Continued the plaster job this morning. Went out to lunch at Logans. We had the crabcake sandwiches - yumm. Bought the needed rocks to dress out the pond. They look good. The biofilter started overflowing today. Went under the porch and found the shower drain was plugged with scum. I may be able to just remove the drain and run free flowing. On the way back from Logans we stopped at Trader Joes and got wine and some other foods. Dinner was ribs, steamfresh veggies and Shiraz. Very mellow. I finished the New Moon Rising book. Outstanding. We definitely have to go to St Simons island now.

Started plastering the corners of the Playroom. I also looked at temperature measuring upstairs. I'll probably go with a Hobby Board and 3 or more sensors wired to it. The pond continues to function normally. Dinner was pulled pork barbecue on a sandwich round. Very good.

Went into the attic this morning to install the junction box. Instead of a Lowes trip I took a junction box that was mounted in the shed. This was fine. Got it all hooked up and went downstairs to turn on the circuit breaker and BAM - it blew. Went back upstairs and actually disassembled one of the outlet boxes thinking the short was in there when I noticed I had my cable with the intentional short still plugged in from troubleshooting. Disconnected and tried the breaker again - this time all was well. I plugged all the light stands into the new circuit. When the mail came my pond pump and "Exposure" book came. The book is a new one I saw on GMA about teen sexting and how one woman's son got in real trouble. The Pond Pump went in and energized at 4:30 PM. I'm marking the date here to see how long I can make this one last.
Dinner tonight was BLT. On mine I put a fresh banana pepper. It made a big difference - crunchy and flavorful. After dinner I went to Apex Walmart and bought fish food/pond pellets/ The 5 pound bag was $13 but the 10 pound was only $19.95. 5 pounds lasts over 6 months, so that's all I bought. The IRA closed at 401,700 today! Just last month it was in the 390's. wow.

I went up into the hot attic this morning after trying to do some debug on the playroom outlets. I decided to cut the line in the middle and see which end was bad. It turned out that the line in the wall next to the stairs was open. I went back into the attic with a drill and drilled a second hole for the wire to go down into the wall. Libbie was below and I took the roll of wire into the attic and passed the end down until Libbie grabbed it from below. I hooked it up into the box with the sockets and re-assembled the box into the wall but did not go into the attic to hook up the junction box. Took a shower and lay on the bed a while reading "New Moon Rising" until it was time to leave for the Memory for Movement Workshop. The Workshop was at 6:30 by Susan Day of the Duke Memory Lab. It was pretty good. We did some live demos trying to remember dance steps, then watched a few live videos of professional dancers and wrote down what we saw. She then gave us some tips about how to remember steps and a performance. We learned Chunking, Naming steps, Capturing a performance in our mind, doing the steps with some part of our body. This was reinforced with Castanets that she played. She also did some dance movements and had the participants try to remember the sequnce, first without names for the steps then with names. It was easier with names doing sun, cover the flowers, pet the daog, etc. After Duke we went to Thai Lanna in RTP for dinner. The wine was terrible. I have never had such bad wine, even the Merlot we ordered to replace the House Cabernet was not great. We had Spring Rolls as an appetizer then we both ordered Chicken Pad Thai. Libbie had hotness #2 and had #4 out of 5. It was really hot, the way I liked it.

Fourth of July. I spent the day running the conduit down to the tool room in the garage and wiring up the aux breaker box. Unfortunately, the power only goes to one outlet. The outlets on the other side of the room don't have power. My goal was to finish the power by 4th of July. It didn't happen. We had Nathans hot dogs for lunch for our 4th of July celebration. I chopped up a Vidalia to put on my hot dog in the bun. For dinner Libbie made her pizza because we didn't have pizza yesterday. I don't know what to do about the power problem. I got a lot of pages read in the second of the St Simons Trilogy. I really like this book, "New Moon Rising".

This morning I cut a plywood piece for the aux box mounting. Installed the box then cut the flexible conduit to fix. Ran the wire to the main breaker panel inside the conduit and mounted a circuit breaker and routed the ground and neutral. Closed the main panel up - this part of the project is complete. I had to go to Home Depot for a ground strip since the new box does not come with one. Mounted the ground and hooked up the aux cable to the inside busses. Tomorrow I will run the A/C line from upstairs through my closet completing this project phase. Dinner was brisket and corn on the cob. Yummy. I have been reading the New Moon Rising Book and have been really getting into it.

