I went out this morning looking for a belt for the fanjet in house 1. The new belt installed in October was shredded to a thin sliver. Tried Johnstone, RE Michels and PEP Boys. No luck anywhere. Finally drove across town and stopped at Graingers and bought 2 belts. Stopped at Krogers for eggnog before they close for christmas. Went to the greenhouse and installed the belt. It seems to work pretty good. It's nice and even on the pulleys. We had presents this evening, one day early. I got Lib Russel Stover candy and a Debbie McCromber book. Dinner this evening was salmon stuffed with spinach, etc and a yam with a bottle of Shiraz. Had to go back to the greenhouse to check things - it was 64 outside so no heat test. We went to a place down Penny Rd to see Christmas lights and were not disappointed. A house there had 87,000 Christmas lights.

Brought the JTAG over to the greenhouse and successfully put the new firmware into LOGE. Now the thing blinks out the temp correctly. Yeah!!! This version also has some cleaned up code for handling negative centigrade temps. Went over to Trader Joe's and got wine for the trip. IT was a party scene over there. Did a Krogers run and bought Krogers brand wheat crisps which turned out to be stale. Had to return them. Deposited the TDSP check and paid the bills - taxes, Visa and condo. Libbie and I returned to the greenhouse in late afternoon where I ran a generator test. It needs some maintenance starting with new spark plugs. Blew the driveway off since the wind from the past few cold fronts put down a lot of pine needles.

THis was to be a day of working on pictures. Libbie called to tell me the aux heater was on even though the temperature was 26 degrees. I drove over there and looked at it myself. Started building a second LOGE so I could debug the problem. Had trouble bringing up the second LOGE because the configuration silicon fuse was set to clock divided by 8. I wired up the JTAG as an ISP programmer. It didn't work the first time. found I counted pins wrong on the AVR. Fixed the wriing and sucessfully programmed the fuse and the unit worked correctly. Tried all sorts of machinations to get the thing to fail. Rigged it so that it was 26 degrees with the juper in and 22 degrees without the jumper to simulate outdoor temps. It did not fail. Work into the evening when it got cold. Built some probes and put one outside when it was 25 degrees. Just by accident I started looking at variable values with the JTAG and discovered the negative temperatures were not being handled correctly. When it is below 32F, it is negatice Centigrade temps. The probe only does centigrade. Made a trip to the greenhouse at 11 PM and retrieved the card for programming. Brought it back out there at midnight and hooked it up. The temp was 27. The pushbutton readout was always reading 32. Went home at 12:30 midnight but at least the big heater was on. Dinner was shrimp jumbalaya.

This was a squandered day. I have a microwave to work on, the nicholas pictures to organize and the Venus-LOGE circuitry to program but instead I looked at some of my digitized videos and tried uploading one to You Tube. Heard from Harrys daughter Alison from Facebook. I found some of my medical records in the file in the back room so I digitized them and uploaded them to the Life Bits site. Libbie made her traditional pizza but she used white flour instead of wheat which made the crust a different texture but still good! In the afternoon today I went to the greenhouse and tightened the fanbelt on the fanjet of the zux heater. Had to remove the two lower motor bolts and put them into the next lower slot so the motor can now be slid lower to tighten the belt even more. This worked well.

Didn't have much time this morning. Worked a little on Venus before it was time to go to the Met HD performance of Thais which started at 12. The opera was fantastic - we enjoyed the wonderful singing and the behind the scenes stage mechanics. The Meditation received it's own round of applause. After the performance we went to Farm Fresh and picked up 2 chicken Vienna's which we had with yams and Chardonnay. Very nice end to a good day. When we got out of the theater today the ground was wet - it had rained while we were indoors.

Got a lot more of the Usart code working. I can now request status over the 232 and it responds. In addition, it can forward status out the 485. Went with Libbie in the morning to get a coat at 60% off at Macys. Libbie got a nice London Fog coat and we had a $10 off coupon. At 1 we went to Dickeys BBQ in crossroads after seeing a review in the paper. Our last time in Dickey's was in Dallas. This one wasn't as good. Printed more pictures at Walgreens because we used the first 30. Had to pick them up late at night. While I stood in line to pay for them, Lib took the pictures out of the pack and stuffed envelopes in the parking lot. We then dropped them into the Post Office slot and took a ride around looking at Christmas lights. It was 64 degrees at 9 PM. Dinner was frozen Canneloni from Trader joes.

I traced through the Usart 232 code on Venus and made some changes so that the incoming packets from the terminal program on Mazeppa can be decoded. I even got the address recognition functioning. It determines what to do with the packet routing. Libbie tried vacuuming upstairs and in the process, the circuit breaker tripped. I had 3 computers powered up and all the violet light shelves in the playroom. In the evening I built an address list for our violet friends. I then used this list to write Christmas cards. My card writing is done for another year. Dinner was tortellini pasta in tomato sauce.

