What a great day. I got a bootloader burned into the Meistersinger Atmega2560. This one has a watchdog timer issue and needed a bootloader with the correction. I used an Arduino Uno to burn the bootloader using a sketch I found online. Got it all back together and added the watchdog code so if the thing crashes it will recover. It crashed twice in the past 6 months. After lunch I went outside and added lime to the pansies and questionable fertilizer. The fertilizer was very wet and possibly not effective because the good stuff may have washed out. My next act was to diagnose the hot tub. Bought a brass plug, 1/8 inch, from Lowes. Replaced the pressure switch with the plug and worked on the switch. Seemed to have gotten it going again. Hooked it up and the water is heating at 1.5 degrees per hour. Woo Hoo! The Super Bowl is on tonight. Libbie is watching it but I'm not. Went downstairs for some pizza which was our dinner - another winner by Libbie!!! Came back upstairs to read "Strength in What Remains" by Tracy Kidder.

I saved the raspberry image of squeezeplug to my raspberry then went outside and blew the driveway off. I also spent some time organizing files on my laptop, offloading some files and pictures that needed to be archived. At 7 we left for the NC Symphony. We had a serving of Meyer Lemon chicken before leaving. The program was loud and envigorating. It ataryed with Strauss' Sprach Zarathustra then went into the Blue Danube before doing Star Wars and Star Trek. The second half was the planets with nice NASA HD imagery playing in HD. It was quite a nice eveningg.

I had a pretty good checkup at the Doctors office today. I lost 10 pounds since last year but my blood pressure and triglycerides are still up too high. He changed my bp medicine which I picked up at Kroger with Libbie when we both went over there on a grocery run. She got some more tortillas for Sat night and a few things for tonights dinner. I got the Pi going again after the SD card got corrupted. I need some kind of shutdown on the device so this doesn't happen again. I also will save the card image on my laptop. The Natl Geo park of National Parks came as well as my new camera for the Pi. This will give me an HD cam web server when I get it hooked up. Dinner was the Meyer Lemon chicken from Cooking Light magazine.

Went to the grocery store with Libbie to pick up supplies for the veggie tortilla she wants to make. Met Nancy Doggett in Trader Joes. I tried today to get the music player going in a case. No luck. The SD card may be corrupt so I downloaded a new Squeezeplug image and put it on the SD card. I will have to do setup again, probably tomorrow. The meal was wonderful. It contained black beans, shallots and other goodies between two tortillas covered with salsa and sour cream. We had it with a Rodney Strong Sauvignon Blanc.

I noticed there is a weather station in Surrey Meadows so I zeroed in on it and took a walk looking for it. I think I found the third house from the corner with a possible weather station on the roof, maybe not. Can't see it from the front but if you go around the corner and look down the row of backyards, it looks like there may be something near the roof ridge. Spent a ridiculous amount of time building an Ethernet cable for my Raspberry Pi music client. The power supplies came from Adafruit. Now I only need the SD cards which are on their way from Newegg. Dinner was salmon patties with lettuce and mayo. We did not have any more greek yogurt with dill which we originally purchased from Trader Joe.

Up early. Talked to Libbie early who was supposed to leave at 8:55 from PVD but her flight was delayed until 10:30. I worked outside a little cleaning pine straw off the roof and carrying it to the back fence as mulch. Left at 2:15 since Libbie's plane is expected to land at 2:25. Went straight to the terminal and picked her up. When we got home the mailman drove up and dropped off the new router and the relay boards from china. Now I have a lot to do. Dinner was thin spaghetti covered with mozzarella cheese. Before dinner we took a walk around Seagrove Farm. It's a beautiful day. We noticed they were working on the house next to the pond once again.

Got up early and put all my stuff in the car and drove to the front desk building for breakfast. The breakfast room was crowded, all of them construction workers apparently renovating the hotel. Next went to the public beach access. Parked on the street and walked the brick path to the beach. It was beautiful. The weather was a little chilly around 50 with a breeze but not bad. Got going around 9 am. I enjoyed the trip across Hilton Head and took the tool road. It was a lot nicer than driving in the dark. Got gas at the Wendys Travelstop North of Florence. Gas was 3.14, what a deal. Traffic was light although it got dark around Lake Marion and started raining. Twenty miles later the sky was blue and sunny. Nice. Got home at 1:30 pm.
Once home I went to the greenhouse and picked up the trash into two big garbage bags then went to the Post Office and retrieved our mail which included 2 Raspberry Pis and the Spa Light for the Hot Tub as well as an MS Lifecam and Global Vegetarian book. I tried the Lifecam and it works really well.
Put the garbage cans out for tomorrow and picked up a Kroger pizza for dinner. The deluxe full size was on sale for $3 which I ate approx 75% of. Not good. The pizza wasn't tasty and the calories were too high. I listened to the Premiere of Rigoletto on the Met tonight.

