Today was a splendid day.It was incredibly nice and clear outside. Libbie and I did a walk in the back around the pond. I finally got temperature readings sent from my shop to the Meister ocntroller. Yes!!!! I went to the Indian store in Apex and got spices to jazz up some fresh cranberries. It was terrible!!!! Libbie made a turkey breast fro tonight along with stuffing and sweet potato and shiraz. Incredibly good. I'm happy about all the temperature data streanming across the house. Excellent.

Did a lot more work on the temperature sensor. I seem to be handling the pointers to the buffer badly. Stayed up late trying various things, I may now have a working strategy. Will try it in the morning. Went to Kroger and got a frozen turkey breast and the fixins for turkey dinner tomorrow night. Tonight's dinner was Tilapia with baked Sweet potato and salad. Very nice, topped off by a bottle of Shiraz.

I worked on the Arduino software while Libbie gardened. Still not much luck for a lot of effort. Not sure what's wrong. Dinner was very nice Lobster pasta with cheese and olive oil and a salad. Good stuff.

The Benzigers got going around 10 for the Smokeys. Lib and I decided to go to Wyatt Quarles for domes for an order and stopped at the Farmers Market for veggies and pansies. The Asian lady sold us pansies, ornamental cabbage, a spreading mum and Mexican Salvia. Another vendor sold us 2 flats of Super Pansies. These have the giant faces that did so well last year. When we came home we tended to the garden. I tied up the late season tomato and got rid of the eggplants and tomato baskets while Libbie cleared out the zinnias and Marigolds. We planted the Salvia and Mum then she made a start at the cabbage and pansies. Dinner was leftover Bom Choy which was still excellent.

We had breakfast and lounged around with the Benzigers until 11 then left for the State Fair. Had a lovely day at the Fair. Started with the little pioneer village then went to the gardens outdoors and the flower show indoors. It wasn't too bad as far as crowds went. Spent some time talking to the composting lady about worms and compost before resuming. Walked through the village of yesteryear and talked with the Son in the Turn N Burn exhibit about the Russian Violet article I wrote. They have it laminated in the shop in Seagrove. Did the Arts & Crafts next then found a grassy area with picnic tables for our tuna fish sandwiches. Next stop was the fine arts where we looked at an artist of mine who is a favorite, David Pollack or something. He does watercolor specializing in glass reflections. He also entered an Apple store glass reflection painting. I spoke with the hostess who told me about the artists Son who did a very nice painting in the Fair. Next stop was the quilts and cakes, Mary bought a candy Apple from a pretty blonde in the Education building. Next stop was the cows where we watched a calf judging before moving on the pumpkins and watermelons. Talked with Jennnifer who is hostess for the peppers. It was 5 hours and we were very tired and trudged back to the car in the beautiful weather. We made a stop at the Asian Market for Bok Choy and mushrooms for our stir fry. Took everyone home then went back out to Krogers for Old Geezers Day. Benzigers came along so they could get camping supplies for next day. They were going to cook stir fry in the Smokeys for a 2 day camping trip. Dinner was Bok Choy stir fry with Shiraz and Coconut Fudge Ice Cream for desert. Afterwards we watched the HBO documentary, "Birders, the Central Park Effect." I fell asleep halfway through.

This is a rainy and cool day. I worked on the environmental monitor some more but couldn't get the xbee data streams working. I ended up finding a serial library that uses delimiters on the packets and lets you know when a whole packet has been received. This is just what I needed to parse the data. I started adding this code but so far have not tested it. The Benzigers arrived around 2:30 in a fairly heavy rain. when it let up a little we did a walk in the back around Seagroves and the pond. The Halloween decorating is quit extensive. My favorite was a house with tombstones and a small fountain with a skull in it. The skull has a meat cleaver embedded in and red blood is streaming out. For dinner we went out at 8 PM in the rain to Tonys Oyster Bar in McGregor Village. It was very nice. I had the scallops and shrimp over a bed of Angel Hair spaghetti. For a beverage I ordered a Yuengling draft.

