We got up early in the Violet /house and went down the street to the Grainery for breakfast. I had a very nice bagel with cream cheese and some excellent coffee. All of /Naples must stop there. Next we went up the hill to say goodby to Rob and Olive. Met Rob at the lookout on the lake when we were taking pictures. Went back down to the Violet Barn to say goodby. Libbie bought a lipstick plant, sunshine sunrise or something like that. headed out of town using GPS and found it took us to Route 17. Stopped in Elmira for McDonalds break and gas. The trip up i-88 was excellent but the Mass Pike was stopped solid at Sturbridge. We bailed out and took Rte 20 to 146 where the journey was better. Made it all the way to RI. Had pizza and wine at George and Marys. Everyone except the Bill Condons was there. We left at 7 when the mornon ball game started and made our way to Seekonk. It's quite far but reasonably priced.

Left Mechanicsburg after breakfast at around 8. We decided to go to Watkins Glen on the way to Naples. Did a gas and donut stop just outside of Harrisburg. Of course we stopped in Mansfield and walked the campus a little. visited the student center where we used the facilities then otured the library which used to be Libbie's old dormitory. At Watkins Glen, Walked the park a little then headed out. i needed a bathroom break badly so we stopped at t public park on Lake Seneca next to Captain Bills Lake Cruises. Got to the Violet Barn at around 2:30. Rob and Olive were very gracious, took us around everywhere explaining each of the areas. We visited the Karen washing pots in bleach. visited the employee work room where they were separating babies for planting. Each had a personal work area. Rob explained his employee manual which shows each task and how it should be done. He also explained that each of the tasks is timed and showed me the timings of what he and olive can do, then what each employee can do average and what is considered minimally acceptable. The manual had detailed pictures showing how to cut a leaf, propagate it, pot a violet, pack a plant for shipping, etc. It's a very good how to manual. The soil room has buckets for mixing 4 different kinds of medium. We saw the A/C water filling a bucket for use in the growing area. I like the benchtops with a resin coated holding tray over each thin sheet of plywood. This makes a giant 4x8 water reservoir. The A/C is distributed by exposed 8 inch ducts with openings every few feet. I need something like this.
We next went out to dinner with Rob and Olive at an American Food place called Poor Richards. I ordered Meatload. Libbie had turkey breast. Very good food. Got a tour of the Violet House next. Incredibly restored old home downtown. The first floor had no sheetrock and had plant stands in their when they have no roomm back up the hill. Amazingly there is WiFi.

Left shortly after 7:30 this morning. Good drive up 95 and then did the West side of the beltway where everything was torn up. Slow going until we got to 270. Still lots of construction but we moved along. Stopped in Gettysburg for gas and McDonalds. Brenda isn't too far from there. We got to her place a little early. They greeted us warmly and took us through all the growing and propagating areas. Showed us packing and the office, then went into the farmhouse for iced tea and brownies. After leaving there we allowed GPS to take us over hill and dale until we arrived at the hotel in Mechanicsburg. Went out to dinner down the street at an excellent Mexican restaurant called El Rodeo. The Margaritas were huge. I had the Guadalajara special. Very good. The Sopopilla afterwards that Libbie ordered was over the top.

Today was an easy day getting ready for our trip. I did a small grocery run picking up milk and cereal. Went to Walmart for new shorts, new socks and a 12 volt adapter for our boombox. Dinner was pasta I picked up in Walmart when I was there.

Started right away this morning carving wood for the new door strike. We need this done before we leave for vacation. Marjorie sent her pictures this morning. Need to get going on that stuff. I'm so down on AVSA. Went outside and tied tomatoes and peppers. One pepper plant broke but had huge gorgeous peppers on it. I used them on my BLT at lunch and then again for dinner. dinner was a bean burger with Vidalia, pepper and tomato. What a flavor delight.

Finished the first coat of plastering this morning in the playroom. In the afternoon we went to Home Depot to get caulking for the playroom window molding. We also looked at new entrance door-sets with a lever design. Our old door handles are getting pretty ratty so it's time to bite the bullet and replace them. They are 30 years old. Libbie made her great pizza again. She has mastered the new oven. she said it cooks slower than the old one. In the meantime I found I needed to lower the door strike but that would put the top hole into the strike cavity. Went back to Lowes and picked up a bigger strike plate. I also exchanged the door lock since i screwed up the keying. The keys don't work anymore.

A guy came over this morning and bought the tractor aluminum ramps for $50. After that I went to the Post Office and mailed the two Alien Bees to Torence, CA. The postage was $38 for priority mail. Got cleaned up and went to Carmike in Morrisville for the Paris Ballet live performance of Children of Paradis. They forgot to switch it on. I went to the usher and reported that it was after 1:30 and the screen was blank. Enjoyed the ballet but Libbie said it wasn't her favorite. I didn't think it was too bad. A unique feature was the ballet on the stairs of the lobby during intermission while the audience was wandering around. On the way home we stopped at Fresh market and picked up a pair of Parmesan Tilapia and some sourdough bread for dinner. Because the bio-filter clogged the other day we decided to clean the sludge out. I disconnected the thing and dragged it out. Libbie hosed the rope and inner parts. Assembled it all and poured some pond flush into the outside pond which is supposed to contain live bacteria to break down the fish waste. We also have a lot of plant waste in the pond from the trees. Dinner was steamfresh veggies, Tilapia and shiraz with sourdough bread.

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.