A lot of my divvys posted yesterday which was good since I need money to pay the credit card bill for the AVSA convention as well as the quarterly maintenance fee for Stoneybrook. I sold the duke Realty preferreds this morning and picked up some BAC-H which has an 8% yield. Duke only had 6.73% but I made a nice profit buying it in the teens and riding it up to $25. Not bad since it also paid divvys over this period. My retirement cash flow only went up by a few hundred annually with this move but a nickel here and a dime there and we'll have a nice cashflow. I'm waiting for the day that it crosses $50k annually.
Just checked and the divvys from reg ira, roth ira and individual accounts is $51,033. Forget about crossing the $50k boundary, I'm already there. Dinner was Chicken Pad thai. We ate late, about 7:30. Unfortunately, the pond pump quit and I want to return it to Home Depot tonight. Unhooked everything, put the pump and sponges in baggies and headed to Home Depot Cary where I bought it. They exchanged the pump. Also picked up a surface outlet box and conduit for mounting an LED indicator to tell when the pump is on.

This was a successful day. Studied RS485 networking in the morning then went out in the PM and added the 50 more feet of poly to the outdoor filter. Put a grate over the top and held it down with a brick. The filter is now done except I want to bring it indoors under the house for freezing weather. We had pulled pork barbecue early then left at 6:45 for ADF. Got there around 7:30. duke has eliminated all on street parking forcing us to pay for the parking garage. I saw lots of pretty woman getting off the bus in front of Reynolds. There was a wine tasting in the lobby which we did before the performance. I liked Yossi and Berg but Libbie wasn't excited by it. She has a real problem - nothing makes her smile. There were some comedic moments as well as some superb dancing about Zoo animals breaking out of their skin and having human emotions. It was about releasing the inner animal in you. Afterwards we stopped at Goodberrys for Carolina concrete. I had the featured flavor which was pistachio and banana. Yumm. I also liked the many many young women in summer shorts hanging around Goodberrys. Pretty.

This morning I worked on finances and musings catch up. stayed clean for a dental appointment at 11:20. On the way to the Dentist I stopped at Lowes and looked at industrial racks for use as light shelves. They're a little pricey. Perhaps I can recycle the greenhouse benches into light stands. Bought some more poly rope for the outdoor fishpond filter then got to the dentist on time. They were running late. Finally got into the chair and chatted with Dr Beaver and his Yosemite and Monterey vacation. He drilled a filling in tooth #11 and replaced it. It wasn't tooo bad except he said it's close to the nerve and to monitor the tooth. Bad news! The pond continues to improve. Dinner tonight was pasta from Trader Joes this morning.

I went into the attic this morning and ran a 2 conductor thermostat wire from the furnace to the closet in my shop. This is to control the aux AC unit I'm planning to add to the playroom. I somehow need to monitor temperature and factor that into the control mix. I started looking at a 585 network of temperature sensors. These will probably be smart sensors with AVR. The pond continues to do well. It seems to be clearer. I may add more media to the filter as well as a grill across the top to hold the stuff in the water. Sheila sent the Violet show database and I added the major awards. Got one wrong for best design. Libbie and I went out to the Verizon store to replace her phone. I spent some time online with her phone hooked to my laptop's USB port to get a better ringtone for her. I tried a Pachelbel MP3 file. The volume is extremely low. I need to convert to midi and see if that's louder.

Back to normal today. Libbie and i went to Walmart looking for a radio and plastic tub for the niches. We found neither. I used my old trunk instead for the niches. We'll order a radio from Walmart online for her. I worked on the wiring in the playroom. i got most of the cosmetic work done - outlets and boxes installed, wall plates on. I'm still not sure how to handle the supplemental A/C. I think I want to have it run when the house thermostat is calling for cooling. We'll play this one by ear. Dinner was Libbie's made from scratch pizza. It started raining around 6:30 but didn;t really come down too hard. I think we're getting ahead on our pond water. At least it seems to be clearing up and the filter running longer between cleanings. It used to rn for 5 hours but now we seem to get 7 or 8 hours out of it. The water looks better as well.