Worked on the Usart of Venus and finally got it to send Hello World to the terminal program on Mazeppa. This means a lot is working. Had no trouble with baud or tx, rx connections but the UDR empty interrupt was missing in the code. Added this and now use the tx complete interrupt to turn off the LED and all seems to work well. Next step is to send a packet from the terminal and have the Venus program interpret it before moving in more hardware such as a second Venus to communicate and possibly a LOGE to pass status polls down to. Worked on Marantha's pictures today and uploaded them to Walmart. When I went to Walmart to pick them up they were out of 8x10 paper so no 8x10, just the 4x6's. I also ordered a batch of our family wedding picture for Christmas cards. Wrote out cards to my side of the family and finished this task.

Did the groceries this monring. Couldn't find yellow raisins for the Babka Lib wants to make today. Scanned both Mom and Dad's funeral registry books and converted them into PDF's. I emailed the pdf's to Arlene and also posted them on Google docs.

An interesting day. Received Mom's funeral guest book in the mail from Arlene. I plan to scan it into a pdf. Worked on defining a packet protocol for Venus to act like a gateway from the radio and also poll the local 485 network for alerts. Went over to the greenhouse to check the Fanjet fan belt. It's loose. Stopped to get gas at the 1.59 station but they were out so I paid 1.65 at the BP. Not bad either. We went out to La Concina for dinner. I took home half of my Pollo Chipotle which I had with 2 Margaritas. Lib paid for dinner - $24 with a $4 tip.

Got up a little later than normal. Went out and got a newspaper while Libbie made ham and eggs but I already had cereal. We did egg and ham omelets for lunch then took a walk back to the Seagrove house which is getting a new foundation. Went to the library this afternoon. Lib had a book come in and I found a book called "Doing It" about marriage and sex. Lib said she should be embarrassed. I thought it was funny.

I spent most of today trying to get Venus running. The Jtag does not recognize the device. Tried replacing the CPU - a daunting task but my last resort. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem. Took out the scope and started probing the interface. Found that the resetline was a hard zero. Found a short where the reset trace went under a decoupling cap and it was shorted by the cap leads or the solder. Cut the line and wired around the short which fixed the problem. Used the scope to set the timer so that I now have a one second heartbeat. Next step will be to get the Uarts running.
We went to Trader Joes to get ribs and raspberry orange cake for desert. Both were yummy. We had a bottle of Shiraz with the meal. Went up to bed early to read my T Boone Pickens book.

Libbie finished her book, the grapes of wreath so we watched the movie tonight after dinner. The movie was so so - not bad, especially after reading the book but not the greatest. Tried to get the Venus to respond to the jtag today but no luck.

Spent a lot of the day working on the build of the Venus card. Everything seems to fit OK. I don't have the resistors for the 485. Dinner was yams and ham with apple sauce.

Worked on the Nicholas photos today. They're not too bad although I wish I didn't have to do so much photoshop work on them. We have some controversy with the convention chair and co-chair listing and Rich Follett. I designed a pin with Libbie today. Drove over to Krogers and dropped the Esotherm off for shipping to Pat today. It will be $35 which includes them packing the device. Dinner was bean burgers with lettuce and ketchup. No onion which was sad.

Worked on the Esotherm in the morning and also got the double charge for Dallas Museum admission removed. I hooked up the bluetooth and fixed the program to correctly display the maximum on screen temperature per channel. Went to the grocery store and got our groceries after a contact lens checkup at Ira Tuckers. Later in the afternoon I worked on downloading pictures from our cards and archiving everything on DVD. Libbie came back from her violet xmas party and I had the leftover 7 layer salad. Maynard wants me to send the other esotherm back to him. Talked with Anne about her powerpoint growing slide show and also the wedding and how it all went. Dinner was Pasta i picked up from Trader Joe's.

We had the alarm set for 5:26 AM. We packed our things and brought them to the lobby then had scrambled eggs, sausage, juice and coffee for breakfast. As we were finished our shuttle driver announced he was ready to go. We checked in at curbside then stood in line for security. Our next challenge was miles of walking to get to the monorail to gate area A. The terminal C complex is as big as some airports. The flight was very smooth. I had two cups of coffee as I read the T Boone Pickens Billionaire book. The flight was only 2 hours. When we landed in Raleigh it was incredibly cold compared to Dallas. We both were very tired. Ramsey had sent an eMail about incorrect max screen temperatures on the esotherm. i stayed up late and tried to fix it but no success. For dinner we had Kung Pao chicken.

We had a leisurely breakfast at the Fairfield before touring the TWU campus. Walked the gardens and looked at the chapel before driving to Dallas. Stopped at Whattaburger for lunch on our way to Dallas. At the Fair grounds we got our bearings and after changing shoes we got on the shuttle bus in the parking lot and got a ride to the music hall door. Took some pictures before they took my camera away. Got it back after the opera. We had pretty good seats in the balcony but some of the recitative was hard to hear. Afterwards we checked into the Drury Inn, guided there by our GPS. The hotel was nice. Free drinks, hot breakfast, etc. They suggested we drop our car at the airport tonight and they will pick us up and take us to the airport in the morning. We agreed and after a dinner of sliders and curly fries at the La Hacienta we dropped the car off. Found gas in Grapevine, TX for 1.59. We only needed less than 8 gallons for $12. Before dinner we opened the bottle of wine from the Nicholas's and finished it after dinner.

