This morning we went to the commercial sales meeting in the
sales room. The group was friendly and interested when I presented
why they should come to Raleigh for the convention.
I enjoyed guarding the door at 12:30 before the sales room opened
at 1. I took photos of the winner of the early entry person, Laurel
Goretsky along with all the commercial vendors lined up greeting her
to the sales room. After that we started the photography. Because
the show was small we finished early. We walked the Casino looking for
a dinner idea. A lot of the restaurants were closed but we waited for
a table at the Oyster Bar. It was excellent and wonderful. I had the Ciappino
while Libbie had a Crab Chowder. They both were in large bowls. We got a
bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner. Have to stop eating like this.

We had breakfast in the train diner - I had the French toast.
After breakfast we stayed in the sky car watching the last of
the scenery and taking a few pictures. We stopped at Sparks and
saw our hotel. Got off in Reno and took a cab back to the
Nugget. We were able to check in right away at 11 AM. The hotel
is very nice but the casino and lobby is very smokey. Brenda had
a lot of our table set up. I made two boxes for raffle tickets
for the two raffles we will have. Libbie and I went to the Reno
airport to get a rental car. The only sedan they had available
was a Prius. We didn't know how to operate it so Libie looked up
things in the manual while I waited. We stopped at Office Depot
and made some copies of our promo sheet. For dinner we went over
to the Mexican place across the street with Michelle who is
doing entries for MAAVS in Raleigh. She's a nice girl, I enjoyed
our dinner conversation. It snowed on and off all day today and
was pretty cold.

We woke pretty early, before the alarm since our bodies are
still on East Coast time. Got a bagle across the street in a
little coffee shop. The elevator quit part way down so I had to
carry our suitcases from the second floor down. The train was
waiting at the station when we checked our bags. Got on and then
settled into a spot in the lounge car before taking a number for
breakfast. I had scrambled eggs with bacon, OJ and coffee. It
was quite good. For lunch I had a burger which I didn't care
for. We sat with two students from England who were crossing the
country by rail. Our dinner companions were a retired couple
from MD who lived in Colorado skiing for the winter where they
have an RV. They were going to Reno for gambling, etc. For
dinner I had the Flat steak with Cabernet. IT was very very
good. I slept well at night, rarely waking till it was light
outside. We put the chairs back up at daybreak.

We left home around 4:30 for our 6:25 flight. Tried the new
relax.com parking over on 70 because it's covered and I had a
free day coupon. I liked it - the pickup bus followed us to our
spot which was row I space 44 and took us to Terminal 2 for
American. They wouldn't take my or Libbie's credit card which
was of some concern because we had 8 days in front of us. We
found later the computer was down for account maintenance.
Picked up a Brueggers bagle and coffee at our gate. The flight
was very smooth until we got to Dallas then we lost an hour as
we went to the South in some very bumpy weather. We landed at
the time our Denver flight was to take off but they held the
plane for us. Very nice. The Denver flight was surprisingly
smooth although Denver was socked in with some miserable foggy
and dreary weather. Stopped at iHop for Easter brunch then drove
to the Denver Art Museum. What an unusually weird shaped
building. I enjoyed the Western Art. From there went to our
hotel and checked in. Loved the old feel of this hotel. There
are antique moldings and fixtures, etc. Our room is newly
refurbished with modern fixtures, a Bose radio and even WIFI
which I was able to connect to without a hitch. For dinner we
went McCormicks fish house which is part of the hotel. I had
Asahi Tuna which was outstanding with a bottle of Columbia Crest
Chardonnay. We shared a chocolate truffle cake for dessert.
Before dinner I returned the rental car. The trip took 2 hours
although it didn't seem that long. I took the highway 20 miles
to the airport, got gas at the aairport, rode the Hertz shuttle
to the terminal, went in the terminal to buy a Super Shuttle
ticket then went around town in the shuttle and the rain until
the Oxford hotel.

We listened to the Met Walkure at noon. I earlier picked up ribs and wine at Trader Joes. After the opera we did some serious packing since we need camera gear in addition to dress clothes and warm weather clothes. It's snowing in the Sierras but is supposed to end by the time we get there. Went to bed early to get up at 4 but I had trouble getting to sleep.

While I dragged the aerator around on the new grass seed I had the septic pump running. I was very pleased that the liquid was coming out at the top of the hill when I lifted the cover and looked. Picked up a few branches up there and then worked on the lawn. Libbie picked up the mower at noon and went back to the greenhouse to mow and wait for a Wyatt Quarles delivery. I finished the taxes by adding the K-1's to the return in Turbotax and then Libbie took all to the post office and also picked up $150 for our trip to Reno next week. I built an adapter to power the GPS from a wall plug and also programmed the Denver Art Museum and Denver hotel into it. Dinner was peas and creamed tuna over a bed of rice. Very simple but good. I gave Libbie her chocolate bunny a little early for easter.

It's nice to have Libbie back. This morning during and after breakfast I replaced the left hinge on my laptop. The hinge previously broke off so I used a hinge from an old R40 laptop that had a bad screen but otherwise good case and hinges. It was quite a job with all the tiny screws but I managed. Our dinner was chicken over the Curry veggies from Trader Joes.

