I went over to Home Depot with my 12 months no interest coupon. I ordered the GE Oven and got it for $200 less thanks to a price match. I had to hang around a while waiting for a manager to approve what they call a competitive price match. When I got home I started disassembling the old oven and sliding it out. I ended up putting a speaker in front of the oven and sliding it out onto the old speaker cabinet. We got some pretty good rain tonight which we so desperately need. Lib and I took a walk around the back. There's a baby swing in our backyard now thanks to Bonnie and Oliver. We also met the Realtor that worked with Joe on lot 67. There are a lot of house starts going on, a lot of them are sold which is surprising. There are houses standing there that weren't there a few weeks ago. Dinner was chicken pad Thai which came out of a package we picked up in Whole Foods a few weeks ago.

We slept until 7 this morning, a little late. I got right up and started working on the article. I had to take the photos of the Phobos and the system photos, then modify the schematic and create a schematic for the relay. I updated the documents and finished writing the complete documentation. We had mushroom soup then I got ready for the play. We left at 2:15 and got there with enough time to walk through the rose garden. since this is February, there wasn't much in bloom except the daffodils and a cherry tree. The play, "The Man Who Came to Dinner" was quite funny. About a grouch who fakes his recovery after falling on ice Christmas 1939. We kept laughing throughout it was so good. Got out at 6 and home by 6:15 after dropping a squirrel off at Krogers that was below the feed in the trap when we got home. Changed back to jeans and finished up the contest entry. Finally, at around 7:00 I submitted the entry to Circuit Cellar. Done!!!! Libbie managed to pull off a wonderful pizza despite the fact that we got home after 6. Now I can relax and watch the Oscars. The Red Carpet so far seems to be conservative. Stayed up until the end at 11:30. It wasn't a bad Oscars. Anne Hathaway was a co-host, she's pretty, but there was no controversy and no surprises.

I wrote a few more paragraphs before we had to leave for the Opera at 11:15. Libbie talked to Jim Fatata and he agreed to buy our one Lucia ticket that we won't use because Libbie is going to PVD. The Opera seemed to be sparsely attended and short. Both Placido and Susan Graham had colds, Peter Gelb came out before the opera to ask our indulgence. The Gluck music was fantastic. We could tell Susan had a cold. The performance was magnificent. We stopped at BJ's and picked up ribs. Lib got a swimsuit. Next stop was Trader Joes for Shiraz. Dinner was Ribs, peas, Shiraz and a salad. After dinner I continued writing even though we finished a bottle of wine.

I kept at the mbed web server today. Studied some other server implementations and did a one for one compare of the classes on the working versions and my version. I didn't uncover any appreciable differences. I had a breakthrough when I discovered that the webserver needed to be constantly polled. The other routines I put in a ticker poll which is sort of like an interrupt. The web now works but not that great. It seems to hang up now and then and freeze. I picked up a new Ethernet driver from the mbed guys but that didn't help much. After a BBQ sandwich we left for the NC symphony at 6:45. Sat in on a pre concert lecture which was pretty good. We enjoyed the symphony, especially the guest conductor from Mexico. He was animated, crisp and lively. Program consisted of Argentinian contemporary piece, Copland Billy the kid and Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances. This was our first time in Meymandi Hall. The hall is lovely, the symphony sounds great. What a treat. We left Meymandi at 10 but had to stop by Krogers for milk on the way home. Lots of people at the self checkout at night! Unbelievable. Once home I continued to work on the article part of the mbed project.

Still trying to get the mbed running. I went out to Lowes in the afternoon and bought a floor lamp for the Family Room using a $10 off coupon. I'm not sure I like it but I'm giving it a fair trial. The fish pond third drain is now painted and ready to go on. I did an experiment where I blocked 1 of the 2 drains and the water didn't go too high, still within the container. I'll work on the mbed till complete before messing with the fish pond anymore. Dinner was stuffed flounder with broccoli. I got an eMail in the afternoon with a 2 for one offer from the Symphony. Looked around at Ticketmaster tickets but decided to call the box office. The nice young lady sold me the 2 for 1 tickets over the phone. We just watched a Meymandi Hall story on the WRAL news. It's the 10th anniversary of the hall and we've never been there.

I worked on the mbed variables then started building a cable to attach the TT4 and an amplified speaker. Once I got everything hooked up and working I was really disappointed in the http performance. The web page hangs almost all the time. Serial data doesn't always make it either. Not sure what's wrong. I suspect the device is underpowered for the amount of software. I'm wondering if I strip it all down and use my own software if it will be better. In any event, I drew a diagram and will photograph the system for the contest entry. I have seriously been looking at an atmega128 with an attached wiznet. The development system is $100 at Saelig and the device is $35 which seem reasonable. Dinner was salad and BBQ sandwiches.

This morning I studied the RPC variable class for mbed and implemented it. Went to the grocery store for Tuesday groceries before testing it. Wow, everything has gone up. My coffee is 10.99, it regularly was 6.99. Cereal is now 2.49 instead of $2, OJ is 2.69 instead of 1.79 and bean burgers are 4.19 a box. They were 2.99 on sale before. It's noticeably colder today. It was 46 when I went to the grocery store, compared to 76 yesterday.
Dinner was whole wheat spaghetti with a salad.

