos so
I deleted them and ended up only creating about 5 jpegs from the cr2 raw camera
file originals.   This completed Broms.  John worked on the Orchids which had 80
missing that were a little more serious. When I got home we had lunch consisting
of the Cuban Soup from yesterday.  Wow, was it good!!!  I then went outside to
start working on the sprinkler.  First step was to determine which channel
controlled which loop.  We seem to have 4 or 5 different loops.  This is going
to be difficult.  I may have to dig up the incoming water line to determine
where it branches off if that is possible.  I did not realize that we had so
many active water loops.  Libbie’s new laptop came today.  I worked on getting
it setup and decrapified.  It’s a pretty nice machine almost identical to mine
except that it’s an I-5 and I only have an I-3.  Also arriving was the new
garbage disposal from Costco.  I didn’t mess with that yet.  Dinner was
spaghetti with cheese.  After dinner I studied how sprinklers are wired and how
the weathermatic controller works.  I’m in a quandary, I can’t go any further on
the well hookup without finding the valves.


November 19, 2020 Thursday  Metal Detector


As I was reading the Sarasota Paper I saw a garden center advertising 20% off
annuals.  Farm and Garden center is on Benev just past Harbor Freight.  I want
to go to Harbor Freight to get a metal detector.  It’s not clear if this will
help but I need to find the control valves for the sprinklers.  I’m getting
desperate.  The garden center was fantastic.  This is the best we have seen in
the area. We ended up purchasing $156 worth of plants, one of which was a $59
Orchid.  On the way home I stopped into Harbor Freight and picked up the Metal
Detector and some AA batteries.  I started using the Metal Detector right away.
It found a cable and a rusty hinge but no luck with any new valve sightings.  I
uncovered the original valve I knew about in the front yard but this was not
found by the detector.  I traced one complete water line with the screwdriver.
This may be how I have to find the other controllers.  I’ll have to probe along
the water line looking for a connection to a valve.  Productively I did not
achieve any results moving forward. I ran out to Publix for wine and ice cream
but stopped into Havertys and ordered the additional end table that Libbie
wanted.  I stood in line at the service counter and paid the $300 with a credit
card.  Next stop was Publix then across the street to Lowes where I had a return
to do and a purchase of conduit clamps to make.   I want to at least hook up the
spigot for watering the new plants. Dinner was pork chops and Lima Beans with
Cabernet.  We listened to WCPE play an old Al Ruocchio recording of Rigoletto
after dinner.  It was very nice.


November 20, 2020 Friday Closing, Driveways and Well


Downing Place closing took place at 8 AM this morning.  We received a notice
from the appointment center that there was an 8:40 appointment.  This was the
walkthrough.  An hour later we heard from the attorney that we needed to have
one more paper notarized, the Lien Waver stating we had no liens on the house.
We went over to Palmer Plaza to the Pack N Ship store and notarized our
signatures for $7 then I scanned the documents in my office and emailed it to
the attorney.  Later I emailed it to Anne with our thanks. We did an early trip
to Walmart for our Thanksgiving food.  The total cost was just under $100.  We
were following our shopping list on Alexa and had finished up but Libbie
discovered we did not have a Turkey.   She went to the freezer case and picked
up a 9 pounder for us. When I got back I started by putting clamps on the spigot
so it now works fastened to the wall.  This didn’t last because I shut the well
off to cut the lines and start gluing the pipes to reach the Lanai corner.  I
ran out of ¾ inch elbows before I finished. I contacted Prestige Work Solutions
about driveway pavers.  A guy came out at 4 and measured for our new driveway.
The total will be $7,000 and is a wider driveway and includes a walk around the
side to the garbage cans. Dinner tonight was chicken Quesadilla in the Air
Fryer.  It came out pretty good.  We also used the ChiChi Salsa that I got in
Walmart because they were out of the Herdez I usually get.  It was Friday night
so Resort TV1 was on but I was only mildly interested.  Somehow Ted and Molly
seemed more interesting when they did Polka Tuesday.


November 21, 2020 Saturday  Well Hook up


This morning I started by going to Lowes to get the elbows to finish the well
hookup.  This went well, I reached the Lanai corner for the new spigot and
extended the line out to the backyard for possible other solenoid usage such as
the grow boxes. I pressurized the system and tried manually turning on the front
yard sprinklers.  The ones in front of the bay windows on the Geraniums worked
well as well as the run around the bird feeder.  It is puzzling that the rest of
the front yard was not hooked into the system.  I don’t know how the batch in
front of the bay windows gets its water normally when using city water.  There
obviously is a solenoid that isn’t working correctly because when I water the
side yard the front also comes on.  It’s time to go probing. Libbie worked on
her Orchids on the back porch when Joe came over looking for a battery tester.
He thinks his door opener is acting up so I measured the batteries.   While here
Joe asked if we wanted to join them for Thanksgiving.  It would just be us and
them. For dinner we made the Thanksgiving meal that Donna streamed a few weeks
ago.  Libbie made the corn casserole and I made the chicken smothered in
Cranberry dressing which was orange, onion soup, Catalina dressing and
cranberries.  It was incredibly good. Wow!  I commented on Donna’s stream about
how good this was.


November 22, 2020 Sunday Digging

After the Sunday morning shows  I spent the entire day digging in the front yard
trying to trace the irrigation system.  I had limited success.  I found that the
solenoid in the front yard hooks the front yard sprinklers to the Geranium
sprinklers.  What I’m still looking for is  the source of the water to the
Geraniums.  I did a lot of probing with a screwdriver on Ersen’s side (the West
side) of the house.   No luck,  I was thinking of getting a long handled
screwdriver from either Lowes or Harbor Freight.  I made a spreadsheet
describing what I was seeing with all this. I came in from the front yard when
it was almost 6 PM and took a shower to wash off a day’s worth of digging.  I
was filthy/  Libbie made her excellent pizza with mushrooms which we had with a
glass of Cabernet while watching the all day stream of Resort TV1.  The park
looked pretty crowded.


November 23, 2020 Monday Selby and watering


This morning I went to Selby and continued image cleanup.   While there the
cleaning company came around to fog the place for Covid disinfecting.  We are
getting pretty close at having all the Broms and Orchids done.  On the way home
from Selby I stopped at Costco for coffee and wine.  I also picked up a gallon
of milk because my breakfast milk was sour.  I’m almost thinking of abandoning
milk in cereal because of sour milk the past few months.  Once I got home I
resumed tracing the irrigation lines by digging holes.  This along with my long
thin bladed screwdriver has helped me but I still haven't found the control
solenoid for the Geranium run.  I ran the water for about an hour by reverse
feeding  the Geranium run along with relay activation of loop 1 which is the
front lawn and sidewalk which connects to the Geranium water.  I don’t know why
it’s done like this but that’s the way it is.  This morning the closing proceeds
from our Downing Place house were delivered by UPS overnight delivery but we
didn’t discover the envelope until 3 PM.  Tracking says it was delivered at
10:30 AM.  Libbie was home but she didn’t hear it being delivered.   I
discovered it while working on the irrigation.  I tried calling Schwab but
unbelievably it’s hard to contact them.  When I finally got somebody he said
somebody will call me tomorrow about making an appointment.  This is not
acceptable.  I started filling out an application to open an account at
Fidelity.  I’m not sure what to do. For dinner we had the cranberry chicken with
corn casserole and some Cabernet.


