Up early. saw Christa off to School while Libbie is washing the bedding before we have to leave at 11:30 am for out 1:35 flight. My cold is in full nose drip. I ran out to Ralphs to get Sudafed but they don't have a pharmacy. There was a CVS next door where I got a store equivalent for $11. I also topped off the gas tank at 4.05 per gallon. They did take credit cards. Joe said it was Arco that only takes debit. This is what we encountered in Ventura. Joe got us to the airport in good time, we left at 11:30 and got there at 11:50. I had TSA-Pre which was great - kept my shoes on and did not have to remove the laptop from my suitcase. Our flight was easy to Vegas. We bought two Jersey Mikes Turkey subs at the airport and went over to gate C3 to people watch and have our dinner. Our gate was C2 and was about 15 minutes late leaving but we made that up and landed more or less on time in Raleigh. I got my car washed at 1:30 in the morning!!!!! Overall it was an easy trip. I finished my book by Anne Stuart, Ritual Sins. It was so-so, probably 5 out of 10.

Christa went to work at 7 this morning like always. I uncovered a few sites that have decoded the pulses from a Seeburg wallbox. I will implement the algorithm in an Arduino because of timing constraints and use the Arduino to select the correct music from my Server which means figuring out the protocol to get into the Logitech Music software. This will be interesting and fun. Joe and Lib went to Central Park to bird watch while I stayed behind to work on software. I eventually finished the update portion of the software that had not been working for various reasons. Now it needs a good test cycle including a clean install. When Christa came home she and Libbie hung pictures in the nursery. I helped with one she couldn't reach. Took a pic of Joe and Christa and posted it to Facebook. Lots of comments. For dinner we went out to La Capilla where I had the Shrimp Rancheros and a Pacifico bottled beer. I went to bed early but stayed in bed reading until 9:30. Will pack in the morning.

This morning Joe and I went to Home Depot and bought all the fittings for his conduit between the cutoff switch and his breaker box. We put in a new 40 amp double breaker and a length of #8 wire in a steel conduit. Next Libbie and I parked at the library downtown and walked to the pier. I like the volleyball team :) We tried to have lunch at Hurricanes but they were full so we waited at Rubys for 35 minutes for a table. I ordered a cranberry brie turkey burger with fries while Libbie had a soup and half a sandwich. It was incredibly windy walking back. On the way we stopped in at a Pedego dealer and browsed his large selection of eBikes. While we were away, Joe tightened up all the connections on the conduit. It's pretty solid going to the cutoff switch. I bought a Seeburg Wallbox this morning from a place in Maine. It was $285 with free shipping. The company has 100% positive feedback. What a deal.
Christa came home in the afternoon from her Vegas trip. Joe made pizza and salad for us for dinner. I think I may be getting Libbie's cold. We shall see.
I FTP'd the Bluebird orders files to my computer since they were not going to orders at the Gmail account, Superb determined they were being blocked by Gmail.

Christa left this morning for Grannies birthday in Vegas. We decided to leave at 9 for the Century theater in HB for a 10 am performance of La Boheme. Mimi as ill so we had a substitute, Kristen Opalais who had sung Butterfly the night before. It was very nice and thoroughly enjoyable. We met a woman next to us from Spain and had some nice chats with her during intermissions. After the opera we went to Frys and bought a mouse for Libbie. We had lunch at McDonalds across the street and got home around 3. Dinner was pizza by Joe along with a nice salad. We spent the evening diagnosing the BB website because orders were not coming in to orders. I had several chats with people at Superb about this before going to bed. He was going to elevate the problem to his next level of support.

This is our last day in Ventura. We had the scrambled egg and bacon breakfast then went upstairs to the 9:00 Suzanne Landry Vegetable cooking demo. We had a taste of chericomay which was a banana cream tasting veggie with large seeds. It was yummy. She prepared a nice salad for us with roasted beets, walnuts, balsamic vinegar and sweet pixie tangerines. Yummy. We ended up buying her cookbook which she signed. It was $25 and a nice book. Afterward we got going on the 101. A few exits down we stopped for $4 gas but THE first station didn't take credit cards, only debit. The next station, a shell, we filled up at 4.15 per gallon. The 101 stopped near the 405, the the 405 was stop and go through all of LA. We finally got going once we reached the LAX area. We got off on Beach and found a Pollo Loco where I had the taco mango plate. It was excellent. Got to Joe's around 2 or 3. Christa came home at 5. She and Joe went out to visit a friend camping in the area then picked up some salads in a tostada with pork, black beans, lettuce and rice for dinner.

