Found Roger Eberts blog thanks to a story in the N&O. It's pretty good, added it to "Tom's Bookmarks". It's lightly raining this morning which we need. Wish it was a little harder. I checked on the newest hurricane - Gustav. It looks like it will be going West into the Gulf instead of affecting my trip to the Florida West Coast this week. Rebuilt the new lid for the Septic and again it's wrong. It doesn't clear the tank. Dinner tonight was Bean Burger with garden tomato. Finished my book and packed my stuff for Sarasota. I'm leaving in the morning.

It's great to have the AVSA obligations completed. Went to Home Depot and picked up some electrical fittings and built an electrical outlet on a post next to the septic tank. Tested it out and all looks good. Will use this to plug the pump and avr power supply into. Had a BLT for lunch then got cleaned up and went to Savvi Tux rental for a fitting. I like the way the Tux looks. This went well. We next went to JoAnn Fabrics on Falls of the Nuese. Libbie got her Orange fabric and pink handles. We stopped into Trader Joes on the way home and picked up Almonds, crab cakes and apples since we were going within a mile of the place. Dinner of course was crab cakes with our garden tomatoes which seem to be coming in abundance today. It was supposed to rain but never did. We could use some badly. Everything is once again drying up.

Did not get up early this morning which was a surprise. Opened my eyes at 7AM and instantly jumped out of bed and got dressed to get the paper. Finished the AVSA CD and drove it to the post office. When I came back i worked on the septic lid. Unfortunately I misjudged the inside supports and have to redo it. Went inside and got cleaned up for our RLT performance - the first of the season. We left at 2 and wandered the Rose Garden. The colors were especially vibrant today- we're having low humidity and only 82 degrees. The Mikado was colorful with a large cast and a small orchestra. A nice enjoyable performance!! RLT continues to wow us with their productions. Libbie made another of her nice thin crust pizzas - this time she put peppers on it. I really started to get into my Sandra Brown novel, The Witness.

I tried burning a DVD in Encore 2 but kept getting an error message that my submenu was too complex to be transcoded. I deleted the submenus and instead put buttons in from the Encore Library. The DVD burn is now proceeding error free. May have to modify the menu again because I don't like where the Main Menu button is located. Modified the Menuu Button and made it like all the other buttons, burned a new DVD and drove it to the Post Office. Also checked out Lowes and Target for sonar measures. Target had a Stanley and a Black-Decker for $30. Went out with Lib to Home Depot and bought some composite boards to build a new septic lid. Didn't like the treated wood because it was wet and I was afraid it would shrink exposing cracks to the septic below. Lib bought masking tape as well. We used a 10% off coupon that came in the mail. Mailed a DVD to Marjorie on this trip. Now there is only the CD to complete. Took a look at Libbie's sewing machine - it keeps jamming. Found that the thread wasn't threaded properly. Dinner tonight, which we ate on the porch, was grilled chicken and Steamfresh Southwestern corn.

Worked on the AVSA Tulsa convention DVD all day today. Put together a bunch of pictures for the venue segment and then started labeling violet pictures for the violet show. Walked the full 4 miles today easily. Don't know what was wrong yesterday. I had tortilla fish before leaving for todays walk. Found some public domain music for the DVD by doing a Google search. Skidmore college has a terrible orchestra but the music is public domain. My Selective Insurance preferred dropped 40 cents today. May pick up some more at the open on Monday. It's 19.35 so I was thinking of putting in a bid at 19.25 which was the low today. Libbie went out at 5 to get fabric on sale at JoAnns fabric at Crossroads. We went out to the Mexican place for dinner and Margaritas. I had the Pollo Chipotle which is a spicy favorite. Afterwards we read using the lights on the porch since it was dark out and then had Frozen Yogurt. When we came inside I went upstairs and finished the AVSA DVD but did not burn it.

I entered a limit order for CEG-A and SZN this morning. I'm buying a small amount of szn as a first buy. I'm also thinking of adding some PHR to the mix but will wait till after the dividend and see what the price does. Will pick up an Ott light lamp for Libbie's sewing machine this morning at Lowes. Will try my Home Depot 10% off coupon first but i don't think they carry Ott lamps. The SZN and CEG purchases both hit at 19.75 and 24.40. Mailed the tape to Anne then bought an Ott light in Lowes as well as some Rubbermaid boxes and some 4x4 posts. Took a look at the construction on the hill - the lot is lowered and smooth. A trailer of hay is sitting there waiting for seeding. Took the crumbled lid off the septic and tested the power going out there. It's still putting out power but the plug and socket are melted and corroded. Next I will build a wood lid for the tank so I can remove the inner tank lid. A wood lid may allow me to cut a hole and mount an ultrasonic range finder.
I was really tired today after my 4 mile walk. Actually, it was hard doing the last mile of the walk. It wasn't too hot but I was out of energy and dragged myself home. Took a nap after my shower then slept in the evening after dinner. Dinner was Bean burgers with garden tomato and vidalia onion.

