Didn't get out of bed until 8 AM. What a shocker. The ribs didn't sit well with me during the night. I had to take an antacid in the middle of the night. Will tone that down in the future. Hung the picture of the boating party on the wall. I ended up using some wall anchors from above the TV to hold the picture. Now I need to patch the wall over the TV. The TV needs something in the corner. It doesn't look too great, actually it's kind of junky. Made some BP calls but no results. Verizon charged my account $4 for no activity. I ended up adding $15 to the account even though the credit card is straining this month. I'm having a little shortness of breath today, I think it's from the overly huge dinner last night. I won't ever do that again. Today I had just an Orange besides breakfast so far. Went to Publix and picked up some single serving veggies, broccoli and carrots with Italian seasoning. Only 40 calories per serving! I had the leftover ribs with the veggie. Finished up the Phobos software. I'm happy with the display. I used simulated data and then watch variables to see how the data would be formatted, Went out to North Sarasota in the evening. Tamiami is not crowded at night like it is in the day. I spent some time this afternoon scrubbing the baseboards in the condo. Still need to dust and clean the chandelier and table top.

Slept a little late today. Didn't wake up until 7:10. Tried the backup drive power supply on the boom box. It works fine. Now I need something for the backup drive. The boom box will run on batteries if necessary. After GMA this morning I worked on the program for the packet some more. Using the simulator and simulated data, I've been stepping through the telemetry routine. All seems well. Started writing the functions to display packet telemetry formatted for the LCD. Went over to the clubhouse at 6:50 to pick up an order of ribs. They weren't ready until 7:15. The clubhouse was incredibly busy. Spent the rest of the evening listening to Simon Boccanegra live on Sirius. I really like Dmitri Hvortovsky. Such a nice baritone. Went to bed at midnight.

Got up at 6 and was out the door at 6:44. Stopped in Florence for a biscuit and to pee. Gas was 2.89. Topped off again in St Mary, GA exit 2. Gas there was 3.03. stopped at McDonald's for a single hamburger, medium fries and medium drink. Very nice drive, the weather stated out misty but cleared off nicely. It was warm and clear in Florida. Even Orlando was trouble free. I sailed through there at 3:30. I was in Lakeland at 4:09. There were a lot of speed cops on I-4. I saw the usual motorcycle enforcement in Lake Mary andd several State troopers West of Orlando. I reached the condo at 5:40. After talking with Lib went out to Publix for milk and bourbon chicken for dinner. I really blew the diet today!!!! Will get back in track this week.

I finished debugging the packet to Phobos interface. Found a wiring error, finally verified that the data is getting to the UART pin. The break didn't trip so somehting's not working. started packing instead then Lib came home so we went to find her a coat that I promised. Went to Kohls, then to the Cary mall to Macy's, Belk and dillards. The coats are kind of light. got the packing done early so layed down and read some more. For dinner we had wheat spaghetti and a slice of wheat bread.

Worked on getting a 232 level converter wired tot he Phobos card. dinner was pad from a whole foods box with Libbie's checken.

I put a long days effort into Phobos getting the 4 bit LCD to work. The CPU was fuse programmed for a 1/8 clock. Fixed that. Next I worked out which nibble gets sent first and what nibbles are used to initialize the display. Through trial and error and dumb luck I also worked out the delays needed after each mode data and command. I went outside and worked a little on moving some more logs. Now there are two big logs and one half log left. It looks like I'll be going down to Sarasota this Wednesday. In preparation, Libbie and I bought a frame with glass at Michael s in Crossroads. On the way back from Crossroads we stopped at Trader Joes which was very crowded. I enjoyed two shapely ladies in form fitting leggings with just a sweater over. Very nice! Libbie made a yummy pizza, I was very hungry since I'm on a calorie deficit. We watched the Golden Globes red carpet then the Golden Globes. Natalie Portman won best actress for Black Swan, a movie we saw in Apex. That was the night we went to Lonestar afterward.

Tried a weigh in this morning, I was down another pound. Libbie attributed this to Tilapia and Broccoli, both of which were low calorie. I added the fact that I worked on moving logs as an exercise aid. I worked on getting Phobos working in 8 bit LCD mode. Finally when I disabled the UART the thing worked. The UART shares a pin with the LCD which is why the next step is to reduce the LCD bus to 4 bits. Spent the day rewriting the LCD routines but haven't tested them. Went to Lowes and Home Depot looking for a small gas heater. Bought a clearance model from Lowes for $104 marked down from $139. This is for my shop. Traviata was live from the Met this afternoon. Enjoyed the broadcast while Libbie got many calls from her siblings regarding her Mother who is in the hospital after a fall. The LCD came from Byonics. It was a kit I put together and got working on the TinyTrak. It works well displaying what is received by TinyTrak. Dinner was salmon and peas with mushrooms. I finished reading Sandra Brown "The Switch" after dinner. Libbie gave me a boook from Jack Shannon, "Four Corners of the Sky" which i started reading.