This morning I did some research and reading of reviews of Pilobolus. Took the Memory Lab quiz online and signed up for a workshop scheduled for Tuesday at 6:30. Looked at some sculpture poses for Tammy. She wants to pose, I'm not sure if I'm up to this or not.
In the garage I rerouted some breakers and got the surge suppressor installed. I'm happy it arrived so quickly. I'm using this opportunity to add the aux panel as well, something we need for the extra light stands and attached greenhouse. We went to the Farmers Market today - very busy on a Holiday afternoon. Stopped by BJ's for ribs on the way home. The girl sampling wine was worthless. She was calling a Cabernet a "Claret". She also said it had blackberries in it. wrong! Dinner was corn, ribs and Shiraz. We had the last of the ice cream for desert.

I had to pay Stoneybrook first thing today - it was due yesterday. Also did some bill paying online of Home Depot account. The market has recovered nicely and all my divvys for June are now in. Wish there was more. Talked to Andrea a little about her tale of woe with cupcake orders and no overn, then no power. Joe Bruns has endorsed Zencart. Now if the EC will follow suit all will be good for the library project. We had a simple dinner of BLT before going to Pilobus at DPAC. Never been there. Had some trouble getting around since there was a game going on. Navigated the area and parked in the garage next to the DPAC. It's a nice facility. We loved the Pilobolus performance. Two things stand out - the solo dance with two hovercraft called Seraph and the last number which was "Day Two". We have seen Day 2 many times, the girls dance topless which is always nice. Pilobolus dancers have wonderful bodies. After the performance we stopped by Goodberry's for ice cream.. I had the concrete feature which was Pistachio and Pineapple. Yummy. Overall it was a very nice night. On the drive to DPAC we called Christa for her birthday.

I went into the garage and started using the new 2x4's I bought yesterday. I assembled a large rectangle 8 feet by 40 inches. Unfortunately, on one of the corners the nail gun double fired. The first nail went into the wood while the second one hit my left index finger. Oh, what pain. It's throbbing 6 hours later as I type this, and I cam only type with one hand sort of. I'm using a finger or two on my left hand occasionally. This morning I bought tickets to Pilobolus at dPac. We have never been here. Ticket cost was $114 for 2 seats in row s.

This morning I went to TigerDirect and picked up a new switch for upstairs. This fixed the problem. All is well once again. I ordered a GE THQLsurge whole house surge suppressor for our electrical panel but this won't fix the Ethernet lines which are still vulnerable. Worked out in the garden tying up everything that fell in the rain. Pounded some more poles into the ground for the rest of the tomato plants to be tied. I bought these in Home Depot today along with 4 2x4's to experiment with light shelves. I want to build a large light stand. After a dinner of corn and BLT's, we left for ADF. We had a wine and cheese tasting in the lobby before the performance and then went to our seats in row P which was far back but OK. These were Groupon seats, $28 for two. The Rosie performance was long with lots of skits involving dancing and music, including a Soprano singing very nice operatic arias. After the performance we stopped at Goodberrys. Got there by going down Davis from I-40 which was weird but a great way to get there. The place was very crowded with hundreds of swim team kids crawling all over along with the normal assortment of teenagers.

While GMA was on I played What IF with flights to Lonestar and also to Beaumont. The best way is to fly Southwest to Houston round trip. We can arrange for the Beaumont trip on either end of Lonestar. I left at 9:40 to get Libbie from the airport. Her flight was on time. After resting at home briefly we went to the Farmers Market for the TAVS meeting and lunch. Picked up some produce after lunch. Late in the day we had a really good rain and lightening storm. It seems to have taken out the upstairs switch. There was a loud snap inside the closet. Dinner was just corn and ice cream (Mango Sherbet).

Got up bright and early to check Libbie in at 6:05. When I did the check in it failed. Called Southwest and found her flight takes off at 7:05, not 6:05.
The fish pond is really looking good. Dinner this evening was Trader Joes BBQ with baked beans. I ate too much. Picked up a carton of Mango Sherbet which is yummy. My favorite flavor to date.

Had a nice time this morning. Packed up to head out at 12:30 and Libbie called at that moment. At the greenhouse I brought the miter saw, some extension cord and nails. As i cleaned up a board of nails I cut it into lengths to build a lightstand. At 4:30 I brought everything home and hooked up the nail gun in the garage and assembled one shelf. i'm not happy because the wood is splitting badly with the framing nails, even when I switched to smaller nails (2 inch instead of 3 inch). Dinner was a beanburger and Bushs baked beans. I'm certainly getting my fill of beans! Went to bed after reading a chapter of New Moon Rising by eugenia price. this is the second

Went into the attic this morning and implemented the permanent fix for the hole in the duct. Cut a piece of metal and caulked then screwed it onto the ductwork. Next step was to tape the seams with aluminum duct tape and then cover everything with aluminum faced self stick insulation. Finished in the attic for now. One thin i noticed, after the A/C stops the ducts still have cold air in them. The room temp was 81 and I turned the fan to on and measured the air temp. It was 74. I need to run the fan a little longer after the compressor turns off. Possibly I need to measure the delta difference between the room and the ducts and use that. Dinner was vegetable lasagna followed by a Klondike bar. In the PM I went to the greenhouse and finished taking apart the fallen bench. Started cleaning up the 2x4's as well by pulling nails. Got about half of them done.

