It's a beautiful day. I went to Home Depot and picked up a PVC board for the cornice work then proceeded to rip down the rotted cornice work. Took a ride on the eBike and later worked on preparing the grow boxes for planting. Libbie and I picked up a flat of plants for our gardens and growbox at the Farmers Market. Most people have off today, Good Friday, so traffic was heavy everywhere. It's going to rain tomorrow so we want to do this today. The PH kit came today but results were inconclusive since all I ended up with was dirty water that didn't show any color change one way or the other. Dinner was a ham sandwich but we ran out of bread. We went to Country Western night tonight and did some 2 step dancing which we seemed to have mastered. Afterwards we joined the Studio at the Hibernian on Kildaire Farm Rd for a beer and some chips. It was a nice night. We learned a few surprising things - Duchess has Jordan as her daughter. Her Mother Helen was also visiting. The nice looking Laurie isn't married, she hangs out with Pete who is not a very good dancer.

I did some outdoor work today. Cleaned the driveway, trimmed the Spirea plants, filled the mower tires with air and mowed the front lawn along the street. I finished my Ventura County blog and posted it on Road Scholar and shared it with one of our participants, Mary Byrne. I heard from her that she enjoyed my Death Valley and Bryce writings. It was fun going back and reviewing. I pumped up the bicycle tires but didn't go out today. Maybe tomorrow. I tried the lights in the Wallbox. The 5 cent credit works well but none of the other mode lights are doing their thing. This is a good debug aid since I should get a prompt to insert money which isn't working. I'll get this figured out. Dinner was baked yam and the easter ham with a bottle of Shiraz. We practiced our 2 step in the house today and am finally getting the turns figured out.

It was nice to get back to our dance lesson today. We did a lot of the tango then Robert straightened out our two step a little. We went back in the evening and attended the Bronze two step group lesson. Laurie, Terry and Libbie were the girls. We learned some nice double turns which we need to practice. I also renewed our commitment this afternoon, purchasing 15 more lessons for $1150. We had 3 leftover from December so we are set for a while. Dinner was ham sandwiches from our Easter ham. Libbie warmed the ham we put on the sandwiches. I continued working the Travels by Tom blog entering our Road Scholar trip.

We woke this morning to thunder and rain. I ran over to Kroger this morning for our Easter ham as well as misc groceries. Around 11 we left for Ed Lyons house in the country for our Violet Club meeting. We had no trouble finding Ed's place off of 1010 past 401 in the country. It was still lightly raining. First we had a nice lunch of salad and lasagna out on his back porch which was just installed. Sheila brought her PH kit which we used to test violet potting soils. Libbie's was acidic at 5.0, Ed's was also acidic. We brought a plant of David Dicks which tested perfectly at 6.5. A sample of potting soil by Martha also tested perfectly at 6.5 Kroger called later in the day that my prescription was found in a shopping cart. I had neglected to empty the cart while loading my car with the groceries. We had Ed's leftover Lasagna for dinner. Afterwards I listened to Butterfly live from the Met. It's significantly colder this evening as the rain for the day tapers.

Finished up the taxes this morning and made many stops mailing the State Tax forms. The Federal forms were eFiled but they wanted 24.99 to eFile the state returns. A First Class stamp is much cheaper. First stop was the Credit Union to deposit the Delta Dental check, next the Post Office where I took a garbage bag of packages in for Libbie as well as my NC tax return. Went to Radio Shack at Crossroads to pick up Tuner cleaner for the Wallbox and then REI for a new bicycle tire and tube. REI now has some eBikes which are $2300. each. They had one men's cruiser and one woman's. Next stop was Walmart where I picked up some bedding plants and a bike lock. I also looked at Helmets but declined. I'm not sure if I'll ever use it. Dinner tonight was beet and tangerine salad with chicken and Feta cheese. Nice. We watched Dancing with the Stars tonight before bed.

A beautiful day again. Spring is here and possibly I convinced the Fox to move her babies. There was no further digging when I checked this morning. After the morning shows I went to work on the convention book ad and emailed it as both a jpg and a pdf. Next I tackled the taxes. I had to get the 1099 from Libbie for her dividends and then while reviewing turbo I noticed they had really whacked out numbers for my sales of Selective Insurance and Constellation. It didn't effect the bottom line but I corrected the numbers anyway preserving my carryover of capital losses from several years ago. I played a little with the wall box today trying to diagnose the lights. Found out they were all burned out so I ordered two boxes of bulbs from eBay. That's one box of #51 and one box #55, 10 per box. Need to get either to Home Depot or Radio Shack for contact cleaner. I won't attempt adjusting anything until all the contacts get cleaned. Dinner was Libbie's nice pizza once again with fresh basil from the garden and leftover tomato pieces.

We got up at 5 and left at 5:45 for the Richmond show. It was a small show with not many standards which is too bad. I was on a panel with Carol and Pat judging the designs which was pretty good. We had anice lunch in the cafe. I ordered crab soup and a shrimp salad. I asked for a cup of soup but received a bowl. I paid for this later since while walking the garden I had to take a bad dump and almost didn't make it. We left the gardens around 3 and arrived home at 6. I purchased a $2 Sinningia with my $15 judges appreciation check, Sinn. Desafinada. For dinner we had mongolian beef 3 flavor which Lib ordered by accident instead of Szechuan 3 flavor. It wass good none the less. We had 11/2 bottles of wine with dinner which was enough to make me pretty tipsy by the end of the evening.

Today is a much better day. I feel great again, most remnants of the cold are gone. We went to the Farmers market today. It's a little early for bedding plants, we ought a tray of plants from our Asian lady. She told me to give her $4 more and I can get 5 more cell packs of plants which I did. We'll certainly find more cell packs from her later in the season. The Fox has outfoxed me and breached all the screen blocks. I spent some time blocking the holes again. I'm going to keep at it until she gives up. Dinner tonight was chicken with beets and tangerine salad that we learned about in Road Scholar.

I took a 12 hour cold tablet today so I could breathe. I'm certainly not 100%. Nancy came to help Libbie while I installed anti virus software and then Turbotax on the desktop, Manon, to start the taxes. I tried to create the AVSA ad but PageMaker won't handle the large photos. I need to resize before putting them in. Thanks to turbotax I almost have the taxes done. The biggest help was with importing the stock sales from Scottrade. Turbo imported everything nicely. The BB accounting is a mess. Quicken doesn't agree with the Bluepay credit card sales statement. We went out this afternoon to Kroger and picked up Salmon and misc groceries. Dinner was Salmon and a salad.

I got up promptly at 6:45 today and have a miserable drippy watery cold. I barely existed today. Libbie drove me to Trader Joes today where we picked up wine, fruit and oatmeal. I tried the small Mandarin oranges and they are really delicious and sweet. Through the course of today I have had several. Since they are yummy and I reasoned that the Vitamin C can't hurt I had several. Dinner was spinach tortellini from Trader Joes. Butterfly was live tonight and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was sung by our soprano from this past Saturday, Kristine Opolais. I made it to the end then took a 6 hour gel cap and passed out in bed around 10:30.

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.