I sent the design file for Pisces, the fish feeder to AP circuits today after a good checkup at Dr Beavers. Paul Beaver is on vacation in Bryce Canyon so Dr Mulder, a retired UNC professor, was my dentist. Afterwards I went to Trader Joes and Krogers for groceries, mostly for tomorrows trip. I mowed the backyard until it started raining. I'm also working on downloading the camera cards for my trip and i also installed Photoshop CS2 on the new laptop. Libbie made BLT's for us for lunch. Dinner was Trader Joe's Pasta. I spent the rest of the evening packing for the drive to Sarasota tomorrow.

Joe and Christa are leaving this afternoon. Joe is driving to Clinton, TN while Christa is flying to LA. We went to Smithfields for lunch where Lib and I had pork sandwiches and hush puppies while Joe and Christa had huge plates of bbq. After they left I hooked up electric fencing around the tomatoes in the growboxes which were eaten down and also around the roses, zinnias and daylilies which were also zapped. I was mad. Would love to shoot or poison the deer. Dinner tonight was turkey sandwich and then we watched Dancing with the Stars.

Woke up at 7 to a thunder storm. The wedding is this afternoon, outdoors. I worked on readying the Q Flash and tripod. Everything has not been assembled before this. Libbie made sausage and eggs for breakfast. Very good. I got the flash working with the camera pretty reliably. I'll bring the old camera as a backup so I downloaded the old AVSA files from the Raleigh convention and will bring the older CF cards as backups as well.
The rain stopped in time for the wedding. It was very humid and I completely soaked my shirt while taking pictures. The camera seems to perform flawlessly. After the ceremony we went back to the house where I changed my shirt. We then went to the reception at Haywood Hall. It went very well. Emilie is an easy going girl, very pretty and very together. I took a lot of nice pictures. Afterward we came home tired where Libbie and I had a turkey and cheese sandwich with wheat bread and tomato. We retired early.

We left for the airport at 8:15 because Christa's 8:40 plane was going to be early at 8:23. I dropped Libbie at US Air and waited at the observation park until she called that Christa had her suitcase. I picked up some Bojangle biscuits for Libbie and I. Christa had already eaten in Charlotte. Joe arrived around noon. I picked up some deli turkey, cheese and tomatoes in Krogers as well as the first Vidalia I have seen in the grocery store this season. Dinner was ribs with Cabernet Sauvignon and red beans and rice.

Today was gardening day. I first went to Bewt Buy and spent the $99 on a spare battery for the Canon 7d. I then went in to the yard and planted squash, peppers and tomatoes in the planter boxes. My last outdoor move was to sparay 4 gals of herbicide along the creek going up the east side of our property and on some of the dam for the retention pond. It's nice to see so many grape vines eliminated from the propety but there are many, many more covering the woods. I worked on the PCB layout for the fish feeder after replicating the failure of the timer circuit. It will be sent out this weekend and hopefully delivered to the greenhouse because it's a signature required package. Dinner was bean burger with baked beans.

I continued the cleanup today. first I printed a QFN footprint and then attempted to align a device with the printout under the microscope. All looks OK but I'm not sure about actually soldering one of these to a real copper PCB trace. I resumed the big cleanup today and sorted parts into bins and added more junk to the garbage can in the shop. The garage can and the shop can were full plus I had a huge stack of old textbooks to pitch out. I loaded the car with the cans and the trunk with the books and went to the dump. Had to wait almost an hour since there were so many people there. When I came home I filled the sprayer tank with 4 gals of herbicide and started spraying again. I encountered a baby fawn curled up in the brush pile on the septic field. I poked it with the sprayer nozzle and it walked away. I thought it was dead at first since it was motionless. The market was down a big number today - almost 400. This has been a 1,000 week drop. Dinner was bean burger with onion, tomato and baked beans. After dinner I had to return the library book I finished yesterday so I made a quick run at 8 PM to the drop box. We listened to Die Tot Stadt on WCPE Opera House tonight.

It rained last night and was cloudy most of today. I thought about doing more spraying but ended up inside working on the QFN footprint. Joe asked about his SS card so I initiated a huge cleanup in a search for the card. I threw away tons of old papers, some of which haven't been touched in over 10 years. Dinner was Moroccan chicken. We watched Idol's results show. I don't like Justin Bevier who was the musical host. The market was down 100 today but my portfolio was a lot worse. The overpriced preferreds are coming back down.

It rained all day today. I went out to the grocery store later. Stayed inside working on the fish feeder replacement. Decided to use an existing Dip 40 pin Atmega 16 I have from EDTP that was the frame thrower project. Dinner was bean burger.

Looked at Virgin Mobile cards at BestBuy but didn't buy. They were $99 which was fair. They were out of the Canon battery. Started looking at the Atmega for a fish feeder. The ATmega16 is not readily available in a 44 TQFP package anymore. I have to move to a 64 pin package which is too bad. It rained last night and a little more today which was good news. I may bite the bullet and buy a batch of 25 of the larger Atmega. I looked in my project box and I have 3 Atmega16's in 40 pin dips. I'll design a PCB to hold these for the fish feeder. It may be fun to put an RS485 on it for tieing into a home network. Dinner tonight was tortellini which came from Trader Joes over the weekend. After dinner we watched all of dancing with the stars. It was quite good - lots of 10s. Football player chad has to go. He's not in the same league as the other contenders.