Not a very good day. Everything has gone wrong. The septic doesn't appear to be pumping. There was water around it and when I turned it on and looked at the top of the hill there was nothing coming out although it may be trickling out because the tank level seemed to go down a little while the pump ran for about an hour. Tried doing the taxes. They are overwhelming. Bluebird is not in very good shape. Entered Bluebird, Stoneybrook and Schwab tax amounts. Still need to do Scottrade and that should be it!!!! I will try to ignore the K-1's this year and only use the consolidated statements although the K-1's reduce my taxes but I don't think I need any reduction. The web server in Bonnard is also acting up. I think I have some bad html because when I quit ahead of it the thing works. Left at 7 to pick up Libbie. She called me when I was on Old Raleigh Rd at 7:01. I got to the airport at 7:15. For dinner we had microwaved Carolina barbecue on buns. I previously picked up the buns in Kroger's along with sugar and coffee. At 8:30 we called Vicki o wish her a happy birthday.

Not a bad day. It's clear but a little chilly. I power washed the tiller, mower and lawn tractor. Changed the oil in the Toro mower. Mowed the grass out by the street then used the blower to clean the tractor and the garage floor and turnaround. Mixed up some roundup and walked the hill trying to zap weeds using my Ace Hardware 2 gallon sprayer. Went over to the greenhouse late in the PM and rewired the thermostats so that house 3 heater comes on when Big Bertha in house 1 fires up. Also repaired the plastic curtain wall which fell down quite a bit. The houses are nicely inflated after I cleaned the screen inlet yesterday of the pollen clogging it up.

It's raining pretty good this morning. The tractor is getting cleaned in the backyard. There's a tornado warning on this morning.

Got the paper early then talked to Lib and answered eMail from Lynn. She wants an auction in Reno. Brenda and I decided not to have one. Bought a tow behind disk aerator on sale in Northern Tools for $59. Picked up the tractor from the greenhouse and hitched it to the aerator. IT did a nice job however the cinder blocks kept falling off. Went to Lowes to pick up bungy cords and also grass seed. On the same trip returned the Guitar DVD to Krogers and picked up a French Bread pizza for dinner. The bungys worked better than expected. After the pizza I watched Dolly Parson on 60 minutes then the Country Music Awards which were entertaining although I decided I don't like country music because all the songs sound the same.

Mixed up some Roundup and sprayed the grass on the powerline. Tried fixing the Solo but it's got a cracked plastic piece. Listened to Elixir on the Met this afternoon while transferring files to the new 1TB disk drive. I'm organizing the movies and jpg files from many hard drives onto a single large drive. I will have one drive for movies, one for Music and the Western Digital MyBook for misc data files. Dinner was a Healthy choice spicy Gerneral Tsao chicken. I watched the Guitar this evening and liked it so much I screwed around with converting it to DIVX. I found that I needed to load something called SLy Fox DVD driver which removed copy protection then I used a Sourceforge open source program called DVDx which made a DIVX file of the DVD. It worked pretty good although my first pass was only 320 wide which made a blocky picture but then using 720 x 480 it worked pretty good.

A perfect day. I worked a little outside. Went to Tigerdirect and picked up a SATA cable for the new 1TB disk drive. Also stopped into HH Gregg in Apex. Not sure why this place exists. It had almost nothing.Fell asleep during Moulin rouge in the evening. Got up and went upstairs to bed. Dinner was cereal.

We had more rain today but I got out in the morning and planted yesterdays Camellia purchase and spread one bag of cypress mulch on the rose bed. It still needs another bag to finish the job. Rented National Lampoons Cattle Call and Nights in Rodanthe. I hated Cattle Call but really liked Nights in Rodanthe. The play between Richard Geere and Diane Lane was good. Very attractive people in a tender story. Had to return it this afternoon before 7 PM. Got some frozen dinners while in Krogers. Talked to Brenda about the Reno convention. We're going to concentrate on silent auctions. Had a frozen Healthy Choice dinner for both lunch and dinner today.

A rainy day. Left at 8:30 to drop Lib off at the airport for her 10 AM Providence flight. Stopped at Brueggers on the Cary Pkwy on the way home and picked up bagels and coffee. Got a call around noon that the minivan was ready. Walked up Old Raleigh Rd because it stopped raining. The starter was $300 and was bad because it filled with oil according to the guy at Gastons. While I had the minivan I went to Home Depot and got 4 more bags of cypress mulch and 2 Camellias. The Camellias rang up as Rhododendron for 7.99. The price was OK because last year I saw Camellias for $39 in the Garden Center near Ace and then $21 at Ace. These were in 1 gallon cans which is a fine size. They probably won't bloom for a couple more years. I had a Krogers mini pizza for dinner.