Got up at 5:45 this morning. Sheila promptly knocked on our door at 6:30. The arboretum opens at 7 for show setup. Libbie and sheila left promptly but I had to get some weeds from the field as well as a fern for my designs then i spent some time looking for the small camera with no luck. I took the DSLR instead which worked OK. I was happy with the pictures. The setup went well. I had to build the niches which went together well with the quilt pins I had. The judges arrived from Richmond around 10 when we were still setting up the show. It was open to the public at 10 as well. We had people waiting at the door to buy plants before 10. The surprise was Ed who came with his guitar, sax, violin and another guy to play music. it was great since he rewrote some of the words to fit a violet show. We delayed lunch a half hour and went over to Iris for lunch. Lunch was $111 for 7 of us. Sheila and JoAnne Raymer payed me cash for their lunch. The day went very fast. Before I had a chance to get photographs, the show was over and the judges were heading back to Richmond. we had Barbara Stewart, Vicki Carr and Bill Schmidt. After we dragged ourselves home we lay on the floor exhausted. Got up and went out at 7 for dinner at La Cocina. We had the medium Margarita which was too large for me. I also left some of the food because I was full from lunch. at Iris for lunch I had the burger with sweet potato fries. It was yummy but a $12 hamburger! Ouch. Our waiter, Kyle, came over to the show around closing time. That was pretty nice.

Studied BP extensively and found interesting people. Went to jerry's Artarama and picked up 2 more poster boards because JoAnn needed a niche and i wanted to have at least one extra. Assembled the design and it looks OK. Folded the maps for tomorrow. I found a piece of foam for the maps but I'll need to nail it to something solid to support it, then cover everything in Sand to hide it. Dinner was BBQ chicken breast again with wine and baked beans. After dinner I went out to Krogers to get a $50 gas gift card for the judges as well as ice cream for us and gas for my car. They seem to have a new way of taking the bonus. You take the whole credit at once. I took 30 cents a gallon with my 300 points.

Went to the greenhouse first thing to fix the flat tire in the garden tractor. It looks like it needs a new tube. Went to Northern then Lowes and home Depot. No luck. Drove to AgriSupply and struck out there as well. Came back and bought a tube in Northern that was a little too wide. Worked on replacing the tube but had lots of troubles. I may have punctured the new tube putting it in. In any event, i lost the valve stem into the tire. Couldn't work too much since Andrea called. Will deal with this after the show. Worked on the Violet show instead cutting the niches and working out my design. Dinner was barbecue chicken with wine and veggies.

Did a run to Jerrys Artarama and bought the niche material for the Violet show Saturday. Talked for quite a while with Andrea about her idea to use a Black Eye Peas song "Time of My Life". Found the album on Easynews and downloaded it. I did some more watering with the green pond water. It's dry out. Watered the Zinnias and Marigolds as well as 3 pepper plants. I need to weed the tomatoes and get some water on them as well. I planted the garden for my natural garden and have an idea for the vacation design. Dinner tonight was Pasta.

I did the grocery run today and also cleaned the pump prefilter a few times. This thing is plugging up about every 4 to 5 hours but I think the water is getting clearer. Did a lot of communicating with Andrea about the Commercial DVD then I watched the tutorial on enabling downloads in Zencart. I now have downloads working satisfactorily. It hasn't rained in over a week so I used pond water to water the new daylilies and the geraniums in front of them. I also watered my Marigolds, Zinnias and Dahlias. I may have to water the bushes as well - the Gardenia and Stella D'ora's are looking dry. Dinner was Jack Daniels pulled pork barbecue on sandwich rounds. I went out after dinner to pick up a box of Skinny Minty ice cream. I'm reading the Eugenia Price Lighthouse book. It's very interesting since it now is covering where James Gould arrived on St Simons Island. I watched some videos of a huge explosion on the sun from yesterday morning. Beautiful!

