Saturday Morning
Worked on a cable for the Pisces controller. Hooked it up to the Fish feeder and it works as expected. I'm happy!!! Next step is to package this thing up, my least favorite job. At noon Libbie came home. We had lunch on the back porch - I had watermelon then we went to the Farmers Market for Fresh peaches, blueberries, corn, zucchini and a trailing gardenia. Stopped at BJ's on the way home and got ribs and milk. Couldn't make the turn back onto Lake Pine at Wendy's because they closed the intersection for paving. We went home via Laura Duncan. We encountered the same situation last night after First Friday. Dinner was ribs, Shiraz and peach pie!!!! We had the corn with the ribs - it was the best of the season.

This morning I finished the Memo article and touched up 4 photos to go with the Convention article for the MAAVS Memo and sent them to Ken for publication. I earlier finished up a short blurb about the MAAVS website and sent it to Ken also. I wrote both articles last night during the opera on WCPE but revised them this morning. I did not want to do anything else until this was done and it is!!! The article references the MAAVS website which needs to be updated before publication this weekend. At noon I went outside and sprayed 4 more gallons of Roundup as a touchup on my previous job. Lib came up the hill when I was about out and piddling the remaining around the edges of the septic field. After a watermelon lunch I went to work on the Pisces Fish Feeder controller. I wired up a cable for control and then built a second cable for my power supply. I found the regulator was installed backwards by me. Reversed it and now I have good 5 volt power from an 8 volt source. I made reservations at Caffe Luna for this evening since it's First Friday.
I checked today to see if my State tax refund has been issued. The State website says that it has.
We left at 6:15 for downtown Raleigh and parked in the Moore Square parking lot at the bus transfer station. We first went to the bank where Nicole had a contemporary show and reception. Our next stop was Artspace where there was a 70th birthday party going on for Judy Crane. We had wine there as well as at Nicoles bank show. On the way out we listened to a young band playing mostly Beatle music and other 60s music. At Caffe Luna I had the chefs special which was scallops, shrimp and other seafood cooked into a slice of bread with a filet of Mahi Mahi. It was very good. I had a glass of Rodney strong Merlot with the meal. We went and listened to more Beatles music until Libbie got dizzy and had to leave.

This is my first day back. I installed all the components on the Fish Feeder board which came in while I was away. Went up in the back and examined a large Beech tree that came down blocking access to the dam and the Seagrove development. I need to clean it up before we can use the path again. A note came from Ken Barbi mentioning that I had promised 2 articles for the MAAVS Memo. I got busy and wrote both of them in the evening but did not submit them. Dinner was a bean burger on Vidalia with cherries for desert. We later had a bowl of skinny Minty ice cream. I listed to a Menotti opera, The Medium while writing 2 articles for the MAAVS Memo. Lib did not like it as predicted but I gave it a chance and ended up enjoying it.

Got up at 4 and was on the road by 4:45. I had clear sailing all the way except for thundershowers beginning in Florence. I stopped at McDonalds for a sausage McMuffin in Ormond Beach and then for a second in Kingsland, GA. I also filled up at 2.59. Next was 2 hamburgers, small fries and medium drink in Florence followed by a fillup at 2.39. It started pouring so bad I couldn't see the lanes on I-95. I was soon out of it but then it started again and continued on and off all the way home. Arrived home at 3:43 in light rain but dark and thundery skies. I planned to do lots of stuff at home but once I stopped traveling I just collapsed. Dinner was BLT and Southwest Fiesta Grillin Beans.

The Scoobie is charged and ready to go. I'll set it up in the kitchen this morning before going out. I'll let the noise run while I'm out and about. Took a long bike ride to Dona Bay and back.

Scoobie did good on the floors but didn't vacuum up the water. The floor looks clean. Recharged and did it again in the bathroom. This time it seems to have vacuumed up the water. Cleaned up the rest of the place including laundry. I had Chile Rejeno for dinner with a side of orange slices for desert. Yummy. In the afternoon I went around looking for a hat. Found a nice straw hat in Davidsons on siesta Key.

Went online to read the rest of the 27 dresses movie outcome. I watched the
movie yesterday until the file wouldn't red anymore so I didn't know how it
ended. will have to download it when I get home and watch the ending. Took a
ride in the other direction of the Legacy trail, towards Clark road from the
Sarasota Parkway. Went to the end and photographed the end of trail sign. Went
to Walmart and picked up a square bike seat that claims to have no pressure
points. Mounted this seat and tried a 4 mile bike road around the outside of
Stoneybrook, past the wetlands and down mcIntosh into the back entrance. I'm not
sure if the seat helped since my butt was still sore but I'm going to give it
another try. The bike is performing well but doen't roll easily. This may be due
to the wide tires and cheap bearings. I took a ride down to Venice and had a big
mac and fries for dinner/lunch at 4 PM. I then went to Walmart again and picked
up a watermelon. the melon was from Mississippi!! I really wanted a Florida
melon. Tried surfing around on TV looking for something to watch then went to
bed bored. I'll probably go home Wednesday.