Worked on building Burbank in the morning a little then went to Krogers for groceries on old geezer day. After lunch I roto tilled the peat moss in the backyard. I may want to planta Camelia there. Libbie called from the Post Office that the starter on the minivan quit. She had a dentist appt across the street at Beavers. Afterwards I met her at Gastons garage where she drove it and left it running but we ended up turning it off since they can't deal with it until tomorrow anyway. I drove her to the Credit Union and greenhouse. At the greenhouse I changed the oil on the tractor and put a new air filter in. Dinner was pork chops with broccoli and butternut squash. It was delicious. Soldered wires onto the solar powered LED lightand extended the LED. Drilled a hole in the wooden box holding the glass pumpkin and now the white LED lights it up nicely.

I roto tilled near the roses then spread the two bags of mulch as far as it would go. Dug out the septic pump pipe where I had drilled a hole and put a screw into the hole. The shade blew off the end of the greenhouse. I went to Ace and got some Roundup and also eye hooks that I screwed into the end wall and tied the shade onto. Dinner was chicken caciatoria over rice. Yummy.

Got up at 6:30 and was out the door by 7 to get the paper. It was raining lightly as I went over to McDonalds but it's supposed to clear up today with a little sun and some wind.

It's a crappy rainy day. The septic pump is running and won't turn off. When it gets near the bottom of the pump it won't drain enough to shut off. I switched it off in the garage. May have to use a timer before eventually going to a sonar level sensor. Replaced the kitchen faucet - had to run to Home Depot for a pair of stainless supply connection lines. While there I got a 3/8 drive adapter for my drill and tried it on the roto tiller. It starts flawlessly. This is all I need for only using the tiller once a year. Listened to Met Opera Rheingold today while working on the Wiznet web server. Libbie and I went to Trader Joes in the rain and got ribs and wine for dinner and also some more of the Indian veggie and rice medley. Dinner was ribs, yams and Shiraz. After dinner I worked on Bonnard some more. It's now spitting out web pages with variables!!!! Much still needs to be done. Libbie asked an intersting question. What do you need another web server for? I thought you already had one. The answer is it gives me a small potentially battery operated master web server in which I will be able to aggregate via Zigbee a wide variety of information. Because this is on the net, I can potentially even send updates to an external website or even the Traviata web server.

This was a busy day. Did a little debug work on Bonnard then took a look at my broken tiller. Went to Northern Tool then AgriSupply then Home Depot and Lowes. Bought a new kitchen faucet in Home Depot and found Pyracantha in Lowes. Went back after lunch with Libbie and got the Pyracantha in the rain. They will do nicely. The estimate for our new Disposal will be $150. I told them to go ahead and replace it. For dinner we had Indian Veggies with shrimp. The veggie combo was called Biryani. Before bedtime I worked on Bonnard and managed to serve a web page using the Wiznet ROM FileMaker program to compile a web page into a hex file. I will be replacing this.

Couldn't get the Bonnard Atmega to work. Changed the chip and still no love. Discovered that the ISP interface for an AT128 is different from other AVR's. Changed the wires and burned the JTAG enable fuse then I was able to debug normally. Did not need to change the chip. Dinner was Curry simmer sauce chicken after which we watched American Idol.

I made the traditional 8x10 picture for our anniversary. Libbie and I went to La Cocina for dinner and Margaritas. We were serenaded by a Mariachi band which was nice. Who would have thought??

My disk drive arrived today from New Egg while we were out. Went to Seagrove, NC to do a precon. Had lunch t the Westmore Family dinner where I had a barbecue sandwich and we split some seasoned fries. Dinner this evening was pasta.

Went over to the greenhouse to tighten the fan belts. This didn't work so well - both belts on houses 3 and 4 have no more adjustment left. I found a fan belt in the garage that's 55 inches. I looked up what we've been using and it's anywhere from 53 inches to 55 inches. Took 2 barrels of dirt home from the greenhouse then worked some in the backyard. Put three wheelbarrows of clay at the base of the oak tree filling in stump holes. Walked to the top of the hill to check on the bird house - a pair of bluebirds are building a nest up there. The septic pumped this morning - there was another puddle at the base where the pipe was drilled. Dinner was chicken and broccoli with curry simmer sauce. After dinner we read our books and listened to WCPE playing the Chicago Symphony performance of Holst's Planets. This morning the Bonnard card arrived - everything fits mechanically!!!! Put the card together but did not power anything up yet. I ordered the missing voltage regulator resistor along with other parts from Digikey. In the meantime i will jump out the regulator and run the thing directly at 3.3 volts.

Had to go to Krogers this morning to pick up milk with the newspaper. We were out of milk for cereal. Raked more leaves from next to the shed. Went over to the greenhouse for 2 garbage cans full of dirt. Libbie asked if I wanted to stay and do the shadecloth. We put one cloth up but the other needed mending because the seams had torn in many spots. Came back after lunch with the chain saw and the empty garbage cans. Filled up the cans, trimmed some of the shrubbery when Libbie was done with the mending. Put the repaired shade on house 1 which was very vey hard because I was so tired. Came home, took a shower and sat on the backporch and started reading a book Libbie gave me to read. It's a library book by a local author she liked. Dinner was Libbie's traditional pizza with some fresh tomato slices thrown in.