I set the alarm for 5:15 but it didn't go off. The battery quit at 4. Good thing Libbie set hers as a backup. Left the house at 5:54 for our 8:05 flight. The parking lot was pretty full but we had no problem. Security and check in lines were long. Our flight left on time and was pretty pleasant. We were 30 minutes late due to a late departure from Phoenix.
Our seatmate was a pleasant Indian guy who just graduated wiith his Masters degree and was going to a new job for Intel in Oregon. Christa and Joe met us at John Wayne. After we got our luggage we went to Rubys in Newport.nIt's a little hamburger shack on the beach. The food is good and the view is spectacular. I had a cashew chicken salad sandwich which has cashews, cranberries, raisins and chicn on whole wheat. Very good. Came back to decompress hwile Joe and Christa went to Target for a helmet. TSA unwrapped the presents Libbie had in her suitcase. They also dented one of the cookie tins. Dinner was by Christa. We had ham with green bean casserole, and cranberry salad.

Libbie reminded me this morning that we have to check in to Southwest at 8:05. I did it exactly at 8:05 and got a B06 ticket. Libbie booked a free flight to Providence in January using Southwest points. I found that American has $99 flights from LAX for Mary Elaines wedding. What a deal. We paid $121 for tickets to go out. I went to the greenhouse and stripped a few more benches and moved some bench top scraps to the shed to get them out of the way. After lunch we went to the Post Office, Credit Union and Target. The iron quit so we did a Target trip to replace it. Used my $10 gift card from BAC which was good. Picked up ingredients for ting a lings but had to return because one of the packages didn't make it home. They had a shopping basket of packages that people had bought and left behind. This must happen hourly! Libbie made her wonderful pizza again for dinner.

At the greenhouse today I Carried some of the 4 foot benching into the shed and stripped a few more benches. Came home and listened to the Sat broadcast of Barber in Seville from the Met. After that we went back to the greenhouse and picked up the 4 bundles of pipes and 2 garbage bags and took them to the dump. It was a good night for this - nobody else was there. I'm happy we got rid of all those pipes. Hooray. At dark we went over to Crimmons Circle to see a synchronized light display in the Woods of Kildaire. The guy has speakers outside so we were able to see the lights and hear the music outside the car standing in front of his house. Very nice. We got back around 6:30 pm. Dinner was Lobster tails once again with rice, broccoli and Shiraz.

Libbie got good news on her blood work from her Dr. Liver and Kidney function are back to normal. I went to the greenhouse and took down the rest of the conduit on the cool cell wall. I also carried a few rolls of 4 foot benching out to the shed. This is good storage for it. I wanted to strip a table but ran out of time and energy. Spent 2 hours there. Helped Libbie this afternoon at the Post Office then went to Kroger and found lobster tail on sale, 2/$10. We had them for dinner with broccoli, rice and Shiraz. Quite nice. After dinner we went back to Kroger and bought 3 lobster tails for tomorrow night.

Went to the greenhouse and took down more of the cool cell wall conduit and collected the copper wire. When I was ready to come home I decided to strip another bench top. Walked outside and looked in the shed. I found a nice spot in there for the benchtops and it will look like it belongs there without messing up the property too much. When I came home I started playing with the Nexus tablet. I bought an app for $4, EZpdf for reading PDFs. I really like it and the price is right. The tablet is turning into a nice toy. Earlier today I installed Google Voice on the thing and made a phone call to our home phone. Now with the PDF reader I can read the family address list. I also installed the Next Issue app which gives me access to the free subscription we have to Southern Living. Joy came over and she and Libbie worked on the binding for her quilt. After lunch I went to Kroger for lettuce then tried out the roof rake on the front porch when I returned. Next was a walk to my solar site again, picking up various twigs and sticks which had fallen on my defined pathway. The site still looks great although I have doubts about the amount of cable it will take to do the job. It may be cost prohibitive. I wonder what my threshold of pain is? $1,000, $2,000, $3,000? This is in addition to the cost of panels and inverters.
Dinner was BBQ sandwiches again with a salad. Nice.