Was puzzled for 3/4 of the day because Meister wasn't reading temperatures. Added the begin statements and got it working. Next the Enviro hardware in the shop wouldn't do it's thing. I found that the cables were swapped. After I got the temperatures reading correctly I need to get it to correctly parse the light meter polls. Last night I luckily stumbled on Jack Skerritts name and address. He lives in St Marys, GA near the Florida border. I also found that our former neighbor, Fred Roueche, passed away in 2009. Wow, amazing. Libbie made her super pizza again with fresh tomato and garden basil leaves.

I spent most of the evening off and on trying to read temperatures using Meister 31. Finally late at night, at quarter past 12, I found the thing was crashing all the time because of not allowing enough room for the string variables. It's stable but still not reading. In the afternoon we went to our first HD of the season, Elixir. It was a marvelous performance, Anna can really hold her own but the supporting cast was quite good as well. Thoroughly enjoyable. After the performance we went to BJ's and got ribs, dishwashing soap and tuna fish. Dinner was ribs with corn, salad and Shiraz.

I worked a little in the morning on software then at noon we went to the State Fair. Because of our age we can now get in for free. We enjoyed seeing the gardens, JoAnns sculptures and then the arts and crafts and painting. We walked for almost 4 hours. Wow. Dinner was Salmon we picked up in Kroger on the way home along with salad, corn and Shiraz.

Hung the box in the closet, hooked up the wires and of course nothing works. Much debug is needed. Dinner was Tilapia with brown rice and Shiraz and salad.

I tried unsuccessfully to get the new hardware working today. Not sure what's wrong. I can't read any temperatures on the One Wire bus. Will try a test program later. We watched the first part of "Birders" this morning. After a lunch of TAVS leftovers Libbie went to Rex and I walked around the back. It was a lovely day to do this. Dinner was lobster pasta from Trader joes.

Worked on building the hardware for the closet in my office. Ii used a Kroger pencil box but I may have to abandon that in favor a metal box to be more fire proof. Libbie vacuumed then I came down and set up the buffet for the violet club. We had chicken salad, whole wheat buns, macaroni salad, broccoli salad with home made unsweetened tea. It was a fun meeting. I showed newavsa.org, mentioning that it has not been approved by anybody. For dinner we had chicken curry over spaghetti with one of the whole wheat buns to sop up the sauce. I listened to L'elisir D'Amore from the Met live while working on a download of "Birders", an HBO documentary. One section was missing which meant I used the recovery files to repair the original image. When all was done I ended up with a 7 gig HD file!!!! The file extension was ts which I found was a blue ray streaming protocol. The Samsung TV can read the file but I had to use an NTFS formatted Flash Drive because the old FAT32 can't handle a file size larger than 4 Gigabytes.

It is a cooolllddd day, brrr. Barbara Ogers brought the shells over for the MAAVS banquet from New Berne. She bought some conch shells from the museum she volunteers at. They look nice. I hooked up the Arduino mega to ethernet today and after some minor tweaking it will do both COSM publishing and web serving in the same device. I need to test the Xbee functions now. Libbie went to her class tonight so we had soup for dinner. I was still hungry. I bought some STWD and BWP today in anticipation of the redemption of the BAC preferreds on Nov 15.

Made some progress on Meistersinger for the monitoring system. I am able to post data to COSM (formerly Pachube). The data is simulated, not the one wire stuff. The reason for this is so I could sit at my desk without having to go in the closet. In the front yard I moved the rest of the logs to the street. This completes the tree cleanup. Today I tried the Walgreens prescription refill. They sent an eMailtelling me I was low on Potassium pills. I replied to the eMail and a few hours later I got an eMail saying the prescription was ready. Went over and fetched it. Libbie was going to pack plants today but she found the Post Office is closed tomorrow because of Columbus Day. Dinner was Libbies yummy pizza with fresh basil. this makes a big difference. It was cold today - only in the fifties which was bad because earlier this weekend it was in the 80s.

I got some bad news last night. All the BAC preferreds are being recalled. I own 2100 shares that need a new home. I have targeted STWD which is Starwood business properties and possibly more SPH or equivalent and definitely a tiny more RGP. I'm also studying O.
The AVSA website is on hold. The morons hardly looked at it and said they need a week to study it. We went to Kroger and got Salmon for dinner which we had with beets and sweet potato, a salad and the rest of the Shiraz from Thursday night.