Woke up after a good sleep last night. Had the Fairfield bagels, talked to other wedding guests. We went to downtown Denton and walked around the courthouse before going to the historic park and getting on the bus for the horse tour. We visited a Paso Fina Ranch where they showed off the champion stallion, Kugerand which is worth around 250,000. Next we went over to a Spanish horse ranch of Andolusa horses. This was 30 acres run by a husband and wife team. lots of work there! After the horses we went to Anne's for sandwiches and took pictures of the violets and violet bouquets. Next stop was Hubbard Hall for bridal pre photos. At 5:45 I went back to the chapel for pics of the guys then hung around for the ceremony. The reception in Hubbard was very elegant. The college staff does a nice job catering events like this. We got home around 11 very tired but satisfied.

We got up at 5:00 and left at 5:30 for our 6:55 flight. Parked in the Terminal 2 parking garage a short walk from check in. The new terminal is nice - the ceiling is soaring and light and airy. The flight was good and on time. We had no trouble getting downtown to the museum area. We found parking for $2 all day a short walk from the museum. Near the airport we asked our GPS for an iHop and it found one for us nearby. Had a brunch type meal at the iHop. Thoroughly enjoyed the art museum and also the sculpture center. Got a little wet looking at the sculptures. After the museums we had the GPS guide us to the JFK assassination site. We spent less than 10 minutes there walking around then set the GPS for our hotel in Denton. Stopped at a Dickeys BBQ and had a nice sandwich in the late afternoon. At the hotel we met Brian. Went over to the rehearsal in his car then to the rehearsal dinner in the Nicholas car. The dinner was ver very nice. We had Margaritas and a buffet of pork and chicken, BBQ shrimp and enchiladas. It was very nice. On the way home we dropped Helen Mahr off at the Assisted Living Center. We passed out in bed very tired. It was a long day.

Finished the Venus card today but did not order it from AP Circuits because I didn't want it to come while we were gone. It would come Monday if I order it today. Got a report from Ron on how many CD's and DVD's he sold at the three conventions he visited this Fall. Gathered the camera stuff for Dallas tomorrow. I hope we don't forget anything.

Libbie and I put the tree up today. it actually was up yesterday but we put the lights on and vacuumed the porch a little. We went out at 6 PM and picked up a roast chicken for dinner with macaroni salad and potato salad. Later in the evening we watched the end of the grammy concert award nominations.

SeeSawed back and forth over what to include and not include in Venus. In the end I decided to include interfaces for Zigbee and Wiznet but not with 3 volt interfaces. The reasoning is I could include translation circuitry on the daughter cards rather than buying new 3 volt parts for Venus. I probably need a new 232 and new 485 driver running at 3 volts. This would be $6 worth of parts that I currently don't have to buy. I did a grocery run for basics. We had the pasta for dinner. In the evening we went out to the greenhouse and replaced the floodlights and bathroom light.

This turned into an eventful day. I finished up the controller by testing the cold temp response with ice cubes then went over to the greenhouse and hooked everything up. Went home for lunch then returned and soldered the wires for the transfer relay and tested the generator and manually threw the relay to see if it worked. It did. This relay uses a 24 VAC transformer, the others are directly hooked up to 110VAC for transfer. Put a new piece of strip tape across the back because the old one disintegrated. I did this while the generator was running it's test cycle. The generator seems hard to start - it may have old gas or may need new plugs. Next I hooked the thermostat wiring to the LOGE controller by putting a few jumpers in the box above the entry door. Ran the aux heater and Libbie and I punched holes in the unpunched distribution heat tube on the side facing the greenhouse space. The heat seems to be working OK. After a dinner of French Vegetable jambalaya with chicken, we went back out to the greenhouse to do some temperature measurements. I checked over the aux heater exhaust and we measured temperatures at various places in the greenhouse. The bench tops were mostly at 65 to 68. The outdoor temp was 42 while the telephone probe was reporting 64 and the LOGE indoor probe was reading 68.

This turned into an eventful day. I finished up the controller by testing the cold temp response with ice cubes then went over to the greenhouse and hooked everything up. Went home for lunch then returned and soldered the wires for the transfer relay and tested the generator and manually threw the relay to see if it worked. It did. This relay uses a 24 VAC transformer, the others are directly hooked up to 110VAC for transfer. Put a new piece of strip tape across the back because the old one disintegrated. I did this while the generator was running it's test cycle. The generator seems hard to start - it may have old gas or may need new plugs. Next I hooked the thermostat wiring to the LOGE controller by putting a few jumpers in the box above the entry door. Ran the aux heater and Libbie and I punched holes in the unpunched distribution heat tube on the side facing the greenhouse space. The heat seems to be working OK. After a dinner of French Vegetable jambalaya with chicken, we went back out to the greenhouse to do some temperature measurements. I checked over the aux heater exhaust and we measured temperatures at various places in the greenhouse. The bench tops were mostly at 65 to 68. The outdoor temp was 42 while the telephone probe was reporting 64 and the LOGE indoor probe was reading 68.