Went to the greenhouse and took off one bench top and also removed the copper tubing from the Modine heaters. Little by little this is getting done. It's warm again for December - in the 50s. After my hour at the greenhouse I came home and took the chain saw to the back and dropped the Oak Tree against the pond dam. Cut the tree up and stacked it on my branches pile in the back. Still unsure about the viability of installing a solar array back there.
After lunch Libbie and I went to Barnes and Noble for cookbooks for Christmas (Joe & Christa), then went across the street to Penneys to buy a new large suitcase. We paid $110, the store was remarkably not crowded. The main entrance to the mall was gridlock but we went around and had an easy time. On the way to B-N we first stopped in Kroger where I got a flu shot using the free insurance card. It was my first. Came home tired. Dinner was BBQ sandwiches and a salad.

Did the grocery store this morning and also visited Home Depot and Lowes looking for a remote control. No luck at either store. Ace Hardware is my last hope. I want to use a power remote for the fan timer to control under the house and also control the outdoor lighting. Did some more greenhouse work. This time I stripped the bench top in house 1. Pulled the water hose out from under the bench and also took down some more conduit. At home I took the chain saw out back and started trimming some smaller trees where I want to locate the solar panel. I also removed the big cedar tree on the property line which would have shaded the panels. It's a 60 degree plus day out, very nice. Dinner was Briyani which we did not have for a while. We listened to BArber of Seville live tonight. It was a modified for families on Christmas version. Sung in english and shortened which seemed to work. Talked to Sue Hoffmann today about the New Bern hotel. She still isn't sure about what to do about a hotel. I'm going to try to back out of it.

A little bit of patchy rain today. Went over to the greenhouse and did another hour of cleanup. Took the large duct down on the heater in house 3. Will come back and remove the bench top in house 1 and also the piece of benching touching the wall of the cool cells so that I could start working on the conduit wall. Came home and did some click n ship then helped Libbie carry two big bags of packages and a handful of envelopes to the Post Office. She can't lift stuff after the surgery and this is the busiest day of the year at the Post Office. fun. Dinner was spinach pasta from Trader Joes.

Libbie is recovering nicely but she stayed upstairs this morning and didn't come down till later. Watched the CBS Morning Show together, then on to our day. I did a little more configuration of the router and Traviata Server. We went to "Lincoln" in Apex at 11:50 am. It was quite good if not historically accurate. Reading Killing Lincoln at the same time was great for me since I had the scoop on the real Lincoln History. The local theater accepted our free passes from the failed Hoffmann of several years ago. I still have two more passes. Dinner was Libbie's excellent pizza which she managed to start from scratch after the theater today.

Got in the car with Libbie and drove to the greenhouse to get the mail then we stopped at Seagrove Farm and walked around the park they built around the lake. Examined the new pavilion and play area. Very nice. Left for Aida from the Met at 12:20 today. We met Meg Calcagni and her Mother in the theater. The Opera was spectacular as Aida always is. The singing is first rate. The new Aida from the Ukraine is a treat. We had the usual collection of popcorn bag rattlers. I don't know why they choose the pianissimo moments to make their noise.
When we came home we had the rest of the chicken for dinner. I had a carrot and sunflower seed salad and also the cranberry salad.

This morning I made a scrambled egg for Libbie. Stayed around the house all day to make sure she was OK. The instructions were not to leave her alone for the first 24 hours. Our router is a pain in the butt. It keeps crashing. The replacement seems to be lost between Memphis and here. Dinner was a rotisserie chicken with Trader Joe Mac N Cheese and Kroger Cranberry salad. The salad has cranberries, cherries, celery and walnuts. It's way too sweet and suitable more as a dessert. Ran out to HH Gregg this evening sand bought a Netgear router which is highly rated. After a succession of phone calls from her family, Libbie went to bed and I proceeded to configure the new router. The menu is extensive and the Genie tool is quite good. All seems to be working.