November 24, 2020 Tuesday  Sod & struggles


This  morning I was delighted that the doorbell rang and Louis was there with
his truck and a trailer full of sod.  They started digging down into the mound
of dirt next to the house and trucking it down to the Palmetto.  In a short time
the area was level and they put down the sod.  It really looks great. Now I have
to water it daily for a while.  I paid Louis $450 in cash that we had in the
file drawer.  We don’t need that much cash laying around so this uses some of
that up.  I’m a happy camper. Because of the non responsiveness of Schwab I
decided to go with Fidelity for investing.   Yesterday I called Schwab about
making a deposit locally.  They said someone would call me back today.  This is
not acceptable.  I spent 30 minutes on hold with Fidelity trying to get the
online application to go through.  Finally they advised I fill out the 9 page
PDF.  Just as I finished filling it out I received a call from Fidelity local
office who thought that maybe because I have an IBM pension with Fidelity the
system thinks I already have an account and thus giving me an error.  The rep
walked me through adding a brokerage account to  my IBM login and after jumping
through all the hoops it worked.  I got an account number.  Libbie and I took a
ride to Fidelity at the University Mall where I dropped the closing proceeds
into the dropbox.  When I got home I was able to check online and see the check
deposited there.  Woo Hoo! This was a struggle.  On the way back from University
Mall we stopped at the Celery field.  The perennial garden has become quite
overgrown.  We didn’t see too many birds but did note that the Martin houses
were not there.  We then walked the boardwalk over the wetlands and saw a few
Tricolors and MoorHens but there wasn’t too much else. In the garage I continued
to unpack boxes and sort tools and other junk.  There is so much stuff there,
finding a place for it all is a challenge. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with
tomato sauce and cheese.  We had a glass of Cabernet with our spaghetti.
Afterward we tuned in to Polka Tuesday live with Mollie and Ted.  It was another
fun night, this time with a crooner named Ted Tolentino.  We liked his singing
style.


November 25, 2020 Wednesday Sprinklers, Driveways and Thanksgiving


 I ran out to Lowes this morning and picked up a 50 foot hose and an oscillating
sprinkler.  I need to water the new sod every day.  Louis, the installer, said I
could just hand water every morning.  I don’t think so which is why I picked up
a hose and sprinkler.  I still haven’t wired up the well solenoid to the
irrigation system yet. Libbie and I went outside and measured the driveway to
prepare a drawing for the HOA. I took all the measurements and wrote them down
on a clipboard sheet of paper then went online looking for a free CAD program.
I found a nice open source one called Libre Cad.  It seems to have all the
features I need plus some helpful YouTube tutorials.   Hopefully I can knock out
a driveway plan quickly.   While measuring the driveway Joe came over and
chatted with us about dinner tomorrow.   I went out to Lowes in the late
afternoon, second time today, and picked up bird seed for Libbie and a
Poinsettia to bring over to Joe and Angela tomorrow when we go there for
Thanksgiving dinner. Libbie cooked our Turkey for dinner tonight.  I made the
Cranberry Sauce from fresh cranberries.  Dinner was Turkey, stuffing, mashed
potatoes and Cranberry Sauce which we had with Rodney Strong Cabernet.  Dessert
was Pumpkin Pie.  After dinner we watched a little bit of Josh and Jenna at
Epcot celebrating Jenna’s birthday.


November 26, 2020 Thanksgiving Thursday


 I started this morning by drilling through the blocks under the power panel.  I
used PVC pipe as my conduit and ran it over to the new solenoid box.   I wired
up the solenoids to new cables which run through the conduit to where I will put
a new controller.  Once the outdoor wiring was completed I hooked up the 24 volt
transformer using alligator clip jumper wires in order to water the flower
gardens.  I ran the flower watering for about 20  minutes.  I was happy with the
results.  I also found that I did not need the Master Valve connection.  This is
significant because it is a separate wire running along the garage wall that I
can get rid of.  I want to free up wall space in the garage. I plan to hang the
power tools to free up shelf space.  I also ran the oscillating sprinkler on the
side lawn for 15 minutes since Louis said we should water the sod every day
preferably in the morning. Libbie made a Pumpkin Pie which we brought to Joe and
Angelas for dinner.  I also picked up a Poinsettia earlier to bring. We had a
nice dinner at their house consisting of Turkey, stuffing, yams and cranberry
sauce.  We brought some Cabernet with us for the meal.  It was a nice evening.
We left there around 9:30 PM.


November 27, 2020 Friday Sprinkler box


In the garage this morning I sized up the plastic Orbit box which I brought from
Apex and punched a hole in it using the punch set.  It had a hole but I wanted
the hole more in the center of the box to correctly place the box on the wall.
The ¾ inch pipe from the solenoids with the solenoid wires in it fit perfectly.
I temporarily wired it up with wire nuts tapping into the old ESP8266 controller
already on the wall.  This allowed me to close up this project, vacuum the floor
and put the window back that was leaning on that wall.  Eventually the window
will get mounted in the laundry room but for now it is here.  I did a test of
the sprinklers using my phone and they all came on as expected. I logged into
Fidelity and did my first trade.  I bought 500 shares of MQT which is Blackrock
Muni Bonds with a tax free yield of 4.7%.  I only have $25,000 trading cash
available until the house proceeds check clears.   It’s time to make my
alligator.  I got the tubing out from behind the workbench and sent some pics of
the selby alligator frame off to Walgreens.  They must have a Black Friday
problem.  I watched the order status all day and it said “preparing order”.  In
my office I went back to computer CAD programs.  This time I tried learning
Sketch Up.  This one looks like it will do for my driveway project.  I was
distracted by a model on CB while I was trying to watch the Sketchup tutorial so
I spent a lot of time but didn’t make much progress.  We had Turkey leftovers
for dinner which was Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.
After dinner I wanted to see the Jolly Creek Christmas because it had the Grand
Floridian Orchestra.  I watched Cory’s stream from last week - the Jolly Creek
thing did not impress me.  I’m not sure who would want to ride an air boat at
night looking for gators with a spotlight.  It’s noisy, windy and cold.  The
orchestra was pretty nice.  After a while I turned it off and did a walk around
the KB circle to see the first of the Christmas lights.