I worked all day on understanding http better on the mbed. I decided the best approach may be to use an old fashioned web server to more easily implement a dynamic web page. Worked in the garden and mowed the dead lilies and trimmed the rose bushes back for spring. Libbie and I adjusted the waterfall in the koi pond since it was leaking. I also lowered the volume of water going into the falls. Went to Home Depot for a pipe make the third drain in the biofilter. Glued it together and painted it black. Will probably install it tomorrow. Dinner was bean burgers, salad and lima beans.

No newspaper this morning, too busy. Worked on Phobos trying to embed my data into a web page. I found you can read and write the local file system which is a 2 Mbyte flash where the web pages can be stored. We left to go to the Wake county library sale at the flea market. The crowds were huge, the line doubled n front of the building and then went down the side. People were wheeling away boxes of books using hand carts. We chose to walk around in the sun visiting the flea market which was entertaining, then went home. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the mbed software, finally understanding the web stuff a little better. Late in the afternoon Libbie and i picked up a library book. I finished "four Corners of the Sky" which I really loved and found another Michael Malone book, "Sin". Dinner was Libbie's whole wheat pizza with Kroger pizza cheese. It was great. The oven is falling apart, pieces of the lower oven seal are breaking off.

Got Phobos working with the mbed CPU after building it this morning. By the end of the day I was able to serve pages from the device using some of the test programs. Still have a lot of learning to do. We had shrimp salad sandwiches for lunch made from the leftover shrimp from last night. This was the best shrimp salad I ever had. Listened to Don Pasquale live from the Met this afternoon. Dinner this evening was left over ribs from last week along with peas and broccoli. We took a trip to Krogers and picked up a bottle of Rodney Strong merlot, my favorite red next to Ravenwood Zinfandel.

Busy day today. FedEx came with the AP boards for Phobos. Good new, bad news. The Magjack fits perfectly. The mbed spacing missed by 0.100 inches. I think I can make this up by utilizing wirewrap sockets with long leads and bending the leads at an angle to fit. Went to the greenhouse and struggled putting the modine back together. It's hard work bent over like that and making sheet metal pieces meet correctly so they can be screwed down. I'm almost done with this project. Need to put the louvers back on and screw the end panel back down and the job should be complete. Back at home i worked on getting the BioFilter ready. When Libbie came home we switched the BioBalls to the new filter and hooked up the new pump. The filter output looks marginal, water is covering the openings of both drains, something I did not expect. I inhibited the flow a little with the diverter control but I think I need a third drain, this one should be lower than the original two. We took a trip to whole Foods for shrimp and Bran crackers, went to the Post Office for Rebel's violets coming from Sharon Blose then to Krogers for gas, milk and cocktail sauce. I'm really tired but need to work on one of the Phobos cards. Dinner was shrimp, Basti rice and broccoli with shiraz.

I went over to the greenhouse at 10 and worked the rest of the morning until 1 PM on the heat exchanger for Hot Dawg 1. The job went pretty well but I was sore from bending in odd positions while crawling around on the ground. the outdoor temperature is nice as well. It's 65 out today. Ran out to Trader joes for fruit and supplies then came home to wait for my pump. UPs brought the pond pump. I measured the outlet and went to Lowes to get the correct size tubing as well as a diverter. dinner was bean burger with Lima beans. Listened to Traviata on the met Sirius channel while studying preferreds. I need a $10 preferred for my Roth since I only have $1000 and dividends into this account are very slow. My other choice would be something like 25 shares of an MLP such as EPD.

Jennifer called from the greenhouse that Avery tried to deliver the Modine heat exchanger. I called Avery and said I would do a pick up. Hooked up the trailer and went to Morrisville and got the heat exchanger then took it to the greenhouse. It's huge. Lots of packing all around it. Carried it down the aisle to where the heater is but did not work on it. The greenhouse was busy with JoAnne Raymer, Joann Hoover, Jack Shannon and Jennifer. Libbie stayed home to do book keeping. I went to Home Depot and got one inch fittings and built a new water distribution system inside the bio filter. Since the pump is 1800 GPH into 1 inch tubing I didn't think restricting the flow in a 1/2 inch pipe was a good idea. The plan is to use 1 inch distribution pipe inside the bio filter. The one inch feed to the biofilter will have a 3/4 inch tap for the waterfalls which will allow me to use one pump. I'll put the existing bioballs into the new biofilter. Today I finished painting the output pipes of the biofilter black. Dinner was a bean burger and salad.

Did the groceries then worked in the back woods picking up logs, a hopeless endeavor. Hooked up the boombox upstairs and started on the MagJack footprint again. Finished the footprint, printed it out and held it to the window with a real magjack. Alignment seems good. Finished the schematic and then did a PCB layout. Worked on this all day until I uploaded the gerbers to AP Circuits. The PCB is now done. I made the MARS and PHOBOS PCB common. I really want the Phobos board since the article is based on Phobos but I decided to make it universal for MARS and PHOBOS. I'll order a second mbed from digikey. Dinner was Briyani with fresh cooked chicken pieces.

