I mixed some 4% roundup and did the rest of the septic bed today as well as across the back where the Oaks are resistant against the barbed wire fence. I feel great about this. I also tried isolating our fern patch in the back from our spreading grape vines. I want to kill the grapes from the creek to both paths, the one path going diagonally and the second path going up the sewer line.

We left at 6 PM for First Friday. I have an 8 PM dinner appointment. On Moore Square there was a Jesus choir and band singing. We listened for a while then walked to Visual Arts. We went first to Visual Arts where next door there was a new gallery with art on the walls. Nothing spectacular there. In Visual Art Gallery there was a nice oil of the Krispy Creme store. In Artspace I liked a cafe scene of a Fayetteville St cafe by Tony Capelle. There was an acoustic rock group playing downstairs as well. The noted speical exhibits gallery was an exhibit called stacks and spills.

We ordered 2 rounds of Merlot in Cafe Luna. I had the veal canneloni special which was very good.

I scanned Sue Hoffman's pictures today for MAAVS. Also tried to do a restore with the backed up database on a 4 gig flash drive. We spent a lot of time on the phone with a Score card person trying to book plane tickets from Seattle using our points. Wow, that was an experience. In the PM we went to AAA and picked up tour books of Seattle and Vancouver then spent the rest of the evening reading about Seattle and Vancouver. Dinner was Briyani that Libbie added a cut up pineapple spear to.

Today is Cinquo de Mayo. Trader Joe's was playing Mexican music when I went there to pick up groceries. I also did the Krogers gas run. The stuff is up to 2.75 per gallon with the Krogers reward card discount. Got some nice comments back about the new web site including some humorous ones from John Ragan in Chicago. The issue was my title on Maavs, "Maintainer of best website on the internet". Fun stuff. I did 4 gals of roundup on the front and side today but this time I made it 4% instead of 2%. Let's see if this works better. I used the leftover on the septic field in the back which only lasted for about 10 feet. I also stopped encroachment of the fern patch in the back woods. The grapevines were moving in and I really like the fern patch.
We tried to go to LaConcina for Cinquo de Mayo dinner but the parking lot was jammed. There was even a line of cars looking for parking. We went home instead and had pasta which I bought earlier at Trader Joes.

Worked some more on Joomla before going out to the grocery store this morning. Finally launched the MAAVS website with all the basic info. Joomla seems to be doing it well. It's clean and crisp. I like it a lot. I also found how to back it up this afternoon using a plugin that backs the entire site up. It even has a remote backup capability. Dinner was more of the leftover Krogers chicken which we had with soycotash veggies from Trader Joes.

Put a Facebook entry on Arlene's page for her birthday. It's supposed to rain today but things don't look well on the radar. It's dry and hot out. Solved some Joomla problems with images and then HTML forms for the subscribe function of the eMemo. The website is getting closer to launch. Dinner was a roast chicken I picked up at Krogers which we had with leftover rice and beans. Did some scrambling moving money to come up with over $4,000 for the Visa bill. It had the camera and AVSA expenses on it.

After the Sunday paper I went into the attic and finished up the blower project. I'm disappointed at how the blower is not too much better. I was expecting a lot more. Later Libbie informed me that the grill drip pan fell off. The supports were rusted away so I bought a strip of flat aluminum and fabricated supports for the drip pan. The grill should last a few more years like this. Trying to work on the MAAVS website but the MySQL server keps crashing at netfirms. Libbie did her usual delicious pizza. It's over 80 outside this evening. We turned the upstairs A/C on.

I chose not to go in the woods today but instead worked on the MAAVS website. The new graphics gallery I found is working pretty good. It's easy to use and is customizable for thumbnail size. We left at 11:30 for Armida at North Hills. I had an annoying lady next to me who stood up after the opera started and waved to her friend to join her. When the friend arrived they talked through the overture then did text messages. These were the rudest people to date at any of the performances. For dinner we had ribs with Shiraz and rice and beans. Very nice. Cookies and cream ice cream for desert.

Today I worked a lot on MAAVS looking for a photo gallery that will display captions. In the PM I killed myself doing a 4 gal tank of roundup up the East side of our property, killing a lot of grape vines for the path. Dinner was grilled chicken sandwiches. Earlier we tried to get a roast chicken from Krogers but it was after 7 and they were out.

For todays sprayer load of weed killer I finished the septic bed then went towards the birdhouse at the Glembocki Oak. dinner tonight was crab cakes with tomato and strawberry for desert. The Joomla wine theme is a no go. Too many errors with photo galleries. I'm going to look for a different violet colored theme.