Disconnected the dishwasher after breakfast in anticipation of a new one today. Used my cap to shut the water off until the new dishwasher gets here. Inspected the septic again - still the same with a slow drip coming from the cut pipe. I can't work outside today since I'm waiting for the dishwasher delivery to call (if they do that). Downloaded Audacity, a free sound editor, from Soundforge. Used it to remove the clicks from Anne's wineglass chime sound file. Created an M3U playlist for WinAmp to play all the MP3's with the chime sound. Talked to Jennifer about fixing her dog fence zapper - it got hit by lightning. Did some more experimenting with the credit card reader on the Verifone. Did not find a clock signal going over to the Motherboard, only the data. Did my 4 mile walk carrying a cell phone but the dishwasher didn't come. Got a call from the delivery company after I came home and took my shower. They're on the way. Let's see how this goes.
Hooked up the new dishwasher when it arrived and ran an empty load then we put the dishes from the day intoit and ran it. Everything seems to be well. Received a 13k check from Vicki from moms estate. Interestingly, I was looking into an insurance company and Constellation energy during the day. Finished recording the AVSA audio tape after finding the first time that the tape was too short. Dinner was BLT's with our garden tomatoes. In the evening Libbie's sewing machine quit so we went to Sears to look at new ones after checking Consumer Reports online. CU didn't have ratings but they did have some generic buying advice which was mildly useful. We bought a middle line Kenmore from a young lady who seemed to be wearing painted on clothes. She had tight white jeans and a black sweater - very nice. Libbie unpacked the machine and started sewing sample stitches.

Overnight I got the Encore menu DVD from a Bit Torrent source. Loaded this into my install of Encore and browsed the menus. Believe it or not chose one from the sports category (uggh) but replaced the soccer graphic with the best in show violet. Modified the menus to fit our Violet show. Went into the backyard and studied the septic flow for a while - it doesn't put out a lot of liquid. It almost seems that a pipe in a ditch covered with gravel is all we need. Studied the Grainger book lloking at sewage pumps and trying to estimate our head. I went into the upstairs workshop and tried to sight the hill - it doesn't seem to be over 25 feet, meaning 25 feet of head plus the number of feet to go down into the creek and bottom of the tank - proably another 10 or 15 feet added to the total. I think I have 40 feet of head requirement which may be able to be handled by a 1/2 hp pump. Worked on the card reader scanning cards and trying to make sense of the data. Hooked up an Omron reader I had and compared the scan to the Verifone reader. They are a little different. The Verifone doesn't seem to have a clock. May need more probing. Dinner was Tortellini pasta.

Started the day by noticing that the soap dispenser on our dishwasher is hanging loose. It seems to not be attached to the mechanism inside the door. Call GE service and they will be sending a new dishwasher out Wednesday. This will be the 4th one in two weeks. Spent some time merging the slides with the audio annotation that Anne and Richard did. After each section I need to create an MPG movie so while this process proceeded, I used my scope and one of the credit card terminals to look for the header pin containing the mag card reader data. As a break in the afternoon i walked up the hill to see what's going on back there since the digging continues. Managed to cut the plastic sewer line in the back as a prep to draining the tank for replacing the pump. A lot of water ran out of the pipe and the area around the tank seems to be draining which was the plan. Went to Lowes for a brass cap for the dishwasher fill hose. When I remove the dishwasher on Wednesday I'll cap the line until the new one arrives. Dinner tonight was leftover ribs from Saturday and fresh brocolli.

After fetching the paper from McDonalds at 7:15 AM I had breakfast while reading it. Worked on updating the MAAVS website with the latest convention info including event schedule, registration form and advertising update. After a nice lunch with BLT made from tomatoes from our garden, I went up the hill and started working on the fencing. Put a second strand to within 100 feet of the creek before running out of staples. Left all my tools on the hill and back to the house for staples, water and a short break. Finished the fence wire job but I still need to add an opening in the fence. I'll do this by adding another fence post 3 feet away from the existing ones and then cut the upper wire. Libbie made the best pizza she has ever made. The thin crust rivaled the Tuscan pizza we had earlier this week it was so good. After dinner I went over to Krogers to get ice cream, shaving cream and shampoo. I couldn't finish washing my hair yesterday because the shampoo ran out.

Saturday This morning I went up the hill and strung the lower strand of barbed wire from the Longo Corner to almost the other end. Ran out of wire about 100 feet short.
Started with a new corner post then stretched the Barbed wire with the come-along and fastened it to the poles 24" above the ground. Came back down to check the time and it was 12:00. Libbie picked up some whole grain bread and bacon for lunch which we enjoyed while watching the antics of the Humming Birds on the back porch. Time to wait for the Home Depot delivery of our dishwasher. They arrived around 3 PM. Went out to Lowes at 4:30 to get a hose fitting. They only had five feet lengths, I only need 18 inches. Bought the five foot anyway andpicked up ribs next door at Target for dinner. Got the dishwasher working by 6:30. In order to make life really interesting, Richard sent the convention stuff for the web site and Anne sent the rest of the files for the convention DVD. Still have not heard from Marjorie - she said she would have pictures this weekend.
Dinner tonight was ribs and Shiraz with brocolli and baked white potato finished with chocolate frozen yogurt.