The Nicholas's are driving to Tulsa today, I sent Brenda the link to the newavsa site for her to look it over. I put a new chain on the saw this morning and finished cutting up the tree in the front yard. Libbie helped me take it to the street. They picked up the other logs this morning from last week. We went out to First Friday. Stopped at Litmus and talked to Jim, looked over his art and had some wine and dip. Libbie bought a fruit bowl from Sharon the potter. Next stop was Artspace. The quilt lady seems to be gone but we enjoyed looking at other art, especially the guy who paints old barns and country landscapes. Walked over to Boku for an 8 PM appointment. I had the Salmon with fennel, olives, cherry tomatoes and hummus. It was yummy and too much to eat. I tried the Lone Rider Sweet Josie beer which is brewed locally. it was quite good.

Put the jacks all back together in the attic and had some difficulty with one of the multiple taps. The wire with plug coming out of it is intermittent. Will cut the plug off and replace it with either a crimp on plug or I'll solder another one on to it.
In the afternoon we went looking for pansies at the Farmers Market but it was too early in the season. Dinner was tilapia with salad, beets and potatoes. The beets and potatoes were purchased the the Farmers market this afternoon

Worked pretty much all of today on the telephone system. Cut the lines loose in the attic and this did not solve the problem. Now I need to solder jacks on each of the cut lines to put the system back together. Dinner was pretty unique. We had pumpkin pasta which I picked up in Trader Joes. this was different and almost like eating a dessert for dinner.

Did the grocery thing then got a directory working on newavsa. Tried debugging the phone lines. Still don't know what's wrong. Ran out to Home Depot to get a 5 way telephone junction for the attic. I will try to isolate the upstairs to see if that's the problem. Dinner was leftover BBQ on sandwich rounds. Went to bed early for a change.

It's a cold rainy day. Joy came over to help Libbie and stayed until 2. I worked on the telephone wiring for a while before helping Libbie with click n ship. Dinner was lentil bean soup leftovers. Still yummy. We had a 5:50 dinner because Libbie went to her 6 PM diet class at Rex.

This is the last day of the month. Wow, it went by fast, mostly doing AVSA web work. I sure hope it was worth it. The site looks great. I moved a little more than half a dozen of the tree logs out to the road. I chose not to do anymore cutting today although after I was done getting the logs to the street I was glad I didn't cut any. We went over to Kroger with both cars and got both vehicles filled for $45 using our gas points which gave us a 40 cents per gallon saving. The list price is 3.77 before savings. In the evening Libbie made her wonderful pizza again, this time with leftover mushrooms from the Bok Choy.

This was an easy day. I finished up the affiliates section of the website then worked on updating Bluebird. The rest of the day was rainy, sometimes it was intense. I left my new steel cable out in the front yard accidentally, it's getting pretty wet today.Dinner was Bok Choy stir fry over rice with Shiraz. Still as good as ever.

I worked long and hard on the website today. I'm almost done with all the major sections!!! It's a gorgeous day out, hard to believe it's supposed to rain tonight. We went to the Asian grocery and got Bok choy, mushrooms and celery. This is an amazing store, lots of people buying healthy veggies. Dinner tonight was the Bok Choy over rice with Shiraz. Libbie booked her Providence trip today. I noticed on the Southwest website that their 11 day sale ends today so I went into action and booked some flights to Houston. I also signed up for the Selby behind the scenes photo class on Nov 17. At noon today the auction guy came out and took photos of the greenhouse so they can list it as an auction.

Nancy came over today so I returned her Come A Long. It looked brand new, still in it's original box. I worked in the yard cleaning up the tree crown and the upper part of the trunk. Hauled it to the street for pickup. Libbie dragged most of the upper branches while I cut up the trunk pieces and loaded the lawn cart and hauled a few loads to the street. Dinner was the Lentil squash soup. Still very good.

I worked on the website in the morning then went to Home Depot for more chain. Bought 100 feet of steel rope. Hooked everything up to the Doggett's come a long and the tree got cranked to vertical pretty easily. I made a little more of a cut after the saw got free and over she went away from the house. Yay! I started cutting up the crown as Libbie took the branches to the street for pick up. It was a very tiring but satisfying day. Dinner was salad with Tilapia and broccoli. It was excellent. It looks like I may have lost about 10 pounds on this regimen which has been a no diet plan. Lots of fruit and veggies and a walk or other exercise every day.