Picked up a paper then walked around the yard looking at dead grape vines. Yes!!! I'm seeing a lot of kill on areas that were sprayed. In a month or so I'll go back to those areas for a maintenance touch-up of new sprouts or missed vines. I took the fish feeder timer apart to see why it stayed on one time. I have always wanted to replace the timing function with an AVR. This may be an opportunity. May have to use a relay since the timer runs on 9 volts and the AVR uses 5 volts. I wanted to use an existing board I have but it may be advantageous to design one from scratch since I may be able to use it for other things. Didn't do too much else today. I loaded up the legacy program with a Gedcom file derived from the Birthwrite program. all the links seem to be there but not the photos from the database. I liked Birthwrite since it produced web pages with photos and clickable links for the family. Libbie made her excellent pizza once again. Desert was the last of the Skinny Minty ice cream. I want to lose weight so won't get anymore. Libbie may complain about this but I want to get serious.

This morning I sprayed 4 more gals of herbicide on the triangle of grape vines finishing this area. Need to move over to the shed area next. After lunch Libbie and I went downtown to Artsplosure. We parked behind the school on Moore square and made the loop. I enjoyed the girls in their summer clothes. It was a 94 degree day. Next we went to the new NC Museum of Art. We were suitable wowed. The collection is outstanding. The Rodin's are spectacular. We got tossed out of the place at 5 when they closed. Too bad. For dinner we went to La Cocina and had a huge Margarita which made me totally drunk and woozy. Wow, what a drink.

I moved my car onto the pinestraw in front and rained the radiator. Next I cut the radiator hose and inserted a flush fitting. Hooked up the garden hose and reverse flushed the car then put new antifreeze into it mixed at 50%. All went well. For dinner we had Krogers corn with stuffed flounder. After dinner I continued to read my book, "The Ask" which I'm really enjoying.

Bought an oil stock, WHX, for my IRA today. It fell 60 cents by closing time. I read about it online, it yields 12%. I'll monitor it for a while. Picked up 200 shares. Went outside and did a walk around looking at dead grape vines. It's too soon to continue spraying the grapes since I can't tell what's not been done without guessing. I can spray around the shed but didn't. Changed the Prius oil today. All went well. Broke a plastic push pin on the engine under cover. There is one large and 2 small pins. Bought a bag of each, 10 per bag from parts and clips . com in California. With Libbie in the car with her key I reset the oil change indicator on the dashboard. Printed a page from the Corolla manual about location of radiator hoses. I want to cut the hose to the radiator and insert a flushing port tee.

Earlier today I planted some of the peppers and tomatoes from Logans. Mixed up a batch of weed killer and went after the grape vines in the backyard. Dinner today was beanburger with onion and tomato on bread. We had some TJ's soycotash for the veggie. Watched the results of idol after dinner. Big mike got kicked off.

Bought some misc stocks in my IRA. Got more PHR and also some ATLIF in my individual account. The IRA is almost fully invested. Left at quarter to 12 for Logans where I did some shopping for zinnias and peppers. Found both then went to a lunch meeting with the TAVS group. Very nice lunch. I had the veggie sandwich. Afterward I planted the small zinnias and the one big girl tomato. On the way home from Logans I stopped at Trader Joes for groceries and also did the Tuesday Krogers run. Dinner was TJ's pasta tortellini in marinara sauce. We watched American Idol tonight. It's the final four.

Worked on gardening today. I planted the zinnias, Marigolds and tomatoes that we bought at the Farmers Market yesterday. I also sprayed for aphids on the roses then mixed up 4 gals of herbicide and went after grape vines once again in the back woods. I think one or two more tankfuls will achieve my goal of the triangle formed by the creek and the two paths. Disturbingly I had another tick crawling on me when I was sitting in the chair downstairs. I took a good scrubbing shower but that's not a guarantee. I heard from David today about genealogy research being done by a girl in WI tracing Chmielewski. Dinner was the other Tilapia from Saturday along with fresh zucchini, sweet potato and Skinny Minty ice cream for desert. We watched Dancing with the Stars after dinner while I looked at investments. The market went up 400 today and i made a few purchases this morning. I may sell the IGD in my IRA which is a CEF. I don't like CEF's although some of them are OK but I've never had any luck with them. I bought at 12.50 but it's down to 11.50. When it gets back to 13 I'm out of here and will get into an MLP possibly if not a beaten down preferred.

Mothers Day. Libbie made some delicious strawberry pancakes for breakfast. They were cut up from yesterday so they juiced a little. She used that juice to make the pancakes and withheld some of the milk. They were thicker than usual but light and yummy. I picked up a Sunday paper earlier and read it while she went to the greenhouse. I went outside and rototilled the garden spot for the tomatoes. We had sourdough bread and tuna sandwiches for lunch then went to the farmers market for plants. Bought two large pots of zinnias for $6 and two 4 packs of tomatoes for $1 each. We also found 2 six packs of marigolds for $2 each. When we got home we weeded the rose garden where the plants will go then I planted our Dahlias from last year and watered them in. I deferred the other plantings until tomorrow. The grape vine killing project is doing well. There are dead vines in many places.

I worked this morning trying to do a MAAVS restore on X10 hosting but this was not successful.Its pretty windy today but 90 degrees. We took a walk around looking at some of the grape vines
I killed with roundup and noticed the wonderfully large grove of ferns we have growing. I attempted to identify them online but then Libbie suggested we go to the NC Botanical garden in chapel Hill. We went there and noticed the signs that this was graduation weekend but fortunately UNC doesn't graduate until tomorrow. We had an enjoyable time in the gardens. I brought the new Canon 7d and liked how responsive it was but focusing is an issue until I learn to spot focus. We bought a Northern Maidenhead fern for our woods in their self serve plant sale area. On the way out of town we found a Fresh Market where we bought some wine we had tasted as well as parmesan tilapia and asparagus for dinner. After dinner I read my camera manual.

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.