Today is a warmer day, around 60. Libbie can't have anything to eat today because of her surgery this afternoon. I worked on SQL databases in my office for a while. We got a call from the hospital that they were ahead of schedule and to come over when we could. We were originally supposed to be there for prep at 2:15 for 4:15 surgery. We left home at 1:39 PM and went straight in. They collected $200 at admissions and told us to wait in the day surgery area. In about 10 minutes they took Libbie and gave me a pager. I was called when she was ready for the OR and again at 4 when the operation was concluded. I spoke with her doctor who told me her gallbladder probably had not functioned in quite a while. They called me again at 6 to say she was awake. I went in and waited with her for a half hour then went to get the car and picked her up at the entrance. We stopped at Kroger first for pain medication then went home. I made chicken soup for her then escorted her up to bed. She's in quite a bit of pain and moving slowly. Tonight will be interesting. For dinner I had leftover BBQ and a PBJ sandwich.

It's a cloudy rainy cold day. We left for New Bern at 8:52. Stopped for gas outside of Smithfield then did a bathroom break in Kinston. We arrived at the Doubletree around 11:15. We met Jan and went to the restaurant for a DoubleTree lunch. I had the chicken parmesan sandwich with fruit. Libbie had vegetable soup because she had pain overnight, possibly her liver. She needs to nurse it along until gall bladder surgery tomorrow. We met Sue Hoffmann and Carol Van there and toured the place. It's a very nice hotel but it's in 2 buildings. We left New Bern at 2:30. It's a pretty cute town. Arrived home at 5 after stopping at Kroger for a bottle of Cranberry Juice for Libbie tomorrow.
Dinner for me tonight was the leftover Pollo Chipotle from Monday night.

I worked on reading about MySQL software with PHP then it was time to dress up for the party. We had a wonderful party at JoAnn Raymers. Libbie made Lemon Squares and we had a bird tray and fruit cake basket for the gift exchange. JoAnn served meatloaf with an onion casserole and bean salad. It was wonderful. Dinner tonight was BBQ sandwiches with a salad and lemon squares for dessert.

Libbie found out she needs her gall bladder removed. They set up an appointment for Thursday for her surgery. I took the packages to the Post Office for her then did a Credit Union deposit and a Walmart trip to pick up a case for my Nexus 7. Last stop was the greenhouse where I put in an hour taking down the house 1 duct work and the rest of the sprinklers. Sprinklers only remain now on one bench where all the duct pipes are stored. For dinner we went out La Cosina where I ordered Pollo chipotle, my favorite there.

Libbie packed up quite a few of the packages for tomorrow since she has a few doctor appointments during the day. In the afternoon we went to Bear Creek, NC to the Fruit Cake bakery. It was an enjoyable trip and a nice place. I enjoyed it. The weather was warm in the 60s but the sky was everything from spotty blue to menacing black clouds. Dinner was Libbie's magnificent pizza once again.

Planted the daffodils. The ground is very dry, we may be in a drought. Worked on boxing the Meistersinger controller. Fired it up and noticed the Xbee is not powered up. Need to debug this. Left at 12:20 for the opera - I have something irritating my eye today which is not good. Loved the opera, Un Ballo at Crossroads this afternoon. Strong cast and good singing. Fantastic. Came home and took my contacts out since my eye was distressed so much. The router seems to have died this afternoon. I put the old Linksys in. It looks like I may be able to upgrade this to dd-wrt after a Linksys firmware update. Dinner was chili and shiraz with a salad before dinner. The oruter can't be upgraded since it doesn't have enough memory. It's a real pain in the ass.

We went to the greenhouse at 10 and did some more cleanup. I took down another air duct and removed sprinkler heads from several of the benches. We spent about an hour then loaded the car with garbage bags and went to the dump. Sunset Lake Road to the dump has been reconfigured. You can no longer cross the 55 bypass. We have to turn right, do a U Turn and come back. The same is true in the other direction. They closed the road to traffic crossing and only allow turns. It wasn't too much of an inconvenience. Finished editing the description for the Andrea DVD and sent it to Al and Kathy Lahti. Now we have to make the DVD which is going to be interesting. This is First Friday and we have reservations for Cafe Luna at 8 PM.
Left the house at 6:15 and found that 64 by Krogers was in a state of gridlock. Went to the Cary Pkway which was better but many many cycles of the light near Kildaire Farm Rd. Once we got by that, 440 was a little better. Started by stopping at Litmus Gallery, talked with Jim then went over to Artspace. We used the Moore Square parking garage but had to park on the 6th floor it was so busy. Downtown was really crowded which was surprising. We had a nice table for two in front of the window at Caffe Luna. I had the seafood pasta, Pescatore something or other. Parker gave us a glass of red wine while we waited which was nice. We ordered an additional glass of Strong merlot. It was a nice evening of art and dinner.

