This is First Friday but we chose not to go out today. Instead we dined on Tilapia with Baked beans with chipotle and salad and a very nice bottle Rodney Strong Cabernet that came from Walmart today. I finished debugging the timer. We went to Walmart because Libbie broke her Mouse. We had more rain this evening. It has rained a little up to a half inch each day this week.

I finished the flower timer software this morning and worked on packaging it up. Mounted the timer on the wall along with a box to contain the power warts. Worked outside on the water hoses for the grow boxes. We currently have a small pepper, a small cuke and a small tomato. Looking good. Wired up the two new solenoids in the greenhouse for a pretty full day. Dinner was grilled chicken with beets and potatoes. Very nice.

The tropical storm Beryl remnants are passing through this morning. The rain gauge shows we got 3/4 inch of rain. The sun came out in the afternoon. When the sun arrived we went to the Farmers Market. It was a good time to go there. Dinner was grilled tilapia with Thomas's sauce. It's better with cajun rub. We had this with the first local corn of the season.

Set the timer up for a violet tower watering. Shelf 204 doesn't seem to have watered. Don't know what's wrong. Will diagnose this later. Dinner was BBQ chicken with potatoes and beets. Yesterday was memorial day so today Libbie is shipping. Lots of click and ship labels to produce. Rebuilt one flourescent light upstairs that did not come on anymore. Put the garbage out this afternoon for morning pickup instead of yesterday because pickup has slipped a day due to Memorial Day.

During the morning shows I worked on the Flower Timer software. It's coming along pretty good. I'm impressed with the LCD backpack module. It significantly cuts down on the LCD wiring. There's a lot of software involved with the timer. Dinner was salad with LA pepper dressing and curry chicken over whole grain pasta.

In the morning I installed Fedora 16 Linux on the Zotac Atom processor. I also got Xampp installed and running. Autostart is a challenge. I'm also having trouble getting a fixed IP on the device.
Today I mounted the Flower Timer and the LCD inn the plastic case. Had t solder connectors on the LCD backpack and the LCD module then hook the I2C lines up to the relay 4 board. All this went pretty well. We had a nice surprise this afternoon as the skies opened up and th rain came down in buckets. This was a welcome sight for the flower garden. Dinner was Libbie's super pizza.

I mowed the lawn this morning and then took a quick shower after lunch because Jack and Barbara were coming over. I also got the bubblers working on the butterfly bush. Jack came and brought some plants one of which I will need to add another bubbler to because it's in a large pot next to the deck. Dinner was ribs with beets, potato and shiraz and salad with LA pepper dressing.

This was considered a wasted day. We spent all day shopping. Went to AgriSupply for roundup and a pesticide duster. Nxt stop was Wyatt Quarles for a few bags of potting soil. Stopped into BJ's and got ribs and yeast. Saw Brian Stevens there. He was picking up Ice on the way to the beach. Next stop was the Credit Union to get $20 cash by cashing th Hoover rebate check. Stopped into the Farmers Market for peaches, beets, potatoes and tomatoes. Dinner was Krogers frozen salmon filets with beets and potatoes and a salad with LA pepper dressing. Libbie needed gas so we took both cars to Krogers and filled up for $3.15 per gallon using grocery points which was a 40 cents discount.

I installed Ubuntu Linux on the Dual Atom today. It seems pretty snappy. I now need to get a Xampp package for it so I can do server type things. I want this box for serial communications with an NCID modem and also TCP communications with an Arduino or possibly Xbee too the Arduino. In the afternoon I tried to hook waterers to the butterfly bush but failed. The plugs I used are solid plugs rather than taps for water lines. Didn't know I had these. Had to run the waterers today for the flower grden nd for the grow boxes. In the evening we had a Cajun night. I made bred pudding and brooiled some Tilapia while Libbie made corn Mach Choux and the Praline sauce. We had this with Shiraz and a salad with the Louisiana Vinagraitte dressing and blue cheese.

Finished the irrigtion plumbing in the greenhouse and then started looking at the timer. I will use my relay board with a Boardino and an RTC. The big job is going to be Xbee communications with the thing to set the watering time. Dinner was chicken Curry. Nice.

Early in the morning I worked on pictures from April 25 and April 26. It was supposed to rain today but it only looks cloudy. I finished up by 11 am and went to both Trader Joes and Kroger. When I came back I resumed on plumbing the greenhouse irrigation. I sure do get sweaty doing this job. It's not that hot today. It looks like I will probably have to use the Arduino timer I built since it will allow the most flexibility in a schedule. If i can get something working talking back to Traviata or a Linux machine it would be super but I have my doubts. I need to get Libbie's latest inventory and the latest pictures on the website which interferes with working on the timer. In the meantime, the light sensor still is not displaying correctly. Bummer! Dinner was Lobster ravioli from Trader Joes.

This morning I started on the irrigation in the greenhouse. I think a mister at each end will do the trick. Had to run the flower garden watering for 15 minutes this morning because it's so dry out. It's been a week since we had rain. This also gave me a chance to label the Hydro Rain timer. I found the label on my life bits had two stations reversed. Started plumbing the new solenoid and flex tubing but that's as far as I got. Came in to do click n ship then played with the light sensor some more. I now have the receiving CPU correctly interpreting the packet but the data is not going to Pachube. Dinner tonight was Trader Joes BBQ.