Up at 5:30 am today, probably because I went to bed at 9 last night reading the Tracy Kidder novel, Strength in What Remains. Did the last minute cleaning which included washing the sheets and towels, mopping the floors and packing the refrigerator stuff and food. I got going at 11:40. The weather was beautiful and I hated to leave. The trip was uneventful. It started getting dark crossing Lake Marion then it started raining pretty hard. It was good for cleaning the windshield but not good for travel. Half an hour down the road the sky turned blue and it was easy sailing once again. Traffic was light and I got home at 1:30. My only food was a Chipotle wrap when I got gas on I-4 at the the exit where the RVs are buried at an angle in mimicry of Cadillac ranch.
Monitored my gas range using the trip computer to make sure I could make it to exit 8 in SC. I had plenty of gas to spare when I stopped for a fillup. The sign said there was a Wendys but it seemed to be closed and empty. I continued down the little 2 lane road out to the beach. Traffic was bumper to bumper and lots of construction with a 45 MPH speed limit. It was dark so I couldn't find a dinner stop. I wanted some Wendy's chili. It's also cold, in the 50s which is a lot cooler than when I was on I-4 and it was 80. Made my way to the Comfort Inn. Check in was slow, the front desk clerk was a putz. He spent an inordinate amount of time showing the woman in front of me where the restaurants are on a map. I just wanted to check in and get to a room. Didn't care for the hotel with outdoor exposed hallways. It was cold. Went out after settling in and bought some chicken tenders and a cheesecake slice from a Bi Low grocery store a short distance from the hotel. It was 8 PM and they were clearing out the rotisserie case. Not what I wanted but it was convenient and I was hungry. Talked to Libbie from bed using the tablet on the WiFi. It worked well for me, she said there was an echo.

I took my time cleaning the condo - dusting and washing dirty and dusty surfaces. At noon I went out for
a wonderful walk. An eagle dove for a fish right next to me as I walked on the sidewalk next to our pond out front.
Pretty cool. It's a warm and beautiful day. During the Opera I continued to do cleaning including laundry.
Mostly everything is in good shape. Had to make a trip to Lowes for CF light bulbs since one was missing in the bedroom lamp.
I don't understand that. While I was out I picked up a sub which I had with the rest of the Barefoot Merlot. Made reservations
for Hilton Head for tomorrow night. I hope to walk the beach early Monday morning before leaving.

Another beautiful day. Decided to take a ride up to Clearwater to near the airport. It was a glorious drive across
Tampa Bay. I was out a total of 4 hours. On the way home I stopped at Selby and walked around, checked out the art in
the Payne Mansion. An artist created art works that resemble herbarium samples. I liked it. Dinner was the leftover ribs and
leftover Rodney Strong merlot.

I did a lot of reading about Raspberry Pi today. Went out a took a nice long walk around the neighborhood. The weather is perfect.
For dinner I ordered a full rack of ribs which I had with Rodney Strong Merlot.

Left St Augustine in a leisurely trip. Almost got killed around Lakeland when a woman moved into my lane. I was in the fast lane.
I held down on the horn and was forced over to the shoulder. It was pretty scary going at 70 MPH and driving the shoulder. I got into
Stoneybrook around 1 PM. Stopped into the Real Estate Office to hassle the staff and also ordered a BLT for lunch from the clubhouse.

Took Lib to the airport for her 8:20 am flight to PVD. I took 3 packages to the Post Office then stopped across the street to change my dental appointment. It was next Monday when I was planning to travel home. I got going at 9 am. Traffic was a bit heavy. Stopped for gas in Florence for 3.09 and had a banana. Next stop was St Marys, GA for gas and my PbNJ sandwiches I made before leaving home. I had until 4 to cancel my St Augustine Comfort Suites reservation but I didn't do it. Decided to explore St A which was worth it. Stopped at Wendys in front of the outlet mall for a hamburger for dinner.