After breakfast I went to get the newspaper. Read the paper then got on the
bicycle and did a short ride through Soneybrook estates looking for "ForSale'
signs. Came back and went online searching real estate. Took a short nap before
heading out to the drum circle. Couldn't get into the parking lot in 2 attempts
so I went to Turtle Beach and walked from the beach to Island Reef and then back
onto Midnight Pass Rd to walk back to the Turtle Beach parking lot. Left the key
and went to Paneras and had a veggie sandwich and French Onion soup. Returned
after sunset and the lot entrance was blocked by Sarasota sheriff cars. They
weren't letting any cars in after dark. Saw a few nice bikinis walking along
Midnight Pass around Siesta beach. When I got back to Stoneybrook I checked
eMail and found that Libbie had fallen yesterday in the greenhouse and was home
injured. I called right away to check on her condition. She was bruised but OK.
Did some work on the 485 network before going to bed.

I slept well last night. There was some thunder and lightning during the night
but I fell back asleep. Woke at 6:30 and watched the morning shows while I
worked on pictures on my computer. I will need to get to the AVSA pics next. I'm
thinking of driving back tomorrow since I have more to do at home than here.
Took the light apart in the bathroom which I have never liked. I may go to Lowes
to get a replacement. I want a stainless "4 banger" like the "3 banger" we have
in the master bath.

Bought the 4 baner light at Lowes. It went in relatively easy. Finished the job
except for painting. I'll bring rollers and spackle when I come in July.

Went over to Ringling at 10:30. They gave me the senior price even though senior
starts at age 65. The Senior rate is $20 whereas regular admission is $25. I
first went to Caas D'Azan which had a wedding going on the back patio
overlooking Sarasota Bay. The house is opulent but not on the same order as
Hearst Castle or the Biltmore. The surprise was the Tibbal learning center which
was thousands of miniature people made in Tibbals workshop over 50 years. He had
trains, circus wagons, lots of tents and big tops. Wow. I then toured the Rose
garden and some of the other landscaping which was lush. I did a walk through of
the Art Museum including the Circus photographs of somebody at the turn of last
century. Dinner tonight was leftover ribs from last night. Talked to Libbie
tonight on my Pay Per View phone. She worked late at the greenhouse today so she
can take tomorrow morning off and get a massage. Tonight I had the leftover ribs
with the veggies and bake potato. I went to Publix and picked up some Sour Cream
for my potato and I also got some chips which I shouldn't have. I watched Beau
Pere which I brought with me. The title must refer to a Stepfather. The premise
is a man is left with the 14 year old daughter of his girlfriend after the
girlfriend dies in a car wreck. A love relationship ensues making this a remake
of Lolita.

I went to Selby this morning and enjoyed the gardens. Next trip was to Ringling
to get pricing info and hours. I was happy with the pictures from Selby. The new
camera really performs well. Focus is quick, exposure is right on and the camera
is fast. I stopped at the clubhouse at 7 and ordered a rack of ribs to go. They
were good but not as good as Libbies. For desert I had Roadrunner frozen yogurt.
I worked on Pisces today. It was delivered to the greenhouse, Nancy signed for
it. The software was not working. The timer code was screwed up, the wrong
interrupt was being called causing the program to reset to the beginning in the
simulator. I got the interrupts and the registers straightened out and set the
timer to 20 MS using the simulator. I'll check it one the scope at home with the
real hardware.

Left the house at 6:45. Traffic was light and the weather was nice.
It was mostly clear skies except for a summer shower around Savannah. I stopped
for a Sausage McMuffin in Florence and topped off the gas tank at 2.45. The
Raceway had a jackhammer in the next stall making pumping gas very unpleasant
but I was there for the price. The sausage McMuffin was unique in that it had no egg like
an egg McMuffin, just some sausage, cheese and the biscuit. It was on the $1 menu which is
why I ordered it. The next stop was St Mary GA where gas was 2.57. This is my
last fill up on the road and should take me all the way to Sarasota. In St Mary
I went to the McDonalds next to the gas station and got 2 hamburgers, a small
fries and a medium coke. I stayed on 95 to I-4 which was excellent. traffic was
light with no issues. Orlando was great althouh it was 3:30 when I went through
there. I stopped in Downtown Disney to take a walk, do a dump in the very nice
clean disney restrooms and buy a bottle of water which was 2.50. The lake breeze
was wonderful, the air temp was 91 according to my car thermometer. The condo
looked great. Somebody added silk wildflowers to the desk and dining room table.
They look nice. The refrigerator has a rust stain running down the front. I
stopped in the grill room for pub night but there were no tables at 7. I went to
Best Buy instead and bought a Virgin Mobile broadband card for $107 including
tax. It took another $20 to activate it for 350 megabytes. It seems to work good
enough for access for eMail and web stuff. I exchanged a series of eMails with
Libbie. On the way home from Best Buy I stopped in Publix and got pineapple,
milk and Bourbon chicken and a cherry coffee cake which I ate after the Bourbon
chicken. The chicken was very good and spicy. I had regurgitation of the chicken
during the night. Perhaps should not have eaten so much food.

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.