Up early, actually a few minutes too early for breakfast. The clock in our room is fast. We will fix that! Nice continental cold breakfast, nothing special. The bagels are good. The coffee is also. Did a bus tour of the amazing Chicago architecture. This was very impressive. our guie, Joe, is also amazing. We had a delicious lunch in Greektown complete with Baklava desert. On the bus again with stops at a Univ of Ill chapel, the Chicago skyline and Buckingham fountain. After the tour, Libbie and I rested up hen walked up to Heaven on Seventh for dinner. I had a wonderful BBQ salmon with gumbo as an appetizer and veggies consisting of trinity mix and Tasso. This was yummy and accompanied by a Ragin Rita which is the house specialty on Monday Margarita night. After dinner we got on a #3 bus and went down to a rock concert at Millenium Park under the Gehry designed concert shell. We next went through a garden and walked to the Buckingham Fountain. Saw the fountain shoot off at 9 with coordinated music, lights and water. It was lovely. Hauled ourselves back up to Michigan and waited 15 minutes for the #6 bus to take us back to Wacker. It was a fun evening.

The food court was closed this morning. Packed the car up and stopped at an iHop on the way to the Laundromat. The sign on the door said this is a pistol free zone. Our Senior omelet was very good - lots of bacon and cheese. Too much food. Next the Harbourtown laundry was the nicest we have seen. It was very clean, had parking in front and WiFi. What a surprise. When we got going we found the ramps on I94 were all closed. Drove many miles through very run down areas with burned out and abandoned houses. It looked like a combat zone. Many other homes were torn down but many still remain that need tearing down. This is a disaster. Found the Interstate and drove to Chicago. It was $5.60 in tolls. When we got to Chicago we immediately were in a traffic jam. Got off 90 and took city streets for the last few miles. Put the car in a parking garage and rolled our suitcases down the street for checkin. The hotel is great. It's old and the rooms are small but nice. Dinner at McCormick and Schmick, a very nice upscale seafood restaurant.

After the traditional McDonalds breakfast we went to a "Last task of Judging" seminar. It was dry and boring. Tried for lunch at PotBelly's but they were closed. So were the other sandwich shops but we went to Subway and split a foot long turkey which was fine. I really enjoyed the David Thompson lecture on Streps. He was quite informative. I took lots of notes. David can do a great job talking about his Streps. Afterwards I collected the sales tax and went to the room to count it. Wrote the total on an envelope along with the amounts of the 3 checks and gave the whole thing to Kathy Lahti. Richard Nicholas made a haul of Streps from David Thompson. He was nice enough to share with us. We bought his duplicates, 6 of them for $25. We went over to dinner tonight at the Italian restaurant along the river in frornt of GM. It was OK but dinner was $121 with tip. Ouch.

Breakfast at McDonalds this morning then upstairs to the show. Did some more photography of the designs. We went late to a Basics class then visited a beneficials lecture about predatory bugs. We had an Adiamos pizza for lunch which was pretty good. We got on the cruise this evening which was interesting. Several High Schools were having their prom. The ladies were dressed in very poofy and colorful "princess" dresses with glitter and bright tropicsl hot colors. Most of the dresses had no sleeves, the poor girls kept pulling the tops back up since they seemed to be quite insecure. Funny. Dinner was very good. It was a buffet with Salmon, potato salad, cole slaw, noodles and tortellini. We purchased wine with dinner for $5 per glass.

went to breakfast in the foodcourt and sat with some of the Texas gang including Bill Foster. Later Brenda came in with Mahlen. We had the commercial meeting at 9, I passed out the sales tax envelopes. Next stop was the beginners forms then we picked up a lunch sandwich of turkey in a pita Took this up to Anne's room on the 60th floor where we had the library meeting. Andrea passed out her cupcakes at the meeting. Almost right after this meeting we started the Library Photography and finished up quickly since there were only about 500 entries. The showroom is huge for a small show.
For dinner tonight we went across the street to Tom's Seafood. I had parmesan crusted tilapia with veggies and rice and a dark local brew beer. It was nice. After dinner we rode the little train around the loop of burned out and vacant buildings. It's so sad to see how bad things are in Detroit. We were panhandled out in front of the GM building when we got back.

We woke to a light rain outside. Had the Comfort Inn breakfast then got going by 8 am after gas at Beckley for 3.57. Traffic was light. We took i-77 straight up to I80 which is the Ohio Turnpike and costed us 7.50 to Toledo. Got off onto 280 to I75 in Toledo and stopped for gas at 3,46 and McDonalds lunch. This finished up my $100 Dishnetwork rebate Visa card which was good. Registered for the convention and saw most of the usual gang - Jenny, Amy, Anne-Marie. Got the lay of the land before we went for a takeout sandwich at the Pot Belly sandwich shop. Had a quick sandwich and then went to the Nancy Hayes opening night slide show. Nancy does a great job presenting the slides from last year. I left after this while Libbie stayed for the grower forum. I was tired.

This is a comfortable morning at home. The garbage was collected this morning, we rolled the cans back to the home and left at 2:15. Made it to Beckley, WV by 6:30 in a very leisurely drive. Visited the Tamrack craft center which is about a half mile from our hotel then parked the car at the hotel and walked to Pasquales Italian restaurant next door. The food and the service was outstanding. We both had Shiraz with salad, Italian dressing and a delicious eggplant parmesan Pasta el Forna. It was quite good.

This was a busy day. Besides the normal click n ship I programmed the violet towers for watering and also got a watering cycle of every 4 days programmed into the Flower Timer. This took more than I expected since I had lots of errors. It was because I defined the DateTime variable inside an if/else loop which it wasn't happy about. It's fixed now. Dinner tonight was Briyani. Spoke with Joe this afternoon. He picked up another support job for a company that builds light towers on factory floors.

Finished hooking up the timers and testing them. The grow boxes will come on for one minute every day. There are now two solenoids running the 6 boxes, 3 grow boxes for each one. The veggies really look good. I had to spray Orthene on the Mints since one of them had mealy bugs. Interestingly while I was working on my computer I heard the waterers come on outside. I looked and we did the 15 second test cycle of the greenhouse and the outdoor flower garden. The cycle was still programmed from previous testing only now all the wiring is hooked up. Dinner was Libbie's homemade pizza. We took pictures this afternoon of a dozen or so violets that were in bloom but missing on the website. Now I need to process the pictures. Late at night I gathered all the website comments I have collected and forwarded them to the board with my comments.

I hit the road running today. Changed the ballast in two of the flourescent fixtures, tied the tomatoes and peppers and updated the Bluebird website. The website was a challege because I had to delete some menu items which are major changes to the software. Dinner was ribs with shiraz and Olanthe corn from Kroger.

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.