November 28, 2020 Saturday Birding try


We left at 7:30 for the landfill to meet at the Pine Trail turn off on Knights
Trail.  We did a caravan to the landfill where we were turned away.  They are
not accepting visitors due to Covid. As an alternative we went to Thaxton
Preserve which was mostly underwater.  Worse about the Preserve, we didn’t see
too many birds.  It was a nice morning out anyway. I picked up the prints of the
alligator from Walgreens to use as a model.  In the garage I started unrolling
the aluminum tubing but I wasn’t really into it.  Joe was putting up Christmas
lights across the street at the same time and like me, he wasn’t motivated to do
this.  I stopped and went out to Lowes to get a tubing bender and red LEDs for
the alligator mouth.  I ended  up running across the street to Target where I
found a strand of red LED lights which were on sale for 9.99 instead of 12.99.
Dinner tonight was the last of the leftover turkey, stuffing and cranberry
sauce. After dinner I continued watching Sketch up tutorials.  This seems to be
the one to use for my driveway diagram.


November 29, 2020 Sunday  Alligator building


I spent the day trying to bend the aluminum for the frame of my Christmas gator.
I didn’t have very much luck building it.  The first couple of attempts were
straightened back out because the humps were not very even.  I want an
undulating wave across the back of the gator although I’m not sure the lights
will pick that up.  I ended up going out to Lowes and picked up a roll of rosin
paper that painters use to protect floors or other surfaces.   I’ll sketch the
humps on the paper and then try to bend the aluminum along the pattern.   I had
a phone call from Kirby this afternoon asking about the porch heater and the
wiring inside the vent in the workshop.  Unbelievably he ripped up all the
particle board in my workshop. He is going to replace it with ¾ inch plywood. It
was a fun chat.  There seems to be something wrong with the porch heater.  Kirby
said it only runs a few minutes before shutting down.  One of the sensors
doesn’t like something.  I hope it is not the heat exchanger.  I would feel bad
about that. Libbie made her outstanding pizza again.  While having the pizza we
watched Donna do a cookie baking marathon while raising money for Give Kids the
World. I decided today to purchase a subscription to Stanford Chemist on Seeking
Alpha.  It’s $450 annually but $316 for a Black Friday weekend deal.  There is
not one negative review about the service. The investment team focuses on CEF
investing.  I like the sample portfolios.  They have some pretty good investment
ideas.


November 30, 2020 Monday Lackadaisical


I went to Selby this morning to continue cleaning up the orchid images. On the
way there it rained.  We got 0.4 inches.  The  morning went fsst.  I had 123
Orchids to find the Jpgs for.  When I  left I thought we were down to 0 left but
when I ran a comparison later in the afternoon at home there were 8 Orchids that
still did not have jpegs.  One of them was a misnamed file which I will fix
remotely from home.  The others I don’t know about. I took advantage of 2 Cyber
Monday deals.  I bought an all access membership to Art Tutor for 50% off or $9
per month.  I’ll keep it a few months and watch a few courses.  I also
subscribed to the Sarasota Herald for 99 cents for the first month and then $9 a
month after that.  I can cancel  online anytime. I did not make any attempt at
bending aluminum today for my alligator.  I hope to finish this up tomorrow.  I
did more research about investing money and bought some HTD which is a John
Hancock CEF with a nice discount.  A statement in Fidelity disturbs me about
distributions are paid in shares and not cash.  It may be an error.  Dinner was
spaghetti with cheese.  After dinner we enjoyed Mollie and Ted doing the Bechyn
festival again.  We originally watched this a few months ago.


December 1, 2020 Tuesday Alligator again


I went into the garage today and worked almost all day bending the aluminum
tubing and matching it up against a template drawn on the paper on the floor.  I
think the gator came out OK.  I then started putting lights on the tubing.  I
did ¾ of one side when I realized that I will not have enough lights. I put in
an order to an eBay seller for another roll of the LED C9 bulbs.  They are a
little pricey at $50 plus shipping but on a price per bulb they are reasonable.
I started at the mouth but I may go back and undo what I already did and start
at the tip of the nose instead.  The closing funds were released today so I went
into the Fidelity account and made some purchases mostly of dividend paying CEFs
plus Duke energy.  Duke was my loser of the day, down almost one. Dinner tonight
was Turkey soup which was delicious.  Today is Polka Tuesday so we watched the
first of 4 of Ted and Mollie’s Christmas Polka Tuesday nights.  What an
enjoyable night.


December 2, 2020 Wednesday Gator lights, outdoor lights, Selby


Early this morning I went out at 7:15 AM for my blood test appointment at 7:30.
It was 41 degrees outside.  Brrr. This was a satisfying day. I undid the lights
on the gator in the garage and started restringing them.  This time I started at
the tip of the nose.  I continued until I ran out of lights.  More are on order
from an eBay seller in NJ.  Tracking says they will get here Tuesday.  In the
meantime I also ran out of zip ties to attach the red LEDs to the mouth section
of the gator.  A quick trip to Harbor Freight got me 3 more packages of ties. In
the front yard Libbie and I put the net lights on the Palmetto in front.  I then
put the white lights around the two date palms.  The tub holding the lights was
very complete.  It had the extension cords as well as the timer to hook
everything up.  We also put the lights on the Christmas tree.  In the late
afternoon I received an email from John looking for a compare of tif and jpg
images on the O drive.  I was able to do the comparison and sent him a listing
of orphan files. This was a very productive day. Dinner tonight was Turkey
vegetable soup which was homemade.  We had this while watching the rest of the
Dinners with Donna cookie baking marathon.  She ended up making 12 types of
cookies and it was a tiring evening for her but she raised over 10k for “give
kids the world”.


December 3, 2020 Thursday  Lights


This morning I attached the red LEDs to the alligator mouth then went upstairs
and packed a suitcase.  We left at noon for Kissimmee. Travel was without
incident although I-4 was incredibly heavy as usual.  We arrived at iCon Park a
little after 2 and found a little restaurant in the PArk called The Tin Roof.  I
ordered a pulled pork sandwich with fries.  Libbie had a pulled pork taco with
peach pico.  She said the peach pico was to die for. We had Yuengling with our
lunch.  We then boarded the 400 foot high wheel.  Surprisingly we were wanded
for weapons before being allowed to go to the boarding gate.  The ride was
pretty cool.  We were in our own little compartment where we could walk around
or be seated.  The ride was 20 minutes and gave us a pretty good view of all of
Florida including the VAB building at Cape Kennedy as well as Disney Worlds
iconic buildings such as the Grand Floridian and Tower of Terror, Space Mountain
and Spaceship earth.  After our ride we drove down International Drive to SR 535
to the Embassy Suites where we had a 7th floor room.  I tried the Hilton App
with digital key which seemed to work for the gated parking as well as our room
however when we tried it later in the evening we had troubles.  I ended up
requesting a real key at the desk. We arrived at Give Kids the World at around
5:15.  Sunset today is 5:30 so we got to see some of the lights at dusk before
it became totally dark.  The lights were beyond expectation. We met a nice young
lady who was a volunteer from Indianapolis.  She is here on her own money and
took a week off from work to do this although she said she did it on the cheap
with Hilton points and cheap flights.  What a nice young lady - I told Libbie
she’s a keeper for some guy who I hope can appreciate her.   The lights were
spectacular.  I took many pictures and got some great ideas for Christmas
projects.  We walked for about 2 hours and saw  it all.  I could easily do this
again. I liked it that much.   After the lights it was 7:45 so we headed to
Chuys.  The first one on 535 closes at 8 so we drove up to Sand Lake Rd to the
other Chuys and were disappointed in the atmosphere.  We left after a minute or
two and went to BJs Brewery next door.   What a difference! We each ordered a
California Flatbread pizza and a Jeremiah Red Amber beer.  Both were excellent.
Our waitress was a pretty girl named Skye and was efficient and prompt with her
service. It was the end of a nice evening.  We easily navigated our way back to
the Embassy via I-4.


