Worked on building Wolfie this morning. Wolfie will monitor AC current and send the results across the room to Mozart. Mozart has needed a way to determine whether the AC is on or off. Wolfie will fill this need. It uses an Arduino FIO and an Xbee module for both wireless programming and status reporting. I'm looking forward to getting something like this going. In the afternoon I took a walk through Seagroves and back through Vintage. I used the shortcut reducing the walk to 1.5 miles. Once home I had to do the Click N Ship. this was miserable. I was sitting with the sweat dripping off my body into a puddle on my chair while trying to keep salty sweat off the PC. It was a relief to jump into the shower and get cleaned up even though there was an approaching thunderstorm. The storm hit fiercely with powerful winds. We lost power but the generator did us well for over an hour. Not really needed but it was nice to have. Dinner was Briyani. After dinner I read the Devil in the White City while Parsifal was playing from the met on Sirius. Very nice. I'm really getting into the book. It's pretty interesting to see how the chicago Worlds Fair came together in 1892.

Joy came over this morning to help Libbie with packing leaves. She leaves next Monday via Air Canada for her Baltic cruise. In the meantime, I put the remaining staples into the knee wall outlet then went into the garage and tied the circuit into the breaker box. I already have a supply of GE breakers from when I installed the transfer switch. Finished the wiring and plugged the AC in to the new outlet. The current transformer works. It shows a lower voltage when the AC first turns on but then is just under 3 volts when the compressor comes on. One thing I didn't count on but should have is the voltage is AC. Should know that because it's coming from a transformer. Looked at hooking up an Arduino analog input to the current sensor. I think I will use an Arduino FIO with Xbee to send the AC status. The only choice now is whether to poll or not. I did my walk again this afternoon up to the Seagroves park and then out through Vintage Grove for 2 miles. The garden tomatoes are going strong. Picked a bunch today. There's more out there. Dinner was whole wheat spaghetti with chicken and Curry sauce. Very good!!! Dessert was Southern Hospitality Ice Cream. In the evening we had another thunderstorm which stopped the satellite reception mid way through. We were listening to Hoffman from the Met.

Worked today on the electrical outlet for the AC in the plant room. This project was on hold while Jack was here but now I'm back to it. Finished the outlet except for some staples. Went to Home Depot to get the missing staples. Libbie and I took a 2 mile walk to the Seagrove Park then back via Vintage Grove. This is a nice way to walk without getting into the car. Libbie made her yummy pizza once again.

Libbie's 65th!!!! Went to Walgreens and picked up the 8x10 collage I made for her birthday then over to Lowes to pick up some more bamboo stakes and 6 more flagstones. Once home I installed the flagstones. This was mostly easily and consisted of using the hoe to rake back some bark and in some cases, digging into the underlying dirt to make a level base. I'm pretty happy with the Atom based server I built for the printer. I installed the top Amazon books of 2011 on it using Calibre and also installed a Caller ID program. I all seems to be working well. I can also use remote connection to log in with a remote connection to the server because it runs a version of Win 7 called Ultimate which includes the features of Win 7 Pro. Did another walk up around the park in back and back via Vintage Grove. Libbie came with me. Got ready in the late afternoon for our dinner at the Fearrington House. We had a thunderstorm this afternoon but skies cleared for our drive to Chapel Hill. We had the 4 course dinner which was over the top. Wow!!! Small portions, interesting flavors and incredible over the top service. It was great. My main course was Beef Tenderloin. We also tried an NC Cabernet Sauvignon from Yadkin County. It wasn't bad. I still like Rodney Strong better.
We had an incredible evening with our 3 hour dinner. We drove home in a thunderstorm. I just took it slow and did not take the back roads.