I weighed in this morning at 237.5. I don't know my start weight a week ago but I put down 240 on the Sharecare weight loss web site a week ago. I worked some more getting Phobos code with an 8 bit LCD ready before modifying the LCD to 4 bits. This will free up 2 pins for the 232 interface to the packet. Much to do. Went in the backyard and sliced up the maple logs in half so they could be moved. The remaining logs are too heavy to move over to the log pile. I spent a lot of time and only got 2 of them cut in half. Will move the 4 halves of 2 logs tomorrow. A Little bit at a time! Lib and I left for Tigerdirect and Whole Foods. I decided at the last minute to not go to Tigerdirect because it was 3 PM on a Fri afternoon. I ordered a USB to 232 adapter when I got home instead. We went to whole foods for Tilapia on sale but they were sold out. Instead we bought Parmesan crusted Tilapia. Dinner was the Tilapia with broccoli. I feel lighter which is good. After dinner I listened to Walkure on Sirius while reading Switched by Sandra Brown. I have really gotten into the story in this 550 page book.

I thought this was weigh in day for the Dr Oz challenge. It's tomorrow. I was disappointed with my total, only 238 which means I was much heavier than 240 that I put down. Have to cut that shit out!!! Finances continue to do well except we're spending more than my pension provides. I got the Kahlo card working for the packet. Now I have to modify it for 4 bit LCD and a serial interface. Much to do.
Just discovered I have been editing the wrong file. Fortunately I believe MARS is backed up on the external drive. I'll have to check when I'm upstairs. Gave up and decided to read the Sandra Brown book "Switched" while Carmen was live on Sirius. Listened to the end at 11:10. I really got into the Sandra Brown book. It's becoming a page turner. Dinner was chicken Pad Thai which Libbie made from a Whole Foods box of Thai rice. Yummy.

A cold day. I moved one of the logs from our downed Maple tree then came inside to work on building a Kahlo card to re-purpose for the packet system. I moved another Maple log, boy was it cold out. Dinner was bean burger again with onion, tomato, ketchup and rice-spinach steamfresh veggies.

We got a nice coating of ice last night but it wasn't bad enough to take down trees. We had extra gas on hand just in case. Libbie stayed inside and worked on cleaning kitchen cabinets. I worked on the packet radio. In the afternoon I did a grocery run then we both went back to pick up additional items. Dinner was beanburger and mixed veggies.

Waiting for the snow and then ice to start this afternoon. It never happened. We got almost no snow but are supposed to get ice tonight. I struggled today getting the TinyTrak programmed with the USB to serial adapter cables. They don't work very well. I tried Traviata and had much success. It has a normal serial port. I used Traviata over the LAN using the remote terminal login and it worked pretty good. I finally got both TT4's updated with new firmware. Now I have to figure out how to utilize them for communications. Dinner was chicken curry and spaghetti. It was spicy and very good. The Dr Oz program continues with success. I've been food logging everything I eat which is a good way to track weight loss or more accurately, why I'm still fat. We listened to Tosca tonight live from the Met.

Went early for the paper, watched the CBS Early Show then worked on the packet hardware some more. I got it to the point where I was able to apply power but not much further. We took a walk in Seagroves this afternoon as part of the weigth loss challenge. cliff Mitchell, our neighbor, had done a nice job cutting up and splitting the beech tree on our property line. It was pretty cold so we just walked the loop before going home for soup. Talked to Anne this afternoon about kids, albums and violets. Dinner was Libbie's nice pizza again, She started a crust fresh froms cratch this afternoon. Amazing.

The snow never happened last night, there's about 1/2 inch at the Virginia border. Today we have La Fanciulla at 1 PM in North hills. Left home at 11:40 and about the time we got on US 1 it started snowing and getting colder. The temp dropped 10 degrees on our journey to North hills. It was snowing pretty hard when we entered the theater. Fanciulla was lovely. I enjoyed it although some Opera L devotees didn't csre for Deborah Voight. Great opera!!! Very detailed sets, the behind the scenes work looked complicated. On the way home we had a brief slowdown between Western Blvd and Crossroads. Got off at Crossroads and picked up Salmon in BJ's which we had with leftover rice and veggies. We started our Dr Oz weight loss challenge this weekend. This morning I went to Lowes and got an electrical box to contain the TinyTrak4 and Radio. The box is roomier. Before I got dressed for the Opera I spent some time in the garage drilling holes and mounting the terminal strip and other misc screws.