This morning I built a case for my Pi. Rest of the day was spent trying to get the C-Media USB sound card working with the Squeezelite player. I finally screwed it up so bad I ended up re-flashing an image on the SD card. With the USB sound device plugged in during setup it asked me which sound device I wanted to use. I chose the C-Media and suddenly all was well. Now I have good quality sound coming from the Pi streamed from my Traviata server. I rounded up all the garbage from the house today and also went to the greenhouse and picked up the bag of conduit scraps and misc trash. With luck this will get picked up before I leave for Sarasota in the morning.
I love having the music collection available at my finger tips on the Droid. Dinner was spaghetti covered with Curried chicken and cheese. Yum.

After the morning shows I worked on the Pi some more. I'm looking for a remote control music player. Libbie delivered the finished quilt to Joy while I did this then she went to the greenhouse and worked a little more. After lunch I took down the rest of the shade cloth then we went for a walk around Seagrove farm. It's a sunny day around 60 which is perfect. I had a lot of success with the Logitech server software and a slave player on the Raspberry called Squeezeplug. The whole thing is controlled by an Android app called Squeezedroid. I love it!!!!! There also is an Android player app but it is not free. Libbie made another one of her most excellent pizzas. It was great. I made reservations in Augustine, FL for my drive down on Tuesday. Not sure if it's really necessary.

This morning I worked on more scanning before we left for the Opera at 12:30. We had a very good performance of Maria Stuarda with joyce DiDonato. Also this morning I registered for the Gesneriad convention and made our Niagra Falls plans. Still need to sign up for Road Scholar and then get the airfare, After the Opera we drove to the Credit Union for trip money for this week.

This is a frosty and icy mmorning. Yesterdays rain turned to snow in the past 2 hours overnight putting a coating on everything. The bad news was I had to get a blood sample taken at 7:50. There was no problem. I allowed plenty of time but didn't need it. Came back and did more Toronto trip planning. Removed the spa light from the hot tub this afternoon. It's cracked and was the source of our leak. A new one is on order. Dinner was chili, corn bread and Shiraz.

Nancy came over this morning and we talked about the weather and the possibility of snow tomorrow. The Pi came today. It worked on the first try after getting everything hooked up. Earlier I made a trip to Walmart to get a USB wall charger to supply the thing since I didn't have any USB chargers. Dinner was BBQ on a bun with salad.

I got Orcad going and did a schematic for a new 8 relay irrigation timer with bluetooth. It's a cloudy rainy day. It may snow tomorrow evening. Dinner was Lentil Curry soup with butternut squash. Very good. I bought the ingredients yesterday including a Jalapeno pepper.

Studied plans for both the LA trip and the Toronto trip. Richard would like me to update the new website but there is no hurry since it will be a while before that thing flies. This afternoon I made a trip to Tigerdirect for an HDMI cable and an SD card for the Raspberry Pi. I got a tracking number for the PI yesterday. Dinner was Trader Joes pasta.

Most of the bills for the month have cleared and we will have over $1k left over which is great thanks to Social Security. Started working on the Hot Tub. It looks like the leak is the spa light and not the pump which is good news. It also means lowering the water level to find why the spa light is leaking. I suspect a cracked lens. Dinner was Briyani with chicken.

It's warm today. Libbie joined me at the greenhouse. I brought the miter saw out and used it to chop up the conduit into 6 foot lengths to be bundled and taken to the dump. This was successful. While I did that, Libbie emptied one table of potted orchids and also took down a heat tube and water line under the bench. There's still much to do. Came home and worked in the garden. I trimmed the rose bushes and the Lantana and hauled away the trimmings in the cart. We watched the Golden Globe red carpet and then the show tonight while we enjoyed Libbie's outstanding pizza. She made a very thin crust this time which was excellent.

Worked on relay stuff then went to the grocery store for dinner fixins before the 1 PM opera today. Il Trovotore is a favorite. Lib and I also took a quick walk around Seagroves. The sun is out and it's beautiful and warm today, over 70. While the opera was on I worked on the relay board for the garden irrigation. Dinner was salmon, broccoli and rice with Shiraz.

Today would have been Mom's 92nd birthday. Sad. It's warm out so I went under the house to trace the telephone wires. No luck. The next step will be to try another pair in the cable. It's real foggy this evening. We had a light dinner of Briyani then went to the NC Symphony. I really enjoyed the performance. Tchaikoovsky on both ends and guest violin soloist playing Piazzolo and Vivaldi 4 seasons in the middle. It was well matched, powerful and enjoyable.

I worked on the bluetooth version of an 8 relay box for the garden and also for use in the plant room. Dinner was Pork BBQ from Trader Joes.