I finished the last of the pages on AVSA for the photo gallery. There are still another 1000 photos to go but at least each letter of the alphabet has a page of pictures. At 10 I left with Libbie's Prius and drove to Toyota of Apex to get an oil change. It took an hour but the great news was they ran it through the car wash and also took my online coupon for a $50 oil change. It's a nice place. I read the Wall Street Journal and drank coffee. Next stop was the Credit Union where I deposited the eye doctor check. Came home and found I missed an eye doctor follow up visit. I had it on my calendar as next week. Libbie got a call that her bilo levels were high so she went for an ultrasound this morning. She needs gall bladder surgery but will get a consultation with a surgeon Monday morning. My Bluetooth keyboard came. I hooked it up and it worked seemlessly with the Nexus 7. Pretty cool.

Early in the morning I continued to add photos to the AVSA website. This is a lot of work!!! Libbie and I left together at 10 to do some work at the greenhouse. We stopped by the Apex Toyota place to check on Express Lube at the dealership. We were amazed at the number of Prius's in the lot. I started cutting up the pipes in the greenhouse and bundling them while Libbie worked on the lead waterers. She called over to Fairview to see if they needed our web trays. Took one over there to show Carol. They decided they needed them and sent Santos over with the flat bed truck. JoAnn came over as well. She gave Libbie a Poinsettia, we helped Santos load the truck with trays and cool cells and a lot of other misc stuff. I was tired after this. Came home and continued working on photos. Dinner was salad and Lobster Ravioli with fruit cake for dessert. I finished the Mitch Albom book Timekeeper this evening while Don Giovanni was live on Sirius.

Libbie finished her backlog of orders while I continued to add photos to the website. Joy came over again to help her. I went over to the greenhouse and rolled up the center bench top in house 2. It went pretty easily. I also started piling up boards along the pipeline as a test to see if this is a viable place to put the benching. Dinner was on my own. Libbie made a corn and bean dish for Rex Pot luck. I got 2 bowls of the leftovers for dinner. It was excellent.

Libbie is backed up with orders. This is her first week of shipping all this stuff. My 3T hard drive arrived from New Egg. This will be the Traviata backup drive. It comes unformatted so I had to download the Disc Wizard software to make it into one big partition. The Cobian backup as well as Second Copy software bogged the machine down too much. I'll try an initial copy with Beyond Compare first then updates in the future with Second Copy. Dinner was whole wheat spaghetti with chicken pieces.

Libbie got started on all the back orders while I continued to work on the AVSA website. In the afternoon I went over to the greenhouse to continue taking down the pipes and conduit. This phase of the project is almost complete. For dinner Libbie made her excellent pizza once again. It's too bad we don't have anymore fresh basil.

Took it easy this morning working on the web stuff. We left at 12:20 for the theater, La Clemenza starts at 12:55. It was a few minutes late and didn't start until after 1. We enjoyed the performance, how could you go long with Mozart? It was a little long for me but enjoyable none the less. After the performance we went over to BJ's for dinner fixins. Picked up ribs for dinner and also renewed our membership which brought the bill to $120. The credit card is going to be out of this world this month. It has the TV purchases in Sarasota plus the Florida trip and other stuff. Dinner was Ribs with Broccoli and Shiraz.

We went early to the greenhouse because Libbie had an eye appointment this afternoon. The Corolla has a flat tire which I took off and put in the Prius for a trip to Fussel. They couldn't repair it because the screw went through the sidewall. Bought a new tire for $120 and also had the Prius tires rotated. At the greenhouse I took down most of the pipes in house 1. The pipes still remain in house 4. At home Libbie made a Lemon Meringue belated birthday pie with a Meyer Lemon. It was delicious as usual. The rest of dinner was parmesan tilapia and green beans with Shiraz. Yum