Breakfast was pancakes and sausages. We went out onto the pier to see the launch but didn't see anything. I saw a corkscrew vapor trail but nothing else. We got on the bus at 9:00 and went to a family strawberry farm. He and his father farm 117 acres of strawberries. We learned about planting, picking and prep during the non harvest time. This was pretty fascinating. Next stop was a family organic farm and was not my favorite. he owner was very political about ag regulations and locally grown, etc. The farm was fine, we smelled the cinnamon they were using for weed control which was a nice smell. Looked at the animals then headed to lunch. We had lunch in Heritage Square. Lunch was a buffet of chicken, veggies and rice. After lunch we did a walking tour of the houses there and how they got to be there. The houses are beautiful but incredibly expensive queen Anns and craftsmen style homes. One home cost 1 million dollars to move and then another million to upgrade it. Next stop was the Food Share food bank where we got an interesting tour. At the conclusion we wrote thank you letters to partner agencies for their help. We were given 3 letters to write but only wrote 2 letters including addressing the envelopes since we were out of time. Libbie has a bad cold today,hope I don't get it. Dinner tonight was a demo of making strawberry vinaigrette which we had on our salad and a wine tasting. We had generous pours of Lehman Shiraz-Cabernet blend which I liked very much. I had many glasses of this with salmon over potatoes with onions and mixed veggies. I cleaned my plate. Desert was a chocolate mousse over a cake-cookie base. This was all decadent. We had a nice time with Jill & Larry and our fellow table mates. What a fun evening although I drank too much.

I had the egg and vegetable scramble for breakfast. We got going at 8:30 and went to the beneficial insectary. This was a pretty neat place. We learned that they grow bad bugs to feed the good bugs. What a surprise. Our next stop was the Ventura ag museum. This is a well done museum of old farm implements, tractors, etc next to the RR tracks in a converted Lima Bean warehouse. The young man from Monday night did an excellent job showing us around. He was much more comfortable in his own building among some of the exhibits he designed and was quite animated explaining to us how this all worked. Lunch was a Guac demo in Tia Babes. We had Tostadas, mine was pork. After dinner we went to the Hansen learning farm run by the university. This was pretty good - Jose gave us a talk about the center and ag in Ventura county then we did a wlaking tour of the grounds looking at various crops. Fun. We came back incredibly tired. We had a dinner upstairs of a pork stir fry with rice and chocolate covered strawberries for desert. Can't believe it but we climbed into bed at 8:30. I continued to read a little.

French toast breakfast and an attempt to get my order straightened with Verizon regarding removing the Sports package and downgrading the TV service. I was not very successful with Verizon which caused me to be last on the bus screwing around with this stuff. We left for Ojai where we visited the Pixie Tangerine company, a small organic grower. It was pretty interesting going through the fields with this guy who has tried to find a niche in the citrus industry. We met his wife as well. We got samples of the tangerines from this operation. Next stop was the Ojai Olive company where we visited the groves, got a lecture on growing olives then went into the pressing room and finally the tasting room. We enjoyed the Olive company and the good olive oils. We had lunch downtown at the Ojai Beverage Company and afterwards went to a tasting room in downtown Ojai and tasted various red and white wines. I liked the cute French girl serving us. She said she's a French teacher in the High School but currently on maternity leave. Libbie and walked up to the mission in downtown Ventura and then back down to the Promenade and home. Dinner was an Italian buffet and Bananas Foster demo which we had for desert. Afterwards we watched 2 movies, one on Farm Worker housing and the second on urban sprawl in Ventura. Went back to try dealing with Verizon some more. They couldn't help me until tomorrow because the order is in but it's wrong.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee we got on the bus and went to Sun Growers, a cut flower operation. It was amazing to see the flowers bundled into bouquets for sale by Trader Joe, Costco, HB Foods in Tx and other large wholesale customers. We toured the greenhouses and refrigerated rooms. Next stop was Mission Avocodo packers. We saw the entire process from large crates to hydro washing, sorting and grating and packing including their newest line, a bagging machine where they were packing net bags of avocados. We next went to the construction site of their new consolidated facility. The young man leading us was the VP of engineering and was quite good. Lunch was at a small cafe in an old Woolworths building which has been preserved as historic complete with a little Woolworths museum of memorabilia.
For the afternoon we had a downtown walking tour of Ventura with the local historian. He was pretty good but I was tired. Dinner tonight was a meatloaf buffet. After dinner we had the director of the Ventura County Ag museum give us a talk on the museum. He was OK but mostly read from his notes and used pictures to illustrate some of the history.