December 4, 2020 Friday Bok Tower


The Embassy Suites did an unbelievable job of having a full breakfast spread.
They provided plastic gloves for us to handle the serving utensils.  The cook at
the omelet counter mde a really nice omelet.  I had spinach, peppers, mushrooms
and cheese.  Wow was this a good omelet.  Libbie toasted a piece of cranberry
bread for me.  We got going around 8:30 but first had to stop for gas at a
Racetrack station where Reglar was 2.08.  I was down to 50 miles from empty.
About one hour later we arrived at Bok Tower and got through the gate using our
Selby reciprocal membership.  Wow, was the garden very nice.  We walked for a
few hours making our way to the tower before having lunch at the Cafe.  There I
had an Avocado BLT which was delicious.  It came with chips.  We bought water to
go with lunch.   After lunch Libbie bought a Rex Begonia and a few boxes of
Christma cards.  The total was $46 which we justified because admission was
free. It was a nice time in the garden.  We took the back way home on SR60 and
SR17S where we finally met up with I-75 at the Ellenton outlet Mall.  This got
us home at 3:30 PM.    I downloaded my camera and worked on pictures, sorting
and organizing.  I’m reasonably happy with the Give Kids pics as well as the Bok
Tower pics.  The camera performed well. We were not very hungry for dinner and
ended up having the other half of our lunchtime sandwiches.  My sandwich was an
Avocado BLT.  After dinner we watched Cory do a taste of Epcot, sampling various
foods.  It was a nice day and a short vacation to Orlando and back.


December 5, 2020 Saturday


I did some analysis of the stocks I bought this week.  I spent 77.8k which will
generate 4.99k annually or a total of $416 per month.  This is amazing.  If I
invest everything I will generate about $3k per month. This is just from the
house money and does not include my Indiv account or the IRAs.  This is an eye
opener because I don’t need this much to live. I went to my computer and
downloaded 18 months worth of cell phone pictures to my computer and then
started the task of sorting and labeling them chronologically.  Thank goodness
for Jalbum!  It auto sorted the pics into folders so that I could use the Bulk
Rename program to add the letter T and an underscore to each folder.  Then it
was a matter of viewing the contents and further labeling the folder with
subject.  I got about ⅔ of the way through this before putting it aside. Dinner
tonight was Salmon with rice and broccoli.  We had Cabernet and Mint Moose track
ice cream to complement the meal.  We watched a little of Josh and Jenna resort
hopping after dinner.  This was from last night's stream which we had not
watched live.


December 6, 2020 Sunday


After the morning News programs we had a grocery restocking trip to Walmart.
Being Sunday morning this was an easy trip.  When we got back I did the usual
routine of watering the new sod for 15 minutes.  Before we left I turned the
water on using my app for the flower irrigation. I finished classifying the
pictures I downloaded from Google.  I wanted to add these to ImageDb.  They are
the last 18 months of pics from my cellphone.  It was a large task but thanks to
help from Jalbum I completed this.  I managed to get rid of 2 cartons in the
garage of stuff.  There is still too much junk out in the garage. I studied
dividend investing some more and came up with a few buys I’ll  make this week.
NLY has a preferred that is selling under 25 and Kinder is still depressed but
paying a nice divvy going into the winter when they ship the most gas in their
pipelines. Libbie made her pizza from scratch today and topped it with
mushrooms.  It was good as usual and a glass of Eggnog before and Cabernet with
dinner were a good compliment. After dinner we watched a little of Ted and
Mollie.  This time it was my birthday performance from Nov 2 or so.


December 7, 2020 Monday Selby, Floor Lamp


I went to Selby this morning and finished up the jpegs for the Orchids.  I next
started creating DNGs for the Orchids.  It was an easy  morning. At  home I
tried to buy some NLY preferred but Fidelity would not allow me to purchase it.
I need to call to find out why.  I went over to AmeriTrade and was able to buy
200 shares without a problem.  I also picked up one of the Pimco funds, PKO,
that was one of the ones with a low premium. I didn’t do too much else for the
rest of the afternoon.  My floor lamp came from Amazon today.  I like it a lot.
It was delivered by a young lady in a string tank top.  The bare portions of her
body were covered with tattoos.  Dinner was chicken quesadilla that I made in
the air fryer. We had this with a glass of Cabernet and a plate of Mint
Moosetracks later.


December 8, 2020 Tuesday Flamingo


Today I went online and found a few tutorials about drawing Flamingos.  I scaled
up a sample image by printing it and then used a ruler to measure key spots.  I
scaled up the inches to feet and sketched out this image on 2 sheets of kraft
paper taped to 2 tables side by side.   This gave me a big work surface to bend
the aluminum along the sketched outline. I needed some 8-32 longer screws for
spacers and also the legs so I went to Lowes and picked up long screws.  At the
same time I went to Publix and got egg nog and ice cream for our dinner.  Dinner
was a Costco Sausage Lasagna which I really liked but it was too spicy for
Libbie.  We had this with Cabernet.  Dessert of course was the Mint Moose Tracks
ice cream.  After dinner we thoroughly enjoyed tonight’s Christmas Episode 2
with Ted and Mollie.  They had the crooner Alex and also a Girl Named Tom as
their musical guests.  Wow, this was a lot of talent on stage.


December 9, 2020 Wednesday  Flamingo


I did a little more trading on Fidelity this morning.  I ended up having to call
the fixed income desk to buy some NLY preferreds.  That sucked but the guy on
the phone was pleasant.  I don’t know why they make me jump through these hoops.
My monthly income from these is around $700.  Unfortunately this is not extra
money, it will cover my tax bill.   The real estate taxes need about $300 per
month and the IRS taxes need twice that or about $650 per month.  Ouch. The
green LEDs did not come today.  Darn USPS is having problems.  Tracking shows
nothing. The same is true of the pewter nativity that is on order for Libbie.
It was ordered 7 days ago and was supposed to arrive 2 days ago.  I wired the
Flamingo frame with both sets of pink LED lights.   It looked pretty good.  Just
before dark I was able to run the extension cords into the Palmetto along the
lake and set up the Flamingo.  Lib and I took a walk to the other side of the
lake and took some pics of the lighted Flamingo.  I’m overall happy with the end
result.  Dinner tonight was the last of the Costco Sausage Lasagna and Cabernet.
We had an enjoyable evening afterwards watching Resort TV1 do a fundraiser from
Give Kids the World.  It was great they had the director of the place escorting
them and telling us many of the stories of the decorating.  It was pretty cool
seeing this after being there last week.