After studying a few online reviews I bit the bullet and invested in a UV light for the outdoor pond. I decided that the only way to tackle the algae and green water problem was with a light that zapped algae. I got it all hooked up and leak free. I installed a bypass around the UV filter but ended up not using it since flow rate seemed OK. I cut some of the log up in the front yard and also cut one log slice out for a natural container. I used a chisel in the garage to make the center larger but the sides broke on me. I'll still use it but will glue it back together. Dinner was bean burger and a slice of Joe's leftover pizza.
I had a multiple eMail conversation with Andrea and Anne about the Commercials DVD. I was thinking of doing a vendor visit on a circle tour of PA and NY.

I blew off the driveway and trimmed the Spirea while Libbie and Joe went to the greenhouse to swap shade cloths between house 4 and house 1. After that Job I replaced three of the deck boards including the one where I ripped it up to run the filter drain pipe under. Painted the drain pipe black and then dressed up the edge with the rest of the rock that I could find as well as the bag of river rock i purchased a few days ago. Still need more large rocks. Took a shower and cleaned up for the day since Joe is having his friends over for a pizza party at 5 PM. I laid on the bed and read some more of Eugenia Price's Lighthouse which I'm really getting to like.
The party went really well - lots of kids running around. Steve, Brandon, Josh and Cole all made it here with their respective wives and in some cases, kids. It was a nice noisy party with lots of Joe's homemade pizza.

We watched Google Latitude and saw that Joe was crossing the state with an expected arrival of around 11 am. He hung around with us most of the day - took a walk through Seagrove Farm looking at all the new construction before coming back to the house and hanging out some more. For dinner we went to La Cocina where we had the usual Quesadilla with 2 Margaritas. Joe had a huge Margarita which they call large. We had 2 small which was one too many.

Did a Trader joes run and also looked at pumps in Northern Tool. Ended up buying an 800 GPH in Home Depot as well as a roll of one inch tubing. Hooked it up to the filter and promptly overflowed the thing. Went out to home Depot again and bought a 2 inch pipe as well as a 2 inch shower drain to put on the side of the filter to attach the pipe. The filter now works perfectly except for a leak on the inlet port. i'll deal with that later. We decided not to go out to First Friday today but instead had ribs, Lima beans and shiraz. We checked on Joes drive across the state and he appeas to be stopping at the TN/Nc border for the night.

This was a killer day. I worked on the pond all day and was sore all over as well as incredibly tired. Dug out a spot for the upper pond and falls then removed a deck board to drill a few one inch holes. Put the filter under the deck and hooked up the pump but no deal. The pump is shot. I calculated the pond capacity at 250 gallons and the change rate should be 2 changes per hour so the pump needs to be 500 gallons per hour (GPH) minimum. Earlier today Ii bought the one inch pipe and some fittings for the filter drain. I also tried the one new door handle that Libbie calls a "Granny Handle". I liked it so I bought 3 more while picking up the plumbing supplies. Dinner was fresh barbecue chicken with baked sweet potato. Libbie and I went to the Post Office to mail the rock to Arlene for her birthday party then we went to Lowes to look at pond pumps. Nothing jumped out at me. We wound up our trip by going to Krogers for frozen yogurt, our favorite flavor - skinny Minty.

Did some money re-balancing and paid Home Depot $200 of the zero interest bill due next March. $2,000 left to go. This was for the new oven, range and hood. I installed the security latch assembly on the side garage door today. This needed to be done a long time ago, maybe 3 or 4 years, but I just got to it. Caulked the door as well. It's ready for painting. Built the bio-filter today for the outdoor pond. Now I need to rip up one step and run the plumbing and wiring from the pump to the filter. Hopefully the filter can go under the deck since it needs minimal maintenance. Answered some eMail about the library website from Richard and Anne. Dinner was crabcake with tomato and flat bread. It's hot out today, supposed to be around 96. It seems OK to me. All projects went well.