Took apart the dishwasher. The problem appears to be a kinked drain hose. The black plastic hose from Home Depot has 3 kinks in it. I went to Home Depot and got the white corrugated hose that is similar to the one that came with the dishwasher. This seems to have fixed the problem. While in Home Depot I came across a Philips 40 watt equivalent LED bulb that screws into a normal 110 vac socket. I tried it in the back hall and it works just fine!!!! My other purchase was an electrical box for the 2 meter Handi Talkie and TinyTrak 4. I'll mount them along with a terminal strip and toggle switch in the box. Power is a concern. The Talkie needs 12 VDC and the TinyTrak needs 5 volts (I think). Correction: the tiny trak will work on anything up to 15 volts. It has a built in regulator. Dinner tonight was bean burger with mixed Steamfresh vegetables. I started building a cable to go from the tiny trak serial port to the radio but didn't finish.

Stayed inside all day today studying the packet radio controller for the greenhouse. We are supposed to get snow Monday night so I want to have something ready before then. For now I will use Mars with an old 8515 based Fred6 AVR that I have laying around. Printed schematics for Fred 6. I also took a look at the Gesneriad registration which is now available. There is one trip, Chanticleer gardens which I nor Libbie never heard of. I may also sign up for judging school, mainly to learn about Gesneriad growth habits. I also took a look at the design category. Dinner tonight was whole wheat spaghetti with tomato sauce and a little bit of Parmesan. After dinner I tried working on the Art Server on Traviata. I crashed the system making thumbnails. When it was time to go to bed I noticed a flood on the kitchen floor. The dishwasher pump is not working, the tub overflowed all over the place. I left it all after mopping the floor and went to bed. Boo.

Back home this morning. It's a little chilly compared to the past week, 29 this morning. I went outside and worked at cutting up the maple tree and moved one of the logs to the creek. I may have to investigate splitting these logs to move them. Came inside and studied how to implement packet environmental monitoring of the greenhouse. I also discovered some software for one wire devices that may be useful for monitoring Stoneybrook with the NSLU2. I would like to resurrect this thing and utilize it since it has a built-in web server. Dinner was the leftover rotisserie chicken which we had with Steamfresh rice and veggies. This was the 88 cent trial pack I picked up before Christmas. It's good. Tonight UNC ran Don Pasquale from the HD performance. I watched the first act before going to bed.

Got up at 5 am, took a shower and loaded the car. Got going by 5:50 am. Traffic was light, had to stop for gas just after Lakeland for 3.10 per gal. Orlando was a little congested but moving along about 35 mph. Once we cleared downtown we were doing 70 again. Stopped for biscuits at McDonald's in Ormond Beach around 8:50. I-95 was surprisingly empty, went straight through Jax as I usually do, stopped at the SC welcome center then got gas at 2.97 at the first exit just beyond the welcome center. We debated about lunch and had cheese and crackers in the car instead. I topped off the tank in Florence at 2.89. We got home at 4:40 PM. Libbie went out to get the mail from the Post Office and then we went together to Krogers for groceries. We picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner which we had with Steamfresh Southwestern rice and veggies.

This is packing day. We took a walk around one of the streets in the Estates and also explored a few houses for sale over by Walmsrt which were fixer uppers. On the way back we stopped at the clubhouse for lunch. I had a Yuengling draft and a classic hamburger with a side of fruit. At 2:30 we helped take the decorations down from our building. Packed it all in tubs which are stored in our shed. The ground lights which are light nets were wet. We layed them out on top of the boxes in the shed to dry. I'll probably have to put them away on my next trip. Later in the evening we had eggnog with rum, cheese and crackers and beef barley soup. Libbie vacuumed and cleaned the countertops. I touched up some of the paint where there were marks on the walls. We'r enow ready to travel home!

Watched GMA this morning then went out for a paper and Dunkin Donuts at the Dunkin shop on Tamiami. Got back in time to watch CBS Sunday Morning which I really like. We went to Publix for mildew remover then stopped at an open house in the estates. It was an 1800 square foot house for 259. not bad price but the back yard backs up to McIntosh. We had a sandwich and beer at the club for a late lunch. Mine was a BLT. There was a lot of football going on in the grill room. I still don't understand it but I never will. We watched some of the Oprah network on TV today. For dinner we had cheese and crackers and soup.