Jack left around 8 this morning. Libbie commented that she wouldn't want his life. Because of his limited hearing, he lives in his own little world. He's not too aware of what is going on around him. This morning I modified the Mozart controller to activate a green LED when it thinks the A/C is on. Installed the LED and tested it. Everything is working fine. Took a walk in the back around Seagroves Farm then decided to return via Vintage Grove to the new sidewalk on Old Raleigh Rd. Total mileage is 2.15 miles. Took a shower then started reading Devil in the White City. I like it so far. The writing is good, the story so far interesting. Dinner was leftovers from the week such as a pork chop that Libbie had and the pulled pork that I had plus baked beans and slaw. Good none the less!!! Nice thunderstorm this evening. Jack sent an eMail that he got into Philly at 6:30 PM after getting stuck in traffic.

An easy day. Jack is here for the second day of his visit. His hearing is pretty limited. Today we tried installing a printer driver for the Samsung laser on Fedora. this turned out to be a nightmare. I think I will ditch Fedora and put a version of Windows on the machine. Jack treated us to lunch at La Cosina. I had the chicken Quesadilla which had tons of chicken in it with rice and beans. Libbie had a shrimp quesadilla. Continued with the printer driver but no luck. Dinner was BBQ sandwiches with baked beans and slaw. We had Shiraz with dinner then Southern Hospitality ice cream for desert.

This morning we did lots of copying from my Ebooks and magazines to Jacks backup drive. In the afternoon we copied books and tools from his backup drive to my Server. For this we ended up plugging the drive directly into the Server in the Office and then doing the copy. All went well. Dinner was pork chops, apple sauce, corn Mach Choux and Cabernet Sauvignon wine. Desert was bread pudding with a scoop of Blue Bell Southern Hospitality Ice Cream.

Started at 9 this morning and got all the conduit up in the garage. I'm happy that the A/C unit is cycling according to the control of Mozart. This is going good. In the Pm we watered the flower garden and greenhouse using the timer. Got a text msg from jack that he was in SC at 12:20 PM and should be here in 5 hours.
Jack arrived around 6:20 pm. His hearing is better but not great. He still is only getting a few words of each sentence. Dinner was Cajun rubbed Tilapia, conr Mach choux and Blackberry Cobbler ice cream. We had Shiraz to accompany dinner.

I finally got Mozart to read the room temperature and turn on the A/C when it was too hot. The missing link was the define for target temperature was never initialized. I'm not sure how this got through the compiler. I started the conduit in the garage by threading wire into 10 foot lengths. It looks like I'll need 60 feet of wire times 2 to do the job.
Incredibly tired today, took a nap at 5:30 pm. Dinner was chicken fingers with corn mach choux and a single glass of Shiraz.

Mozart didn't activate the A/C today. Not sure why not. Went to Lowes and picked up 12 flagstones. While Libbie painted the mailbox and post I dug out spots in the path and put down the stepping stones. This was killing me in the sun. Several times I had to stop to rest or I would pass out. Wow, I'm so out of shape. The question is: What to do about it? Dinner tonight was Salmon with Corn Mach Choux, Shiraz wine and Moo-Lineum ice cream. A great endto a nice day. Some bad garden news - soemthing ate all our sunflower blossoms. We think it was a squirrel.

Did some more probing and reading about IR. I found I had the wrong schematic for TV B Gone. Took it out and did some continuity measurements. All the output drivers are tied together to a single transistor which is then driven by an Atmega pin. This is a better design than the 1.2 schematic I was using. Found the new schematic online as ver 1.3 I eventually found that I was keeping the IR LEDs on because the final output was a "zero" which enabled the LEDs. . After the device emit the code sequence, I put a statement in to turn the LEDs off. This was a one on the output pin. This made a difference. The A/C can now be turned on or off with the test button without doing a power cycle. Dinner was Cajun rubbed Tilapia with corn Mach Choux and Shiraz. Desert was Moo Lineum ice cream.

