Up early, Joe was already up when I came down just before 7. Started working on the AVSA collage. This is seriously overdue. Moat years has this done in July. Took my walk up and around Seagroves pond. Met Joe and Christa on the dock in the pond of Seagroves. They were fishing turtles. Saw a nice bikini face up at the townhouses pool. After a shower, etc it was back to work on pictures. Lots of comments on the birthday party pics I posted this morning. Christa's cake was delicious. For dinner Christa made Boc Choy stir fry with onion, garlic, chicken over Brown Rice. Joe left around 3 today to resume work in Tennessee. The mars landing is 1:30 this evening. I hope it makes it!

Joe said Christa is very hot and uncomfortable. It's not even really hot outside for August. I got my software on GitHub. Now I will have backups and snapshots. I got tired of reflashing the router all the time. Found the Rosewill router I bought and flashed it with dd-wrt. Had a hard time getting to Traviata via external dyndns but finally solved the problem thanks to Google while in bed for the night. Had to add an exception to the port forward commands to allow a specific domain to a specific IP address. In the evening we took Joe & Christa and Cole and Emily out to dinner at Tonys Oyster Bar in McGregor Village. The damage total was $180. After dinner we came back and had birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday to Libbie.

Screwed up an Arduino trying to do wireless programming. ended up replacing the Arduino which took a while. The Uno needs a different bootloader to reprogram wirelessly. Did not have a good copy of Mozart code. Started learning GitHub to resolve this situation. I need backups of the software. Joe arrived from Wilmington this afternoon and started prepping his pizzas. Earlier today I bought some ingredients and Libbie started making dough for the pizzas. Josh,Kelly and their kids arrived, Cami with her two and joe, Christa and us. Josh's kids are totally out of control. I'm surprised something did not get broken. We had pizza and cupcakes which were delicious. I had one beer and went to bed stuffed.

Wired Mozart today for wireless programming and to receive and transmit over Xbee. Had lots of problems. Built a model for programming using a Mega because it has more serial ports. Used one port to monitor communications. Dinner was Tilapia with corn Mach Choux.

Submitted my story to ASSTR and read some of the other highly entertaining (and erotic) stories on ASSTR. Some of them are trash, others are quite good. There's so many it's hard to find the few good ones. Tried to get my Arduino mega going. I'm able to get it to load but not sure about the Xbee yet part. In addition, the Xbee on the end of an FTDI won't communicate with the current Monitor. Not sure what's wrong. Did a nice walk this afternoon, it's relatively cool for August. For dinner we had simmer sauce with whole wheat spaghetti and Blue Bell for dessert.

We hung out with Joe and Christa today. I was able to get my walk in while Libbie and Christa went to Rex for water aerobics. We found Joe and christa did not eat fish so we had grilled chicken with corn mach choux. Libbie and I shared a bottle of Shiraz.

Worked some more on writing a story on Google Docs, "Stay at Home Mom". Also worked on the query response software some more. I will hook up an Atmega Arduino which has extra serial ports to monitor the query and response. Not sure how to address the extra serial ports. Joe and Christa arrived in mid afternoon after spending the night in Asheville. We sat on the back porch and chatted a while before going out to the Pit in downtown Raleigh for dinner. I had a Lonestar dark beer and a half rack of ribs with beans and sweet potato fries.

Watched CBS Sunday this morning and enjoyed a story about the 15 cars that changed America. It was from a book by Simon and Shuster, "Engines of Change". I read part of the first chapter on the S&S website. will read the rest and mark this book as something for my reading list. Tried putting the hot tub back together and put a hundred gallons of water in to test it. Found the pump screws were not installed and ended up dumping all that water on the floor. What a mess. Soaked the carpets and made a miserable mess. We got it all cleaned up and hung the carpets to dry in time to leave for Joanne's Art Crawl. We started at her neighbor's Darryl's "Garage collage". His art is not very good. We met Jim Fatata there with a friend whose name I couldn't remember. Joanne's of course was spectacular. We met Ed and Hanna there. He was playing his sax, flute and harmonica. Ed also gave us a CD of classical music which was nice. JoAnn had a nice spread of ribs, pulled pork and slaw with lots of other fixings and Yuengling. We came home and had Blue Bell MooLineum ice cream.

Worked on the software for Wolfie in the morning. I can now request power status using a '?' or request actual voltage with a '#'. Took my 2 mile walk around Seagroves Park then got cleaned up and started on the hot tub pump repairs. Installed the seals and the heater element but did not finish the plumbing part of the job. Dinner was Salmon from Kroger with fresh corn on the cob and Shiraz. For dessert it was Blue Bell Moo-Lenium ice cream. This was one of Libbie's favorite. After dinner we had an evening thunderstorm but the power stayed on. I started writing a short story, "Stay at Home Mom" to practice writing. I'm pretty rusty at it. Went to bed at 11:30 fooling around with the story.

Changed the Wolfie hardware to add a diode and filter cap to the Current Sensor AC output. It's now a DC signal and is detected much better by the Wolfie software. I settled for the routine that reads the A/D voltage X number of times and presents the average reading to the calling program. I'll probably go with this. We had a slight rain this evening but not enough to measure on the rain gauge. We went to Cary, the former Sorrells, and ordered a custom book case out of Oak with Early American stain finish. We paid for it and found the man we were dealing with was Mr Sorrell. Next stop was the Farmers Market for corn and peaches. Dinner was fresh corn and Pork Chops with Apple Sauce and Shiraz.

Today after some fiddling I was able to get the FIO programmed wirelessly. Mounted it in a plastic box and put a rope on it to hang it then installed it in the knee wall. It's pretty neat to load programs into the thing from the next room. Spent all day working on various algorithms to smooth out the AC measured by the A/D converter and try to detect when the A/C is running. So far it's a mixed bag. I even tried doing 100 samples of the AC waveform to get a better average. I applied a formula to calculate Irms but it wasn't consistent. I really need to convert this to DC. Dinner was the Tex Mex caserole I purchased at Trader joes. Libbie couldn't take it. I liked it. Oh well, she has been a trooper with spicy foods but has hit her limit I guess. Dessert was the Blue Bell christmas in July Ice cream. We had a decent thunderstorm this evening giving us a healthy dose of rain which is good for the garden.

Went to get the car registered then stopped at Trader Joes on the way home. Libbie was in the flower garden tie-ing up flowers blown over in the wind. I cleaned the driveway which was littered with twigs from the storm yesterday then I mowed the back lawn. Wow, productive!
After a 2 mile walk I started looking into programming the Xbees for wireless programming of the FIO board. Got power wired to a FIO and programmed the transmitter half of a pair. Not sure what to do about addressing.
Dinner was Lobster Pasta from Trader Joes with Christmas in July ice cream for dessert.

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.