We went out to Woodys for breakfast with Christa's cousins. I'm not a big omelet eater so I had a bagel and cream cheese. It was a nice meal I certainly didn't need. Her cousins are huge people and eat all those cholesterol laden plates of food. Uggh. We left HB at 10:20 and sailed up the freeway without any problems. Called Barb around 11 and told her we were approaching the Ronald Reagan. Simi Valley is beautiful, much nicer than the HB area. Barb has a lovely home. We looked at her plants and plantings then went out to lunch at a Thai place. They treated and we had ample time to chat without the constraints of the convention. They gave us directions to take a route through farm country which we did and enjoyed the fields and cold frames lining the highway. IT was a worthwhile drive instead of the freeway. Made it to our hotel on the beach and were very surprised to find our Rose Bowl leaders, Jill and Larry Fine were the leaders for the farm tour. Nice. Our room is on the 11th floor overlooking the pier looking South. Quite nice but the facility is very old and could use a refurb. Our dinner was a meet and greet and then a chicken and rice dinner with salad greens and pear torte for dessert. Very adequate. We went to bed tonight pretty tired.

After breakfast we went to the party leaving Joe and Christa's around 9:15. We got surprised that we were driving so we got the GPS and put the address in and followed the prompts to Yorba Linda. This is a nice area of lovely homes, the streets are nicely landscaped. I liked it very much. We had a little trouble with all the hot plates plugged into the kitchen counter, the breaker tripped a few times and then permanently gave up. I used Cory's meter and isolated the bad breaker. We pulled it later and he went to Home Depot and bought a new one for an astounding $65. Christa got an amazing collection of baby shower gifts. Many books and clothes and a large amount of other stuff. Libbie's quilts ere lost in the mix. We came home later in the day where Libbie helped Christa sort through all the stuff. Wow, what an amazing pile of stuff. At the party Joe made omelettes and Craig cooked pancakes. I had one of Craig's pancakes which was very good. I spooned strawberries over the top. Later in the evening we went out to La Capilla where I had 2 beef Tacos and a Pacifico draft beer. A nice day, unfortunately we are meeting Christa's cousin for breakfast tomorrow morning. I'm planning to drive to Ventura at 10.

Another good nights sleep. I spent more time debugging while Joe researched building permits. I finally have a good version of Nashville to put on Google Play. I have all the updates working I think. We did a walk downtown on the pier. We saw a seal rescue on the beach and some nice bikinis. i did a video tape of the activity. We had a nice lunch at hurricanes on the patio overlooking Main St. Met a guy there with a Monroe, WI tee shirt on. Funny. I took a picture of him and Libbie. Christa and Libbie went to the Dr for Christas checkup. She's doing quite well in her 30th week. for dinner we went to Costa Mesa to the Haus of Pizza which was an Italian restaurant. Not fancy but very good. I had Lasagna. Back home we had a long rolling earthquake that shook the house for 20 seconds. The magnitude was 5.1. We felt some smaller after shocks later in the evening. This was our biggest we have felt.

We slept well our first night in CA. Joe is gathering his requirements for a permit for a Solar System which gave me lots of time to debug the First Class system. This is a positive since I may get to put it out there!!! We took a neighborhood walk looking at how other homes run the power down from the roof. for lunch Libbie and I went to Secret Spot and split a chicken and avocado sandwich which was yummy. It was chilly and breezy so we opted to eat in the car. Next stop was the Westminster mall where we found Babies R Us and bought a $300 car seat. My credit card was declined which prompted a call to Cap One to get a representative on the line to do her magic. After a few tries we finally got things cleared up. We went home and I worked some more till Christa came home. She has a pretty bad cold. We went out to dinner to La Capilla where I had 2 chicken Tacos and two Pacifico draft beers. Yummy but I ate too much. I really like their salsa for the chips which they refilled for us.