I worked out in the yard. Went to Ace and got some hydraulic cement then mixed some up and poured it below the new door trim. Installed the trim after the concrete cured. It looks pretty good. It's a hot day but I worked in the garden trimming the roses and apple tree. The magnet came from Walmart for Arlene's rock. I went into the shop and glued it on with epoxy. Dinner this evening was pasta that I picked up earlier in Krogers.

Worked on the door frame today. Tried patching below the frame with an old batch of hydraulic cement I found in the garage but it was no go. The stuff didn't cure. Will need to purchase new stuff. We had Nathans hot dogs for lunch today for memorial day. This is a once in a blue moon treat. I dressed mine with Vidalia and brown spicy mustard. For dinner we had porkchops with beets and apple sauce. Very nice.

Watched Sunday Morning which I didn't care for then it was time to leave for the ballet. Ii had to get gas in kogers first. since we left at 10:20 for an 11:00 performance in Morrisville, there was plenty of time. Gas came down a little. I paid 3.55 with grocery points. We got to the theater at quarter of but went in anyway to hang out. Got to see the backstage warmups and listen to the beautiful host, Katarina who spoke multiple languages. Wearing a stunning blue dress with print on it, she had a neckline that plunged to her navel. I loved it. The ballet was the best I have ever seen. We can't wait for more from the Bolshoi. Once again, Libbie made her fantastic pizza.

I put up a very wet ladder on the front window over the garage and tried climbing it with my the screen I fetched from the attic. I slipped on the wet ladder rungs and fell over pulling the ladder and screen with me. Bruised my leg, arm and butt pretty badly. Rested a while then climbed the ladder, scraped the window and installed the screen. I also went to Lowes and bought a new PVC Brick Mold for the side door. I previously removed the brick mold because it was rotted on the bottom. Will fill the cavity at the bottom with cement before installing the new one. In the PM we went to the Farmers market. Picked up some produce as well as plants for our dish gardens for the design entries on June 11. On the way home we stopped at BJ's for ribs and Sargento cheese. It's hard getting in and out of the car with my bruised body. The pain is pretty sharp but since I can put full weight on my leg, nothing is broken.
Dinner was roasted beets, ribs and shiraz. Nice.

Worked some more on the shopping cart and had lots of success. I bought a second domain, this time its avsashop.org. I believe i need to transfer the Netfirms account to avsashop.org to get it configured the way I want or else I'll be stuck with two domains forever. I'm not exactly sure what's wrong with avsashop.com. I like the way this cart is shaping up and I'll definitely consider porting Bluebird over to it. Dinner was Jack Daniels Baby Back ribs with Lima beans and Shiraz.

This was a very productive day. I got the categories fixed on the shopping cart using the "better categories" addon. Next I went up the ladder and washed the two windows and caulked. While waiting for the caulk to dry I mowed the front lawn. Libbie came home for lunch and after lunch I climbed the ladder and painted the two windows. This wore me down for the day. Did some research on SSL certificates and put in a support question to netfirms about Rapid SSL. They answered I could buy a GeoTrust certificate which doesn't answer the question. Dinner was a barbecue sandwich using Jack Daniels pork barbecue which was very tasty. This was good stuff!!!

This was a great day for the Zen Cart installation. I got everything working more or less the way I wanted including image handling and buttons. Dinner was pork cops with green beans. Didn't like the green beans but the chop was excellent.

I worked on understanding the Zencart and almost forgot about the groceries. Went to Krogers and did a minimal purchase of groceries since we didn't need too much. Dinner was Pad Thai which we picked up at Trader joes the other day. It was pretty good. Watched some of dancing with the stars because the Black Eye Peas were on.

I got the OOMA device working correctly this morning. I had a wiring problem plugging the ethernet into the wrong port. I liked it so much I ended up canceling the Vonage service. It also sounds much better than I expected. I'll get the Scout device to make it easier to retrieve voicemail. I spent time organizing pictures and backing up folders. I still don't have everything on the server. Libbie and I went out after lunch today and picked up groceries in Trader Joes. I continued to work on the AVSA Shop shopping cart. There's much I don't understand about templates, etc. Dinner was pasta we picked up in TJ's today.