We went to Artsplosure this morning. My overall impression was that it is a high quality art show with many vendors. Different this year was the Impressionists garden, a series of sculptures replicating famous paintings by Renoir and Manet on Fayetteville Street. Seward Johnson, the sculptor, made life sized sculptures which were placed in flower gardens. The overall effect was stunning. I posted some of the pics on Facebook. Libbie made her pizza from scratch today since she didn't have any dough frozen. It was quite good. I took up the light meter again, trying to get it to read and transmit readings to the upstairs computer in my office.

Made a Farmers Market trip this morning and picked up a couple of shasta daisy's from our favorite vendor. Mowed the back yard but I was too tired to do much else. Dinner was Pork chops with corn and salad with a bottle of Shiraz.

This turned into a pretty productive day. I started out mowing the lawn then went to the grocery store for milk and more bacon. In the afternoon I put 3 gallons of Roundup in the sprayer tank and walked the property line spraying brush and grape vines. It could use another pass but later. Dinner was salmon, penne pasta with veggies and Chardonnay. We had carrot cake for desert. I started looking at communicting over TCP today for the Arduino data collector module. I'll still use the Arduino for tmeperature gathering as well as wireless Xbee reception but I'll probably send this stuff to Traviata for graphing, pachube updates and web services. My other thought was to put Ubuntu on the Zotac machine which has a dual Atom. I could then use the machine for NCID as well.

Worked on getting the sprinklers hooked to the timer today. All this is in prep for our trip up north in June. I also signed up for the Road Scholar Chicago trip today. This seems to be the best way to stay in the middle of it all and see everything. Dinner was
Cajun night. We had tilapia with Cajun rub, brown rice, peas and salad with pepper vinaigrette dressing.

Did some garden repair today from the rain and also cut and painted a piece of hardy board to construct a sluice for the greenhouse roof drain. This seems to be the way to go. We need a heavy rain to test it. Dinner was curry chicken which was outstanding. It's been a while since we had this.

It's a cool yucky day. I perused some of the BP stuff and also downloaded all of Popular Mechanics from 1905. This was a 41 gigabyte download! Spoke with Dr Chen in NJ today. Aunt Helen is in the hospital with pneumonia and enlarged kidneys. I gave a verbal authorization to go ahead with surgery to install a drain in her kidneys. Libbie went to a violet meeting at Sheila's Senior Center with Joanne Raymer and Sylvia. I didn't too much today, it was a lazy day. Dinner was pasta from the Kroger grocery trip this afternoon.

Joe started back this morning. Unfortunately he will encounter heavy rain on his trip. It arrived here around noon and rained all afternoon. I worked on the software for the light meter. Dinner was a BLT.

I spent a lot of the day working on the light sensor for the greenhouse. I can read the sensor, convert to footcandles and put the data out as a serial stream. I had trouble getting the device to work with the Xbee. The trouble turned out to be getting enough voltage to power the thing. I had to jumper the batt and input terminals essentially bypassing the battery charge regulator. While Joe and Libbie went to the Farmers Market I planted the butterfly bushes just before it started to rain which was a good thing and lucky timing. Joe made a lot of small and creative pizzas including a basil, a tomoat and a spinach pizza. He also made a BBQ pizza and a calzone type pizza. Lots of food. We had this with some Yuengling Black and Tan beer.

Joe came this morning. I cleaned the garage and put everything away that was on the workbench. while vacuuming in the garage, Joe arrived from TN. We spent a lot of the day talking. I showed him my Arduino stuff and the light sensor I want to get running. In the evening I was reading light with the thing. Dinner was Smithfields takeout with Yuengling. We had pulled pork, hush puppies, slaw and BBQ Beans. Nice.

Finished up the garden stuff - planted the Dahlia, put stakes in all the tomatoes and planted the watermelon in the greenhouse. It doesn't sound like much but I was tired after all this. Picked up some Pork chops at Krogers whcih we had with corn Mach choux, salad and Shiraz. Very nice.

Went out to work in the garden but it was wet and also cool. Walked up to the top of the hill in back and looked at where I need to spray with the roundup. Finished up the photo book for AVSA and sent it to MyPublisher using the groupon coupon. Shipping via Fedex is another $12. which is on top of the $19 for the coupon. I made dinner tonight consisting of tilapia filets, corn Mach Choux, salad with pepper jelly topped with blue cheese. This was accompanied by Shiraz.

It rained pretty heavy this afternoon but before then I planted the eggplants and tomato plants purchased this week. Still have to get the squash and beans in the ground. I unplugged the electric fence and didn't remember it until I woke up at midnight. Put on a robe and plugged it in via flashlight. Dinner tonight was lobster ravioli from Trader Joes. We had done a Trader Joes trip earlier as well as the farmers market. Picked up 2 butterfly bushes for the backyard.

Went to a 9:30 appt at Leith for 15,000 mile service on my Corolla. This took all mornng. I didn't get out of there until 11 PM. Dropped the IRA withdrawal off at Scottrade in Cary then went to Fairview for Eggplants and tomato plants. Didn't do too much today. Dinner was Briyani.