December 10, 2020 Thursday Shelves


I finally got started on the bookshelves. I cut the baseboard and removed it
then built a base frame.  I also cut the top to the shape needed.  This was put
aside momentarily when I went to Walmart to get the missing ingredients for
dinner I was making tonight.  Unfortunately the cooler that holds the cream
cheese was out of commission so I had to go to Publix on the way home.  I also
picked up the Mint Chip Moosetracks that is only available in Publix.   While in
Walmart I found green LED ribbon lights.  I bought 2 rolls as a Plan B for the
alligator. Each roll is 20 feet. If the rest of the green bulbs do not come When
I got back the Father-Son from the paving company stopped by and dropped off the
sample blocks.  I have been texting them to try to get samples of the blocks.
Today they came through. Libbie and I made the Shrimp Linguine Alfredo for
dinner.  She chopped the onion and garlic while I sauteed them with the shrimp.
She made the pasta which we coated with homemade Alfredo sauce. It came out
pretty good.  We had this with a glass of Cabernet and Mint Moosetracks ice
cream for dessert.  We watched a little of Cory Meets World after dinner.
Before dinner we watched some silly Amazon Prime newsreels about the 1964
World's Fair.  It impressed me that everyone at the fair was dressed up in coats
and ties.  A lot of the men also wore hats.


December 11, 2020 Friday Bookshelf


The first order of business was to complete an  application to have pavers added
to the driveway.  This was for the HOA and consisted of the application, a
statement of work and a sketch of the driveway.  I put it all together in a PDF
and emailed it to the HOA board. We then went to Detweillers for our proteins.
I picked up a package of ribs as well as hamburger meat and Salmon.  At home I
cut the corner off the base and fit an angled 2x4 across it.  I then started
screwing the base down inside the dining room.  This was as far as I got today
with the carpentry.  Still waiting for USPS to deliver my green LED lights.
There is no tracking update.  They seem to be lost in space somewhere.   I
worked on the AVSA new website a little this afternoon.  Joyce reported the
gallery was not displaying.  I found all the galleries were set to commercial
members globally.  I went into a few of them and edited the gallery to fix it.
Still many more to do but Joyce said she would edit some of them. Dinner tonight
was leftover Shrimp Linguine Alfredo.  We had this with a glass of Cabernet and
a Detweiler's Key Lime Pie for dessert.  After dinner it was Friday night so we
watched a little of Josh and Jenna at Animal Kingdom.   They were on the last
Safari of the night and the cast member guide was good but he kept using the
world “actually”.  (Actually) It was pretty funny.  The chat had fun with it.
After dinner I enjoyed doing a little writing on a story I started this week.


December 12, 2020 Saturday Bookcase


This morning the first thing I did was peel the membrane from the Detweiller
ribs.  Once this was done I rubbed the Everglades Rub on them, wrapped them in
plastic wrap then put them in the refrigerator.  We got a call from the jeweler
that Libbie’s engagement ring was ready from the repair.  We went to the Jeweler
and picked up the ring.  The repair cost was $80 which was well worth it. I
managed to get the miter saw out of the garage and set up in the driveway. I cut
the top piece and made a rectangular box out of it then moved the compressor,
hoses and nail gun into the dining room.  Around noon I started up the Smoker
and started smoking the ribs.  At one point of the early smoking I had to run
out to Publix for a handful of ingredients for the BBQ sauce.  I needed lemon
juice, steak sauce and molasses.  I used Libbie’s $10 Gift card from her flu
shot to pay for the groceries.  The bill was $17, the $10 gift card reduced the
amount owed to $7.  I hurried home to put more chips in the smoker.  The darned
smoker turned off while I was gone.  The temperature went down to 185 from 225.
In addition the display hardly works.  Many segments are out.  I need to replace
the controller with the new one I bought. The ribs came out perfectly.  The
sauce Libbie and I made was delicious.  Dinner was ribs with baked sweet potato
and Cabernet.  For dessert we had a piece of the Detweiler's Key Lime Pie.


December 13, 2020 Sunday Gator


I decided to use the Walmart lights on the alligator this morning out of
desperation.  USPS tracking still does not show any progress for the lights
since Dec 9.  This is the 13th.  The lights went easily on the gator but I think
he's a little too fat,  Need to squish it down a little. I didn't do any work on
the bookshelves today.  I'm stymied by the need for 3 sheets of plywood and no
way to transport it from Lowes. Libbie made her pizza topped with mushrooms for
dinner.  We had this with Cabernet and Mint Moosetracks ice cream for dessert.
During dinner we watched Dinners with Donna.  Today she was making a calorie
laden Christmas breakfast.  I don’t think I would ever make anything this rich.


December 14, 2020 Monday Selby etc


I went to Selby later this morning because John wasn’t going to be there.  He
cautioned me to wait until 8:45 when Liz gets there to unlock the building.  I
worked in solitude finishing up the missing DNGs for both the Bromeliads and the
Orchids.  I left a few minutes early and stopped into Lowes on the way home to
pick up a 2x4 piece of plywood for the bottom shelf of the bookshelves and some
of the pine board facing. At home my Tillandsia book came as well as the green
lights for the alligator finally.  They took a week longer than they were
supposed to.  I’m a little disappointed at my Fidleity investments.  The total
is down $1k.  When analyzing the individual results I can find nothing wrong.
Each security is down a few cents bringing the total to $1k down. I spent a lot
of the afternoon reading and studying investments.  The driveway was approved by
the HOA so I contacted the paving company.  He will come tomorrow to collect the
down payment.  I hurriedly transferred some money from TdAmeritrade to the
Credit Union.  I need to get some checks for the Fidelity account.  I already
have a debit card which will be my ATM access. Dinner tonight was the remainder
of the rack of ribs along with baked beans and a glass of Cabernet.  Dessert was
Mint Moosetracks ice cream.


December 15, 2020 Tuesday Bookcase, driveway, Mollie B


I got to work on the downstairs bookcase.  I fitted the plywood base floor,
nailed it down with the brad nailer and then installed the upper frame.  I
decided it was too  high. I had used the kitchen counter as my model.  I removed
the upper frame from the wall.  Unfortunately I had used the nail gun and nailed
it to the wall so it took a bit of prying.  I cut the vertical stiles 3 inches
lower each and remounted the upper base.  It looked a lot better lower.  I tried
putting the wood top onto the frame.  It looks great except for the wavy wall
which can be dealt with using caulk. I was sent the paving contract which I
printed and signed.  The owner stopped by at 4 PM and collected the down payment
which I wrote with a check that is not covered by the checking balance. There is
a transfer underway from TdAmeritrade to cover it but it will be a close call.
I hope it doesn’t trigger the line of credit.   For dinner Libbie cut up 2
butternut squash and combined it with veggies and Madras Curry.  It also had a
Jalapeno Pepper to add a little heat.  The soup was yummy.  Libbie used the cast
iron pan to make a nice cornbread to go with it.   We had a glass of Cabernet
with dinner. After dinner we watched Ted and Mollie’s live stream.  This is
their 3rd of 4 Christmas shows.  They all have been great.