We had our normal breakfast then put our suitcases in the car and left at 7:38, a little later than when I wanted to leave. Traffic to the airport was very heavy and stopped in a few places, once at Crossroads and then again at the Wade Ave merge. We averaged 30 MPH on I-40 from Wade Ave to the airport. We still did OK. TSA was easy with not many people in line. Our flight was full and not bad to Denver. Unfortunately we only had 30 minutes to the next flight. After a bathroom break and running the length of the terminal we got to the plane after they had boarded the A and B groups. We were separated in flight. The ride was incredibly rough with heavy upper altitude winds. I finsihed my book, on the trail of John Steinbeck. It wasn't very good but I made it to the end. Joe picked us up at John Wayne. We stopped at an In-Out burger for lunch since it was 10 hours since breakfast. This was a first and very good. We had fries with the order which we didn't need and they somehow gave us 2 orders of them. For dinner Joe pulled out a Ligi's Lasagna which was adequate. Christa came home from a School dinner at 9 PM. It's a long day for her.

Joy came over today to help Libbie pack boxes for Birmingham. It's very cold out so she's going to line the boxes with foam. I have resigned myself to think the program will not be done before we leave. My biggest issue is getting the downloads done before anything else executes linearly with the program. It's not going well since the downloads need lots of time and the program won't wait. We had our dance lesson with Melanie today at 2:45. It was an excellent lesson. We learned to turn into corners which was something needed. We also reviewed our zig zags and got a few tips there. It was a great session. Filled up the gas tank on the way home then put my streps onto Libbie's light stand.Dinner tonight was tuna over salad. This was a great intro for the week. I packed the new suitcase after dinner and also took out the short sleeved shirts and replaced them with warmer versions that Libbie ironed while I waited.

This is a light eating day. I have been pretty good all day. I struggled and finally got a link for Google Play and my app. I found that even beta testers have to pay for the app. This isn't cool. I created another app but this one is called Nashville and will be the beta but for free. After lunch Libbie went with me and helped me pick out a hard sided suitcase. We started with Penneys but ended up in Sears because Penney had them priced through the ceiling. I even had Sears points which saved an additional $8 which was good. Working on the program tonight I listened to Andrea Chenier live from the Met. Dinner was lettuce with tuna sprinkled over the top. I jazzed it up with pepperoncini peppers and bacon bits. I liked this dinner.

It was supposed to rain today but the sun was out this morning so I went outside and bought a dozen patio blocks at Lowes so that we have a path through the back to the bird feeder. This was necessary because it was getting wet in the back where the feeder is. The rain eventually came around noon. While at Lowes I had an interesting experience in the parking lot. Somebody saw me pulling the cart of blocks to the car and stopped and wanted to help me put the blocks in the trunk. I thanked the guy and nicely declined. It was a cold crappy afternoon. I spent the whole rest of the day working on getting FC4A on Google. I finally succeeded around midnight. I think I understand the process now.

It's pretty frustrating. I'm trying to read the database into the device. I discovered the copy routine in DButils does a better job than my copy routine so I switched to it. I now copy everything with DButils even though it was made for the database. I like that it decides between ext SD storage or internal and returns the path of where it did the copy. I didn't care for the live Met opera today, Woczeck. During the opera I went out and put two electric wire supports in around the dogwood tree and extended the fence wire to protect it. We started the beans at 2:15. They need an hour to cook so we got them into a 300 degree oven by 2:45. The Rumley Oyster roast began at 4 PM. It was a nice turnout. I enjoyed the oysters, Lib didn't have any. I brought the "Matthews Band" wine, "dreaming tree", that I picked up at a Krogers wine tasting. After we got home i worked some more on First Class and finally got the thing to read a CSV file and apply it to the database. It even picked up the no image file which is a little too bright. Bedtime very satisfied at 11 PM.

It's another long day with the First Class app. The more I do it seems the further behind I get. I had an 8:15 Doctor appointment. Everything is on track. Triglycerides and cholesterol are way down, I was praised for the impressive weight loss and Dr Schroder wanted to know what my goal was. I told him it was a BMI of 25.I'm currently at 216 pounds which is a BMI of 27. We had a dinner of shrimp, broccoli and rice with a glass of Shiraz. We went to dance at 8. There was a pretty big crowd in the ballroom which was surprising since there's a big basketball tournament going on. I guess it's not very popular with the ballroom crowd. I got tired early but we stuck it out till the end.