Didn't get up until 7 am after going to bed at 12:30 last night after the New Years party. Reviewed finances this morning. Total divvys for 2010 were 18806. compared with 14787 in 2009 and 6337 the year before(2008). Wow!!!
We went out for a walk this morning then came back and there was a message from Lorraine confirming our visit. We left at 2:15 for her house taking Tamiami and arrived about 5 after 3. We heard about Ted's spleen removal surgery in Tampa. Tommy drove her there and stayed with her. This was in August and September. We went to dinner at 5:30 to a restaurant in Punta Gorda. Very nice, inexpensive. I had butterfish with crab stuffing on top. Stopped at Lorraines for a little afterwards then went home. Got back to the condo around 8:30.

Up early today at 6:15 AM. I feel quite stuffed from all the eating out that we've been doing. We did a ride South with stops at Tervis Tumbler, Venice Rookery, Walmart, Target and Publix. I had never been in Tervis Tumbler, very expensive plastic glasses that I don't care for. We walked all around the lake at the rookery. They cleared all the Brazilian peppers all the way around. We enjoyed the pairs of nesting birds. looked at Pots and Pans in both Walmart and Target because the ones in the condo are scratched and in bad shape, especially the 2 quart sauce pan. We saw a few possibilities. I think I may go with ordinary stainless without the non stick coating. Picked up cereal, OJ and soup at Publix before getting back to reading. finished the Claire Cook book, "7 year switch". Nice "what will I do with the rest of my life" book. We showered and left for the club just before 7 for cocktails and hors d'œuvre. We had cheese and hand pass with 2 glasses each of Sauvignon Blanc before switching to Cabernet for dinner. Dinner was sea bass and fillet. We joined Peter and Christa's friends, Tony and Siggy, Heidi and Hans, Hurda and ?. It's a nice group of mostly Europeans except for Heidi who is from Vermont. Heidi and Hans are from MA, Hurda is from Canada and Tony-Siggy are Germans. At midnight the husband-wife band had a countdown, we toasted and kissed then they played one last song that sounded like a Polka and they said good night everyone. we were back home by 12:08. Amazing and fun night.

This morning we chose not to go to Disney World. The park was closed on Tuesday 2 hours after it opened because it reached capacity. We decided not to join the crowds. It's supposed to be in the 70's today although it's quite cloudy this morning.
We spent the whole day inside reading. Took a little break in the PM by going to Comcast about the cable bill and then parked at Marina Jacks and walked around the bay front. Went to rib night at the clubhouse. We had a reservation in the dining room for ribs. Service was very nice, white table cloth dining. I had the half rack with Shiraz, baked potato, salad and veggies. Quite nice. Came home and read my book some more before going to bed at 9:15 PM.

Watched the snow woes of the NorthEast on GMA then started reading about weather stations. I'm going to implement something in conjunction with my greenhouse monitor stuff. Lib and I walked to the front wetland area in Stoneybrook then came back, got in the car and went to Publix for some supplies. Came back and listened to Il Trovotore on Sirius satellite. Went at 6 PM to pub night. There were no tables so we waited in the lobby. A couple sitting at a table for 6 offered to share their table with us. We met them after dinner, they were nice. Names were Penny and Rich. They have lived here for 2 years and love it. For dinner I had a cajun seafood souffe which was shrimp and cray fish with rice. Very nice. We had 2 glasses each of house Cabernet. Came back and read some more about weather instruments.

Wow, what a day. It started out very very cold (for Sarasota). It got down to 27. Our thermometer was showing 30. My first activity was to mix some epoxy and use the new bar clamp across the top of the refrigerator to attach the hook for the clock to the side of the refrigerator. It worked! The clock has stayed up all day. While the epoxy was setting I tackled the carbon filter under the sink. I also punched a one inch hole in the sink to mount the filtered water faucet. Got everything mounted and the filter working smoothly. Next task was to put the broken clock back together. It was in pieces from the last time it fell which was Thanksgiving. Took a trip to home Depot and bought an aluminum filter grill to replace the rusty one on the A/C input. The aluminum one was $75, the steel was $30. I bought the aluminum so that hopefully there won't be anymore rust. I had to cut one inch into the sides of the Sheetrock to change the filter size from 18x18 to 20x20. I'm very happy with how well it fit into the opening. There was a wood header at the top and bottom which allowed me to screw the new filter assembly into. The filter is solid and looks great. We went to the club and had dinner in the grill. It was pretty full but tables were available. I had a special, Tilapia with shrimp Rosetto. It was very tasty. We had 2 glasses of house Cabernet each. When we got home there was a call from Lorraine. We're going to get together this Saturday after our New Year bash on Friday night. This will be fun.