I got all the electronics mounted in an old ember development case. I can now read temperature and transmit IR with the Arduino. After a little tweaking I was able to turn the A/C unit on and off. the only issue now is that it only does it once. Have to power down and back up again for it to work again. Not sure what is going on.Will continue working on it. Dinner was corn Mach Choux with Cajun rubbed Tilapia. I accompanied it with a cucumber salad. We had a bottle of shiraz and Moo-Lineum BlueBell Ice cream which is a vanilla with pecans, walnut,almonds, chocolate and caramel. Excellent.

Nancy came over to help Libbie. She got back from her camping trip in the California mountains last night. I used the IR library to study my remote some more before beginning to build a shield for the Arduino and a case to install everything in. Had not finished it today. this evening we had the eggplant parmigiana again along with a glass of Barefoot Shiraz. After dinner we used one of the free coupons and watched a Pay Per View Movie, "Being Flynn". It wasn't award winning material but it was passable.

This was another day of working on receiving IR codes on the Arduino. This is very educational. While doing this a mouse ran across the bedroom floor. Caught him later in the day in the Family Room in a trap baited with an Almond. I hope this is the only one in the house. It's significantly cooler outside today but we still need the aux a/c in the plant room. For dinner libbie made eggplant parmesan using one of our eggplants from the grow boxes. They seem to be really putting out the eggplant fruits with many set for harvesting.

Groceries this morning in the rain. We got almost 1.5 inches in the past few days which is great news for the garden, especially since I put down some 8-8-8 granules over the weekend. I started capturing the GE A/C remote codes with an Arduino. Hooked up an IR receiver and the scope. Using the Lady Ada tutorials on IR I was able to capture and measure the codes with the Arduino Uno which is a Chinese knock off from eBay. Had to load the serial drivers which I found out are located in the Arduino driver directory. Very convenient.
Dinner tonight was Carolina chopped BBQ from BrookwoodFarms. This was a tub from Kroger. Nice rain today as I moved a full garbage can to the street.

Still working on COSM software today. Had a dentist appt first thing this morning then continued COSM. It was hot in the plant room so I brought the 10,000 BTU AC unit up from the shed and mounted it in the front window. It cools very well. I will be mounting this on a more permanent basis in the knee wall. Started doing a cleanup of the workshop, hoping to fill the garbage can before it goes out to the street.
Dinner tonight was leftover corn Mach choux and BBQ chicken tenders. Excellent as usual.

I continued to work on the temperature sensors. I finally got them extremely reliable. When I tried it with COSM, COSM is reported an error. I started studying online versions of COSM feeds. Outdoors it was another hot one. I mowed the lawn in the morning out front and fertilized the flowers. I noticed the Hydro timer got reset after the thunderstorm, This is not too good. I'll have to switch over to using my Arduino based code. Libbie made a wonderful pizza from scratch once again. She used our garden peppers as one of the toppings and her home grown basil. Yummy

Last night I switched to the latest UniServer and copied my data over. Surprisingly, all the MySQL apps are now working such as the magazine server and the art server. This wasn't working before. I'm happy. I'm not happy by the fact that Windows installed updates and restarted my server overnight.
Went outside this morning to fix storm damage. A tree fell on the shed, no damage. Cut it up and brought the logs to the pile. Did a quick front yard and driveway pickup and came in to shower off. It's hot and extremely humid outside. Did a grocery run for Mach Choux ingredients then blew the driveway off. I have a sore under my left arm, I think it may be an allergic reaction to deodorant. Hope it's not serious.
Dinner was corn mach choux, wild caught sockeye salmon and shiraz. Dessert was pralines and cream ice cream by blue bell.
I finally got a good handle on the temperature sensors. There are two types in the house, an 18b20 and an 18s20, and the software also has a 2.1 library that does a better job in handling the two types.

Tied the tomatoes this morning. They are really looking good, the eggplant is great as well. Spent the day trying to get real data to work with Meistersinger. No deal. did some extensive debugging and have found that the one wire routines are not working. the new code I wrote to parse serial data works like a champ. I'm going to rry a different One Wire Library. There supposedly is a new one maintained by Bill Stoffregen. The new version of Arduino may have a lot to do with this. Dinner tonight was shrimp on the Barbie with Shiraz and fresh Farmers Market corn which we picked up today. the Farmers Daughters are out with their short shorts and pickup trucks selling corn. I like summer. We had a tremendous thunder storm this evening at 4:30. We got a much needed 1 1/2 inch rain but also tremendous wind and many close lightning strikes including one in the backyard.