I left at 9:30 this morning for a 10:00 appointment at Leith for an oil change and tire rotation. Even with a $34.95 coupon the bottom line was $42. The good news was i did not have to rotate the tires. Changing the oil is easy, rotating tires is bad news. On the way home I stopped at Northern and bought a fiberglass handle rubber grip 4 pound sledge hammer. Went over to the greenhouse after lunch and started knocking the wood apart of the fallen bench. It was hot and I got pretty tired. I almost crawled to the car I was so weak and overcome with heat exhaustion. Dinner was a bean burger which totally revived me.

Drove out to Tony Avents in vain. Came home and went up to RTP. There is an amazing amount of new construction going out 55 to the Park. In the evening I took everything out of the workshop closet and started running the conduit with the wire in it for the upstairs wiring. I got tired so I stopped working on the project. Dinner was Vegeterian Pad Thai from Trader Joes. It had a strong garlicy flavor which I didn't care for.

Spent most of today making a schematic for a temperature monitoring system in the upstairs. I want to know what's going on with the A/C and why it's performing so poorly. Dinner was a Bean burger. Yummy

Today started very early. We got up at 4:15 and then were out the door at 4:40 am for Libbie's 6:10 flight. Came back at 5:40 and laid down on the couch. I slept for about an hour and woke up very groggy. A little bit of breakfast woke me up but I was still very much out of it. Shortly after 9 I went to Great Clips and got a hair cut that I'm happy with but she didn't thin my hair on top. It seems to be bushy to me. Dinner was TJ's Chili Rejeno which I really like. I had Krogers chocolate cherry truffle for desert which is bad considering I've been good all day. We had a thunderstorm at 9 and then another one overnight at 2 am. I had to disconnect the driveway alarm for the second one.

The Japanese Beetles have arrived. I didn't have any powerful insecticide so I used Malathion as a short term and put down systemic granules for a long term solution on the three roses. The big advantage to Malathion is I was able to spray the vegetable plants. The garden is looking good and also the outdoor pond is coming back to life with the new bio filter. I made a Trader Joes run for Libbie because she needed almonds. I picked up some Thai salad for our lunch and pasta for dinner. I completed the Pasquale schematic and made an attempt at layout but I didn't like some of the footprints I used so I aborted it.

This was a slow day. It was Fathers Day and I decided to hang around and read and not do much of anything else. Joe never called for Fathers Day today. It's pretty dry outside, I may have to water the plants again. Took a look at hardware for an RS485 network. I think I'll have to send out for client cards to be made. We skipped the RLT performance today, Three Penny Opera. Dinner was Libbie's excellent pizza. She has perfected thin crust pizza. I had to go out to Krogers earlier to get cheese.

I finished the Eugenia Price today. Loved it. I'm going to read the next in the trilogy, New Moon Rising. Late in the afternoon, 5 PM, we went to Fresh Market for Almond Crusted Salmon and Sourdough bread which we had for dinner with fresh asparagus and shiraz.

Worked outdoors this morning. I routed the electrical wire for the replacement pump. Next step was to tie the plants to stakes including peppers, tomatoes and Dahlias. I weeded the tomatoes which just about killed me, literally. I felt really weak and possibly slight chest pains. I need to lose some weight to get in better shape. This can't go on. Looked at how to pay bills. Schwab has a hold on my funds transferred in from Scott. The Visa is due next week and the condo maintenance is due at the end of the month.
For dinner we had a Groupon for Dixie Belles BBQ. I paid $7 for $15 worth of food on Groupon. We bought a full rack of ribs with 2 sides, baked beans and loaded potato salad. The bill was $16.98 which was pretty good. We had the ribs with Shiraz at home then went out after dinner to Krogers for a carton of Moose Tracks frozen yogurt. In the mid afternoon today I came in to rest and chose to lay on the bed and read the Eugenia Price "Lighthouse" which I'm really liking. Unfortunately Andrea called in the middle of my read to vent about her run in with Rob and Olive over the Commercial DVD tour.

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.