December 16, 2020 Wednesday Doctor, wood, rain


I had an annual checkup this morning at 8:30.  The blood panel including PSA
looked great.  Libbie was surprised at my low glucose and my under the limit
cholesterol.   I told her it was spicy food that did the trick. I picked up more
bookshelf wood at Lowes.  I had two sheets of plywood ripped down and also
picked up a 1x6 for use as verticals between the doors.  In order to space out
the doors I need a 1x6 between doors.  I did not drag out the Miter Saw because
it was threatening rain and eventually did rain. The rain tripped the ground
fault on the outdoor loop so my alligator was not lit in the evening.  One
option is to get rid of the ground fault breaker which is in the garage above
the workbench. I checked the Credit Union checking this morning and was very
happy to see the transfer of money went through and was available this morning.
This will cover the check I wrote as a down payment  Dinner was the leftover
butternut squash soup with cornbread and a glass of Cabernet.  It continued to
rain intermittently throughout the evening but temperatures are mild.


December 17, 2020 Thursday driveway no show, recital


Today I managed to cut the stiles for the face front of the bookshelves.  I was
going to drill the pocket screws today also but did not.  Instead I emptied
another tub from the garage.  This was all stuff for my office which I sorted
and packaged for putting into tubs.  I’m really trying to get the garage clear.
The driveway was supposed to start today at 2:30 so we put our cars in Paulettes
driveway.  They never showed up to start the job.  One of the reasons to cut the
stiles first thing this morning was because the driveway would not be available
for my miter saw.   We decided today to put a middle shelf in half of the lower
cabinet.  I’ll also paint the cabinet before putting the front and top on.  We
had an early dinner of hamburgers from the grill with baked beans.  At 6:45 PM
we tuned into Paige and EMily’s Tippy Toes recital via zoom.  It was a fun quick
recital led by the dance instructor.


December 18, 2020 Friday Demolition, flat tire


This morning the paving company came with their bobcat and trailer and started
tearing up the driveway.  By the end of the day they had removed the driveway,
all the patio pavers and one section of sidewalk.  Now we have dirty sand.  This
isn’t great but is temporary.  Around noon Libbie and I started out on an errand
to Yoders for fruit and Lowes to measure an impact door.  Going down the street
I heard a ticking noise from the back.  I pulled over at the swimming pool and
checked the tire and found a screw sticking out.  I went back home and pulled
the screw and found a huge air leak.   We switched cars and went to Yoders which
was disappointing although I got some pretty good Florida Yellow Navels.  Most
of the orange crop is not in yet. On the way home we stopped at Walmart and
picked up a packet of dry onion soup mix for a dinner ingredient.  We next
stopped at Lowes because I wanted to measure an impact door threshold.  They
didn’t have thresholds on their floor samples.  We picked up a Jeld-Wen catalog
and left.  Back at home I dragged the hydraulic jack across the sand to
Paulette’s driveway where I pulled the flat tire off and replaced it with the
spare.  The spare of course was flat.  I hooked up the air compressor and pumped
the spare to the recommended 60 pounds. Thank goodness I did not sell this
compressor like I was planning to.  It’s a great little machine for occasions
like this.  I then drove the flat over to Tire Kingdom and dropped it off for
repair.  They said it would be ready later this afternoon but I never got a call
so did not pursue it.  I’ll fetch the tire toomorrow since I don’t want to put
it on at night anyway.  Libbie thawed the chicken while I made the Cranberry,
Catalina, Orange sauce then baked the chicken in it.  Dinner was the Cranberry
chicken with a side of butternut squash.  This was delicious.  I cooked enough
chicken breasts for tomorrow night as well.  Tomorrow I’ll either make cream
corn or corn casserole muffins. Because it was Friday night we watched Josh and
Jenna who were at the Magic Kingdom tonight.


December 19, 2020 Saturday Bookcase


I dragged the miter saw to the side of the house and cut the middle shelf for
the lower cabinet as well as the supports for the shelf.  I used the nail gun to
put the supports and the shelf in place.  Next order of business was to figure
out the pocket hole jig.  It was pretty easy once I understood all the
adjustments.  I then drilled pocket holes in a few vertical stiles and
successfully fastened them in place.  I really like the pocket holes for a good
strong fastening job.  I used the entire sample package of 2 ½ inch pocket
screws which are the size for 2x4 lumber.  If the wood was ¾ inch then the screw
length should be 1 ¼ inch long.  The jig came with small sample baggies of
pocket screws.  This is what I used for the 2x3 supports.  While I was
assembling the pocket hole joints at the bookcase Libbie was baking Christmas
cookies.  I sampled quite a few. In the late afternoon I did a quick Costco trip
for wine and coffee.  The coffee was getting low and I didn’t want to run out
Christmas week next week for coffee.  When I got home Lib had already made the
corn muffin casserole that I was going to do. Dinner was leftover chicken in
cranberry sauce with the corn muffin casserole.  We had a glass of Cabernet with
dinner.  After dinner we watched a little of the NYC ballet’s School of American
Ballet (SAB) tracing the journey of very young dancers starting around 8 years
old. When they become teenagers they stay at the SAB in dormitories.   These
kids put a lot into their potential careers.




December 20, 2020 Sunday Easy day


After the morning news shoes Libbie started baking cookies again and I went to
Lowes and picked up more pocket screws.  I put 2 more stiles in the cabinet
supporting the upper benchtop.  I measured the distance to the ceiling and found
that my existing boards are only 69 inches long. The distance from benchtop to
ceiling is around 77 inches.  It looks like I’ll need 4 1x12 verticals which
currently cost $18 each.   I’ll cut each of the 69 inch boards to 40 inches. It
rained in the late afternoon and the evening so there was not much else going on
outside.  Without our driveway it’s hard going outside because of the sand and
mud. Dinner was Libbie’s excellent pizza.  We didn’t have any mushrooms this
time so it was back to tomato and cheese.  We watched another episode of the
School of American Ballet on Disney Plus after dinner.  I spent my down time
during the rain reading about test to speech to either Sonos or Alexa using
Node-red.  I really want the house to announce things like temperature and
garage door status.