Spent the whole day reqriting the serial data parsing routine on Mesitersinger. I'm very happy with the results. I now have a rock solid serial parse routine. Dinner this evening was Briyani. I ended up running the Flower Garden watering for 10 minutes. The garden is wilting pretty bad in the 100 degree heat.

WooHoo!!! This is the first time in a long time that I can access the blog. Yesterday I successfully installed Windows 7 Pro on the new Traviata hardware. Proceeded to remove passwords that were stopping access to the UniServer. A lot of the old server is working. The biggest obstacle was the passwords. I'm not sure I want to run this open ended on my Traviata server which is public. I may end up with the passwords again, but for now I'm happy.
Libbie picked up hotdogs for lunch. they were great with onions and mustard. Yum. I worked some more on Traviata and got the Music Server running. next step will be the art servers. If not, then using Jalbu is a possibility. This also means the VideoDb is hosed although I haven't used that very much.
Ran over to Krogers and picked up some wine for dinner. Libbie cooked scallops over Brown Rice which we had with Ravenwood Zin. Nice.

Started by loading the new Win 7 Pro onto the server but it got an error. Next I tried the ISO and then did all the updates. This seemed to work. I used the serial number from the new Win 7 purchase and it activated OK. Tried the remote desktop and had some success. Could not get UniServer to run. Need some serious debug. In the meantime I transferred all the files from the old IDE C drive of Traviata using an external hard drive case. I also mounted the old 750 meg drive into the Rosewill aluminum cabinet and labeled it "Tools". Now all three Rosewill external enclosures have SATA drives.

This morning I did the groceries and then the Credit Union to get the $100 for the copy of Windows 7. Stopped in to Walgreens to get a refill of my prescription and also get the Aetna PPO card on file. The card has prescription drug coverage. While waiting for the prescription to be filled I stopped into Office Max and got 2 wheels for my office chair. this has been broken a while, the sales guy in the store was no help. He didn't even know there was such a thing. I found the wheels with the office furniture hanging on a pegboard. Libbie's plane came in at 8:15 pm instead of 7:45, she didn't know why it was late. There was a thunderstorm threatening the airport when I went over there but fortunately she was able to get in without problems. I made a PB and J sandwich and a banana for her because of her late arrival with no dinner. I also had a PBnJ sandwich for dinner along with a slice of watermelon.

Bought a copy of Windows 7 pro off Craigslist. Met the guy in the Cary Amtrak parking lot. Paid $75 cash which was worth it. Still having install troubles. Ubuntu server won't install, Win server 2003 won't install. The only thing that works is the Win 7 ISO. Spent alot of the day configuring the new server. It's getting closer to reality. Dinner was French Bread pizza again.

Went to Tigerdirect and got an AMD Motherboard by MSI, an A6 triple core chip and 4 gigs of memory.
Got it all installed into the Traviata case. Windowss Server 2003 crashed twice trying to get this installed..
I'm running a memory test from Ubuntu to rule out hardware problems. Libbie is coming back Tuesday! Crap,
where did the time go? Dinner was French Bread pizza by Stouffers.

There was a tremendous wind storm last night. the power went out and the generator took over. Unfotunately
Traviata the server will not boot. Changed the generator oil then spent the day researching motherboard and
whole computer replacements for Traviata. Went to Walmart to get the generator oil and perused the computers
they have in the store. Also looked at BJ's as well as the office stores. Nothing jumped out at me. I guess
it's either order from Newegg and wait or deal with TigerDirect which I hate to do. Dinner was French bread pizza, supreme model wth
banana chocolate ice cream.