I worked some more on the Joomla implementation of MAAVS. I managed to get Joomla 1.5 installed and the wine theme implemented for MAAVS. Later in the PM I went out with the Chapin 4 gal backpack sprayer loaded with Glysoposate and proceeded to spray grapevines, poison ivy and gum trees in the woods. The goal is to clear the septic field which is covered with gum tree seedlings. Last year I mowed down the field and this year I want to treat the emerging saplings with a roundup equivalent. In the evening we had crab cake sandwiches then watched the American Idol results show. Sioban was kicked off which I think was not great because I like her voice. Unfortunately she has a tendency to screech. We selected some pics for Lib of AVSA 2010 and uploaded them to Walgreens. They were done at 10:17PM so we decided to go get them. Unbelievably there was a line at the cash register at 10:30 p.m.

Installed the blower and wired it up but did not power it up. Will probably do that tomorrow. While waiting for the camera to come I cleaned the driveway. It had lots of candles from the pine trees covering it. this was my first time in a long time that I could get to it because of the convention. I love the camera that came. I w as a little disappointed that it was an open box, apparently a kit with lens. The lens was removed and the body sold separate. Other than that, all looks OK. The camera has many features my old camera needed. it does a great job of focusing in the dark. It also has very high ISO capabilities which is amazing. I installed Joomla 1.5 but kept getting an error when I kicked off the install process from the uploaded files. Don't know what's wrong. Dinner was cheese tortellini. We watched both Idol and Dancing with the Stars.

Did some running around today. In the a.m. I went to Saunders Street to photograph the skyline. While there I decided to make a trip to AgriSupply. Bought some roundup and a backpack sprayer. Came home and took a walk out back looking at the weeds that need spraying. On the way home stopped at Trader Joes. We had the TJ's lobster pasta for dinner. Watched Dancing with the Stars while looking at the MAAVS Joomla stuff.

Went out at 7 a.m. and picked up a paper. Watched a nice story on Google doodles on "Sunday Morning" then went up to start on mounting the blower. Drilled some holes to mount the bolts for the blower then quite so i could get cleaned up for the theater. Went to a very nice performance of Our Town at RLT. I really liked this play. I even went online looking for a text version of the play. Google has half of it in Google Books as a preview but i ended up finding a scanned copy somewhere. Dinner was Libbie's excellent pizza once again.

Shut the gas off and disassembled the lines going to the furnace and water heater. Installing the new lines went pretty good except I needed a new appliance connection fitting and another 2 inch x 3/4 inch pipe nipple. Got everything hooked up and tested the gas with soap bubbles and discovered the union was leaking even though this wasn't even disassembled. Took it apart and painted the threads with pipe sealant and tightened everything up again. This time it was leak free. When Libbie came home we listened to the Met Tosca while having lunch on the back porch. We had the leftover beef from last night. During the Met intermission we took a walk in the back. They started lot 68 and were painting and trimming several others. We're almost completely blocked in by homes except for the two ponds. For dinner tonight we ordered Chinese Szechuan which we had with Trader Joe Chardonnay. I finished the AVSA 2010 accounting and sent the spreadsheet off to Brenda, IRwin and Kathy. Still need to audit it.

Could not install the blower this morning after struggling to cut the blower opening. It turns out I have to reroute the gas lines. If I had done this when i started the job would have been much easier since furnace access would be much better. I went with Libbie to BJ's and got note cards and about $94 worth of other stuff. I have to move the gas lines. Went to Home Depot and picked up some black pipe fittings to get the job done. Dinner tonight was the prime rib from Trader Joes with asian veggies, mashed potatoes and gravy and Pinot noir that we got from the Hilton.

Visited the greenhouse to bring change to Libbie who didn't bring any. JoAnne and Jack were there working away. I finished the pipe job by covering up the ditch under the bench with gravel. On the way there I stopped by Walmart and happily found an oil filter for the Prius. Fram now makes it. Still need a 64 mm wrench with 14 flats. At home i started working on the blower in the attic. Assembled the Grainger motor to the blower then made a template to match the new blower opening. Used the template to draw an outline inside the furnace then used the jigsaw to cut 2 sides of the opening before the blade broke. This is tough work since it's hot, noisy and I have to get into the furnace opening bent at a weird angle. Later Libbie helped me load the tractor on the trailer to bring it back to the greenhouse. We stored it at home to make room for the AVSA tour. Dinner was Briyani with Moose track ice cream for desert. I went upstairs to look at joomla for MAAVS and listen to the radio while Libbie watched TV crap.

We're getting back to normal. We had some much needed rain on and off throughout the day today. I finally broke down and ordered a Canon 7d from an eBay seller. I also ordered a 16 gb CF card from Newegg. It should be interesting to see how many pics the 16 gb holds. I paid Norwood today, had to do it with 2 check since Helens account did not have enough in it to cover, partially because I withdrew 900 earlier in the month. I removed the blower from the attic air handler, started assembling the replacement blower in my workshop. I need to install some rails on the new blower to slide it in place like the old one. Dinner tonight was a frozen chile releno from Trader Joes. Libbie had a mac and cheese. Tonight we watched American idol results show. Tim was kicked off.