December 21, 2020 Monday Selby and blocks


I finished the Orchids and Broms at Selby this morning.  My next activity was to
start on the Gesneriads.  Meanwhile I kept in touch with Libbie who was home
alone with the Driveway crew.  When I left this morning at 8 AM they were
bailing the driveway out. The rain last night filled it with water.  At Selby
the Botany Dept had nice gifts for the volunteers - an Orchid in a net bag.  I
picked out a purple Vanda.  On the way home I stopped in Yoders for some more
Yellow Navels which are very good and we were down to two in the refrigerator.
I then went to Family Garden and picked up an Orchid and a Lavender “tree” for
Libbie.  They had a double stem Phal with good bud support. When I got home the
driveway project was well underway.  They had started spreading a layer of
crusher run and were tamping it down with their ground shaker.  By the end of
the afternoon blocks were starting to get laid on the packed crush. I couldn’t
do anything about the bookcase today since the driveway was out of commission
and I need to set up the saw to cut shelves and shelf supports.  Before dinner
we went out and tried taking a walk around sunset to see the conjunction. We
then got in the car and drove around the Country Club looking for the
conjunction.  We finally saw it over the lake next to our old condo at Clubside.
When we got home it was still visible in the Southwest on Knightsbridge,
basically in the sky over the houses across the street.  Dinner tonight was
spaghetti with cheese.  After dinner we watched a nice movie with Dine Keaton
and Michael Douglas called “And So it Goes”.  It was an enjoyable leisurely
comedy.


December 22, 2020 Tuesday Driveway still underway


The driveway project continues.  The guys worked outside well past sunset.  The
job looks great except for the path to the garbage can.  I think it is too close
to the house and wish it was more curved.   I ran over to Walmart for a few
fixings to accompany our meals for the rest of this week.  Dinner tonight was
Club BBQ on a bun along with the leftover corn muffin casserole.  After dinner
it was Polka Tuesday with Ted and Mollie.  This was the last of the Christmas
Specials, number 4 of 4.  It was great as usual.  Mollie has managed to come up
with some unique but nice Christmas Music.


December 23, 2020 Wednesday Performance, irrigation


The guys came back this morning and finished up the driveway job.  We can’t walk
on it for a few days.  I paid them $3,000 of the $3,500 we still owe.  The job
looks fantastic.  While they were working on the driveway I tried measuring the
performance of the new AVSA website.  I couldn’t get the site out of maintenance
mode.  I finally figured out that the Envato theme had its own maintenance mode.
One I got rid of that and made the site live for a few minutes I couldn’t get
Google to measure the performance but another site rated us as terrible.   I
need a performance solution.  Outdoors while talking with our neighbors I tried
out the sprinkler system.  The pipe is broken up by the garage door underground.
A pool of water began forming.  I got out our shovel and started digging.  I
found I needed glue and a few fittings so I ran over to Lowes and picked up PVC
fittings and glue.  Unfortunately I found that the pipe near the garage door was
½ inch while the fittings I bought were ¾ inch.  Most of the other pipes are ¾
so that’s the assumption I was going on.   I stopped this project for now.  Will
pick this up in the morning.  Dinner tonight was the leftover Club BBQ and
cornbread casserole.  After dinner we watched Josh and Jenna do their annual
golf cart tour of the campgrounds looking at Christmas displays.


December 24, 2020 Thursday Landscape


This morning I decided to use the ¾ inch PVC fittings on the 1/2 inch irrigation
line around the date palm next to the garage door.  I used a few adapters I had
in the fittings box that go from ½ inch pipe up to ¾ inch.  This allowed me to
use parts I had on hand.   I also decided to deal with the wad of wires at the
garage door.  A quick trip to Lowes yielded a couple of wall mount flanges for
the landscape lights next to the garage door.  Using the hammer drill I
installed the flanges on each side of the door and dressed the wires.  The job
looks nice.  I tested both the landscape lights and the irrigation and both
worked. After lunch we went down the street to Maria and Dieters house. Libbie
gave them a tray of cookies then we went around back and sat inside their screen
room and had wine.  The screen room was rebuilt with paint and rescreened.  They
have a planted garden in the room with a little arched bridge and concrete
alligator.   It also has a little fire pit.  It was a very pleasant afternoon
chatting and sipping wine.  Dieter was a German consul in DC assigned to NATO.
Because his kids were born in the US the kids are US citizens and were able to
sponsor their parents to become US citizens.  Interesting the way it all works.
Back home I cooked the Pork Chops for dinner.  This involved making a sauce with
flour and chicken broth then cooking the ovens and apples finishing them in the
oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.  The apples, onions and pork went together
well.  Libbie complemented it with peas we had in the freezer.  The whole thing
was excellent.  I opened a bottle of Chateau St Michelle Cabernet to complement
the meal.  Dessert was Mint Moose Tracks ice cream.  After dinner we watched
Jingle Jangle which was a cute Christmas movie I downloaded from PB.  It was
released on Netflix this season.   It was a fantasy movie about an inventor who
had his invention stolen and went into depression.  His granddaughter “Journey”
returns to stay with him and helps him to see the magic again.


December 25, 2020 Friday Christmas


I chose not to do any manual labor today.  We stayed mostly inside and ate a lot
of cookies.  For lunch we had last night's leftover Pork Chop with all the
trimmings.  Wow, is that still good. Today I fooled around with text to speech.
I dug up an old Pi that I used to test grafana way back when.  I took out an
Amazon AWS account using the tomgle4821 gmail address and created a virtual
credit card.  Using these credentials I was able to add a Polly node to node-red
and use it to speak to the Sonos in my office.  I was pretty happy with this. We
have Sonos in almost every room so I’m well on my way to creating the ultimate
home automation system that I have wanted.  Bruce Winter on YouTube is my model
for this stuff although I certainly will never have as many computers and
displays as he currently has.   It was a great learning experience.  I’m at a
crossroads trying to decide whether I want to add Home Assistant to my
automation or not. Dinner was grilled Salmon with rice and mixed veggies. We had
Cabernet with the meal and ice cream for dessert.  After dinner we took a walk
around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights.  When we got back we
decided to watch the new movie on Disney streaming today which was called “Soul”
by Pixar animation.  It was quite good and very enjoyable.


December 26, 2020 Saturday  Driveway Sealer I had a trip out this morning to get
the weekly groceries.  I bought a large package of chicken breasts that were on
Sale.  Libbie ended up packaging them into individual packages so we could
freeze them.  Libbie didn’t come with me because we were waiting for the
driveway company to come over and finish the job by sealing the pavers. Around 2
PM Fabio sent 2 of his Sons over, Ennuzio and Vincenzo.  They cleaned the loose
debris off the surface then mixed  up some sealer and sealed the driveway.
Their Father called later telling us to give his Sons the remaining $500.  We
gave them a check but as we were about to start our walk we found the check in
the grass across the street.  The younger brother who was a High School kid lost
it.  The older brother took the check again as they were packing the SUV.
Libbie and I had a nice walk around Balmoral then Knightsbridge.  It was quite
chilly today.  The temperature barely got into the mid 50s.  Indoors I flashed
an SD card and set up Home Assistant to get some experience with it and use it
as a central repository for my control electronics.  Eventually I would like to
mount a tablet on the wall with the house parameters.  I have been successful
with the Amazon Polly TTS both yesterday and today so I want to incorporate that
into the mix. I was the dinner maker tonight.  Libbie cooked a chicken breast
and chopped all the veggies.  I cooked some quesadillas in the air fryer which
we had with a glass of Cabernet.  After dinner we watched an excellent heart
warming movie, “Wonderful Time of the Year”.  The lead was Henry Winkler who was
a retired policeman visiting his niece Jen who is a busy business woman raising
a little boy. She really doesn’t have time for Christmas.  What a nice holiday
movie.  It belongs on my watch again list.