Gave Libbie my box of candy and homemade valentines card (birds with love poem). She said she'll take the candy to the greenhouse as giveaways. Reviewed some of the Grammy stuff on Tivo today and also assembled the biofilter. Was thinking of hooking it up to the existing pump temporarily. Talked to Arbor Landscaping about the tire tracks. They took the message (again). We worked on the TAVS Show Schedule because Sheila needed this to turn in for approval. Dinner was pasta from Trader Joes.

Did not get a newspaper. Woke early and read my book some more before going to Lowes and reviewing pumps and plumbing. chose not to buy one but got the sandpaper instead. Sanded the box and then painted it black. It's another nice day outside. Didn't do too much else today. Libbie made some excellent mozzarella only pizza then we watched the Grammys. I enjoyed the completely musical show. It went quite well, lots of musical acts. Didn't get to bed until midnight.

Started out int the garage early. Used the nail gun and assembled the support box. This went well. Had to cut a few scraps of plywood for the surrounding walls. Tried sanding but I only have one sanding disk for my drill. Need to buy some sandpaper, possibly with the trip for a pump and media. Left at 11:36 for the Opera. The theater, auditorium 8, was very empty. Supposedly Aud. 4 was full. Saw Jim outside, he said he needs a Peter Sellar haircut after seeing the interview with the guy wearing beads, a flower shirt and spiked red hair!!! After the opera we went to BJ's and got Lloyds ribs and dishwashing soap. Dinner was ribs, garden veggies and shiraz wine. I've been reading Four Corners of the Sky and really enjoying it. It's about Annie who is a navy pilot and her estranged father who is a con artist but dying in Miami Beach. We don't know what mystery secret he's keeping down there on his deathbed. All Annie wants to know is who is her Mother.

Had a nice day. Measured the base for the biofilter but accidentally dumped the fish feeder into the pond. Hope it still works. I left it out drying. Cut some of the filter wood. Need another 2x4. Worked on the "Winners Circle" category of the MAAVS web site. This is a new category with winners of the past.

Made a material list for the pump today. Went to Jerrys for paint for our class then looked at the pond at Logans. They don't have a pump for me. I'll probably use my coupon and get it at Lowes. Dinner was chicken breast with veggies. Glued together the pipes for the biofilter after dinner. Spent most of today trying to recover from a front page error in the website. the introduction is formatting into a very narrow column. Worse, the column setting doesn't seem to work. Lots of hair pulling until I discovered that a <div> tag got inserted into the intro text from a copy/paste. the tag wasn't visible and was reformatting the article into a skinny column regardless of page column settings. I spent two days looking for this but I learned a heck of a lot. Website fixed!!!

Not too bad of a day, it's in the 40's and sunny but supposed to snow tonight. I researched filter pumps and surveyed them at Lowes. The rental check for $2800 came so I went to the Cu and did Lowes again with pencil and paper writing down models, price and power consumption. I would like a single pump for both the waterfalls and the filter. I updated the MAAVS website but screwed up the joomla so that the front page is now incorrect. Dinner was pasta before Libbie had to go out to give a violet talk in Holly Springs.

Bought opera tickets from Fandango for 4 more Met Hd operas. These are pretty expensive, $200 spent in one morning. The Visa signature gives a 20% discount so I spent $160 for $200 worth of tickets. Violet meeting included a lunch of my Broccoli salad and small sandwiches of chicken salad and egg salad. Topic was planning the June violet show. Dinner was leftover salad and sandwiches from the meeting.

Not a great day. Spent the whole day trying to get a heat exchanger for the Modine Hot Dawg. Gorrell no longer handles Modine, they referred me to a company in SC. That company referred me to VanWingerden. The warranty was supposed to be 10 years but I had to send $350 because they didn't know about coverage. In the meantime, the heat exchanger is not in stock and must be custom built. This is going to take a while. Uggh. I'm depressed. We also had to clean the place for a Violet meeting tomorrow. Dinner was the leftover Tilapia from Saturday.

Picked up some more plumbing parts at Lowes for the BioFilter as well as two 50 foot rolls of poly rope for use as filter media. Did some gluingof the pipes and cutting of the plastic grids. The new thermostats are performing well in the house. Watched the Black Eyed Peas halftime show and was disappointed. I so awanted ot like them! Dinner was Libbie's wonderful pizza. Marinara instead of tomato sauce today. Not as good.

Went over to the greenhouse to look at the Hot Dawg in House 1. The heat exchanger is blown. will call on Monday for a new one. Prior to this I went to Home Depot and got 2 new thermostats for the house. The upstairs one failed and needed replacing. I did them both. We went to Fresh Market and got Tilapia which we had for dinner along with purple sweet potatos and Melbac wine. Nice.

It's a crappy day, cold and wet outside. Worked on Phobos some more. this time I implemented the time function so that it doesn't update more frequently than every 3 minutes. This is a requirement of a free account at Pechube. Went to the airport at 3 and picked Libbie up at 3:30. We wnet for dinner to La Cocina. I had the Pollo Chipotle which was outstanding with a Margarita.