Early this morning I went to the greenhouse and finished the plumbing job by gluing one fitting. Brought the garbage home for the garbage man then took sue to the airport at 9 for her 10:30 flight. Picked up a bagel and coffee in Brueggers then did some catch up on monitoring finances. Bought some KMP and RGNC in the IRA account today. When Libbie came home we had cheese and tomato toast sandwiches then went to Trader Joe's and Krogers.

We're getting back into our routine today. I went to the greenhouse to look at a faucet that was leaking. Ended up replacing 2 faucets but a pipe broke as well. Went to Lowes and the Credit Union to deposit my AVSA check. At Lowes I got plumbing parts. Fixed everything but the pipe elbow was too wet to glue. Left it for morning. Sue, Libbie and I went to LaCocina for Margaritas and Mexican dinner. It was a nice celebration to end a week of AVSA. We watched Dancing with the Stars after dinner. Libbie also made shortcake to go with the strawberries we picked up at the Farmers Market.

Went over to the Hilton to retrieve Hans' package at 9 a.m. Met Kathy and others there. We didn't have much to do. Libbie went with Sue and got donuts at Dunkin donuts. At 10 or so we took Kathy, Terry and Jude from Minnesota to the WRAL azalea gardens. They were at the blooming peak and spectacular. We met Dr Ira there. After the gardens we went to Bluebird for a mini tour since Kathy had not been there. After Bluebird we had lunch at the Farmers Market then strolled the produce and shrubbery. Kathy bought a Beauregard sweet potato. Libbie and Sue left us there in the Prius while I took everyone back to the Hilton so they could take the shuttle to the airport at 4. It was a pleasant day. When I got home I took all the packages to the Post Office self serve kiosk and mailed them. In the evening we had 2 Libbie pizzas. Libbie and Sue had wine but I abstained.

This morning is judging. I spent some time in the hospitality room then watched the opening of the commercial sales and the resulting lineup. Judging completed early so we were able to go into the showroom to start photography around 1:30. We finished early enough to make it to the cash bar at 6. I threw a sports coat over my khaki pants and was good to go. Libbie was the Commercial sweepstakes winner with 35 blue ribbons. Wow. Dinner was chicken wellington which was chicken on some kind of pastry.

Entries started today. I started with an 8 a.m. meeting of the new board members then I went to the main board meeting. Ran home after this meeting to get the meatballs and cheese balls for Linda who was hosting the Presidents reception. Next I went shopping to AC Moore and Walmart for design materials. I ate at chick Fil A for lunch. Got back and had way too much to do. I ended up only doing 2 designs in 25 minutes. I was not proud of either effort. Tonight I joined Libbie and Sue in Loftons Skybox for dinner. I had the panini wiith turkey and avocado. I liked the reuben better. This was another long night. Libbie stayed at the Hilton in Sue's room.

This morning I bought wood at Home Depot to stiffen the plywood. I used the loading dock to cut the wood. Nailed it inside the showroom and built all the shelving to support the niches. Kitty and Sharon were fun to work with. Sharon gave us a bottle of wine and 2 glasses for the work effort. This was very nice. Tonight for dinner we ate at the Skybox. I had a Rueben and Onion Rings. It was excellent. I had the Gaelic beer which Kitty recommended. This was right on! Drove home dead tired.

I went early to the hilton. This will be the first of many mornings. At noon i went to meet the bus at Bluebird Greenhouse. Unbelievably there were 50 people touring the greenhouse. Libbie sold over $1,000 worth of stuff. We brought cookies and drinks for the bus crowd. The bus left around 4. We went to the Hilton and met the Nicholas's and went out to bluebird with them for a private tour. We then went out to the Pit for dinner. It was my first time there. I had a half rack of ribs with sweet potato fries and cole slaw. I also had two glasses of a shiraz blend wine. It was quite nice and Richard treated us.

I picked up a paper this morning and read it on the back porch. This is the start of the convention. Went to the Hilton at noon to start setting up but there was a pharmacy convention in our work area. We set up our registration at a counter nearby instead and it worked well. ann-marie and Lenny were already there. Later in the afternoon I picked Marjorie up at the airport. We took a tour down Ridge Rd looking at Azaleas and Dogwoods before turning around and going to the Hilton. That night I picked up a frozen pizza at Trader Joes which we had later on the back porch. Lenny and Ann Marie had turkey sandwiches they had brought. Tomorrow is the Bluebird tour.