Worked some more on First Class of course.
I solved the problem of duplicate violet names by different hybridizers by looking ahead when filling out the listview and adding hybridizers names in the listing for only the duplicate names. This way when a user selects a violet the program will check the hybridizer name in order to select the correct FC entry. After I got all this working I created a private signing key to release it to Google Play. Unfortunately it would not compile anymore. I had to delete the program on my tablet. The bad part was the dB on my tablet got deleted and the version on my laptop is empty. Will have to concentrate on the update program to restore everything including the violet pictures. I went outside on this nice day and mixed some gas then drilled a hole in the ground for the bird house. I also cut down a few small trees around the house to make it more of a clearing. This wore me down a little. We had a dinner of chopped BBQ on sliders before going to a group Salsa class with Andrew. It was just us and Gustavo, 3 people total. We learned the foundations which included some push-pull turns and under arm inside and outside turns

Late yesterday I switched to a pinch to zoom and abandoned the sliding panels. I used the pinch to zoom click event to switch the picture to the alternate. This works very well because the pic switches instantly and the zoom does not change. Happiness is!
This afternoon we had a very good class with Robert. We practiced a little more of the helicopter routine with Robert then did more Tango 101. This time we learned correct head turns going into promenade. We came home and had some spaghetti covered with shredded cheese. Stayed home tonight and worked more on trying to get the duplicate violets sorted. I found when the list is scrolled the row numbering changes which blows my map of hybridizer vs plant name into oblivion. Need a better way to sort out duplicate violet names. Went to bed without a solution.

I did a grocery run this morning after an overnight glaze of ice had melted a little. The trees were a winter wonderland but it's not supposed to be this cold. Went to Dr Beavers to get my Dental claim resubmitted. I heard from Victoria in Sarasota. The bill was $118 to stop the ice maker leak. There was a pinched water line that Badger Bob then cut and re-inserted onto the shutoff fixing things. We went to Waltz with Melanie at 3:30 which was great since it helped gel the previous waltz lessons. I learned to lead a little better and also to make left turns to combine with the open right. This was something missing from the mix I put together. Dinner was Salmon and Broccoli. After dinner we went to Swing amalgamations which wasn't very helpful. We didn't dance much in this amalgamation. I'm having much trouble getting the B4A sliding panels to work correctly.

The crunch continues. I worked non stop on the First Class program. Finally got it to recognize the second violet when both are named the same. the key was to add a hybridizer map file so that I can use the hybridizer to help choose violets. Joy was not in town and it was a freezing cold day - the high was only 35 so no shipping. Dinner was a salad with Tuna on it since it's a light eating day.

We tried to learn from last night's mistakes in doing the waltz by practicing and watching the video of our lesson. The key was the start in which we have to open with a twinkle before doing the open right. IT was good to practice some more. I made a Home Depot run and picked up more 2 cycle oil for the post hole digger and the chain saw. Also bought an LED maglite for downstairs and the stove pipe and rod for the new birdhouse. Libbie picked up a PVC pipe from the greenhouse while I was out so I drilled the PVC and the stovepipe and assembled the baffle. Using cell phones we next located the new bird house on the path in the back while Libbie tried site lines from the porch. It was raining so I marked the spot but didn't plant the pole. Dinner was once again Libbie's fantastic pizza. The crust was nice, thin and crisp this time.

Today is Werther but we decided to stay home and listen instead. We both have too much to do. Arlene called today, they are going to take us up on the condo for May 18. I called her this morning and talked for a while. My weight is down to 218.5 which is a start. I wish I had not gained the 15 pounds back since last summer but I can't look back. March forward and get lighter.
I used the afternoon and successfully was able to get the database SQL and the photo directory updated. We left at 5:30 for the Shriners Club on Lead Mine Rd in Raleigh. It took exactly 19 minutes to get there, getting us there a few minutes early. Gary and Janet brought a very nice German white wine. We sat with the ballroom dancers on one side of the dance floor while the Shriners sat on the other. One of the ballroom guys was a person I used to work with, Bill Spencer, who was a planner. He retired in 1996, I left in 2000. Dinner was catered by Golden Corral and consisted of beef in a stew concoction with carrots, onions and red potatoes. Veggies were corn and green beans. For desert I had a banana pudding which I loved. We had a nice evening of dancing. We are getting better but not perfect.