December 27, 2020 Sunday Easy day


After the morning programs I went outside and plugged the drip pipe where a
dripper was missing.  I then turned the irrigation on for 20 minutes to water
the plants.  After lunch Libbie and I took a walk.  The sun felt good but it was
still chilly in the mid 60s.  I spent more time fooling around with Home
Assistant, trying to understand how this thing works. It has potential to do
everything I want.   I needed to suspend this to fix the AVSA website since the
security certificate ran out.  While there I also tried to play with the
authorization present in Wordpress.  I need to work on this some more. Libbie
made her excellent pizza with mushrooms again.  We had this with Cabernet while
watching Dinners with Donna.  She was making New Year's eve appetizers.


December 28, 2020 Monday Selby, garden center


I had an easy drive to Selby.  School is out and the traffic was light.  I
cleaned up the Orchids and Bromeliad stuff before charging forward with doing
more Gesneriads.  The time went pretty fast.  On the way home I stopped in Lowes
to look at Sod.  They didn’t have much, just 2 or 3 pieces that were picked
over.  After lunch I proposed to Libbie a trip to Englewood to the two nurseries
there.  At Mr T I bought 10 pieces of Sod and several bedding plants to start a
little flower garden.  I’ll get the topsoil and bark at Lowes. I spent a good
majority of the afternoon trying to configure Home Assistant to use a dynamic
DNS and an SSL certificate.  The dynamic address was easy, the certificate has
not worked.  Some of the YouTube videos are not current.  I’ll keep trying. For
dinner Libbie grilled some Detweiler's hamburgers.  Those are much better than
the Walmart ones.  Along with the hamburgers we had baked beans and Cabernet.
After dinner I continued working on Home Assistant.  I really want this thing to
work.


December 29, 2020 Tuesday Sod & irrigation


I went outside this morning and ran over to Lowes to get topsoil and mulch.  I
got 10 bags of topsoil and 4 bags of mulch.  I then started working on the
irrigation system moving 2 of the sprinklers closer to the driveway.  I also
replaced the sprinklers with new ones.  After this I roto tilled and raked then
put down the sod from the street up to the hedgerow. I went back to Lowes and
picked up more plumbing parts to move another sprinkler and to run another
irrigation  line to the corner of the new garbage sidewalk.  This new sprinkler
will be a 90 degree model to water the new flower garden.  Several of the
sprinklers on the east lawn are blown out and shooting fountains of water.  I
need to replace those.  One of them is buried way down under the new sod from
the well project.  It will be hard to find. I managed to modify one of my Python
scripts to do file comparisons so that the script will search a list of tif
files looking at a second list to find a jpg.  If it doesn’t exist as a jpg, the
tif file name is written to a file.  I used this script to do a comparison for
John at Selby. Dinner was chicken parm in the airfryer.  It has been a long time
since we had this meal.  It came out pretty good. We had this with peas and
pearl onions that Libbie mixed up from 2 separate bags of frozen veggies.  After
dinner we watched an incredibly good Ted and Mollie Polka Tuesday.  They had 3
young people as guests who were part of Box On which is the family band of their
guest for the past 4 weeks, Alex Vinecki.  One of the Box on members was Alex’s
sister Julia and the other was a Clarinet and Sax player, Zach.  It was a truly
enjoyable performance and captured my attention for the evening.


December 30, 2020 Wednesday irrigation


This morning we did a quick Walmart grocery trip and picked the missing
ingredients for the slow cooker sweet and sour chicken.  We needed pineapple
juice,  a bell pepper and chili paste. Once I got back from Walmart I
immediately started mixing the ingredients for the casserole while Libbie
chopped the veggies.  I set an Alexa Timer for 7 hours and turned the cooker on
low, closed the lid and walked away.   We talked to Joe in our driveway.  He
invited us for New Years lunch while we reciprocated and invited he and Angela
over Saturday night for ribs.  I’ll run out to Detweilers tomorrow for the ribs.
I started digging up the next sprinkler next to the driveway.   I decided to T
off this line and run a pipe 10 feet to the corner of the trashcan sidewalk and
the driveway.  It  In this corner I installed a 90 degree sprinkler.  Where I
T’d off I put in a 180 degree sprinkler.   Unfortunately towards the backyard I
have 2 sprinklers that are like fountains because the sprinkler head is blown
off.  Next order of business was to dig out these two sprinklers and replace
them.  The first one was straightforward.  I dug to the bottom of the riser and
removed the old sprinkler head.  The second one was a nightmare.  It was tangled
up in a mess of roots which I worked through.  Then the riser thread was broken
off inside the threaded elbow fitting.  I found a $4 tool at Lowes which goes
into the pipe and grips the sidewalls to unscrew it   This surprisingly worked.
I removed the broken threads then hooked up a temporary riser with right angle
at the top and turned the water out.  This flushed the crud out of the line.  I
assembled the popup and put all the dirt and sod back into the hole completing
this part of the job.  It took all day to do 4 sprinkler heads and I was very
tired.   Inside the house the casserole smelled yummy.  After 7 hours I did the
last minute touches which was to mix the pineapple juice with cornstarch and add
some ketchup.   Libbie made rice to go with this.  Dinner was the slow cooker
sweet and sour chicken over  rice.  We had this with Ersen’s gift bottle of
Turkish wine.  This was a nice red with a high alcohol content (13.5%).  After
dinner I played some with Home Assistant but ended up trashing the flash.  I
need to reflash and reinstall.  I went to bed reading the Bob Eiger book which
is quite good.


December 31, 2020 Thursday End of the Year


I had two quick trips this morning before the day started.  One trip was to
Lowes to get some annual bedding plants and 10 bags of bark.  Next trip was to
Detweillers to pick up ribs for the day after New Years. Once back home I
started tilling and raking the spot for the flower garden.  Libbie pointed out
that the Verbena was eaten by the rabbit.  It’s supposed to be rabbit resistant.
This is disappointing.   I planted all this and then mulched it with bark.   I
next moved to the capped riser next to the sidewalk.  Fortunately I was able to
unscrew the cap on top of the riser and replace it with a popup sprinkler.  I
put a little bark mulch around this and finished my day. I took the rest of the
afternoon off and resumed reading the “Ride of A Lifetime” book by Bob Eiger.
It’s pretty fascinating reading about his interaction with Steve Jobs and buying
Pixar then becoming good friends with him. Dinner was leftover slow cooker sweet
and sour chicken.  Libbie thinks it is mush and would like to redo it in the
stir fryer.  I like it but am willing to see the air fryer version.  After
dinner I tried reinstalling Home Assistant and getting a Lets Encrypt
certificate.  I got the certificate but it’s not recognized.  Still have work to
do.