this was a busy busy day. Ii cut the sheet of plywood for the soffitt and installed it. This concludes the carpentry. Next I brought the rake onto the roof and with the leaf blower managed to clean the pine needles off the garage and porch roofs. There were quite a few. In order to free up my cart I weeded the garden and then spread the pine bark that was parked in the cart. I fertilized the roses before mulching them with the bark Next I raked up the pine needles and used them as mulch around the fence near the butterfly bush in the corner. I had 2 loads of pine needles which I used to put down a nice thick coat. After the pine needle cleanup I fired up the pressure washer and washed the front of the house over the porch and then the sidewall over the garage. The side roof was filthy. Dinner tonight was hamburger and baked beans with garden tomato and Vidalia. Yummy. I ordered our Dallas Lonestar tickets tonight since today is the last day of the southwest sale. I got them for around the price of going to California which was $700 round trip bottom line. Not great but I'll use them as a place holder.

Hooked up the trailer and went to Lowes for a sheet of plywood as well as 1x4x12 PVC fascia boards and 3 pieces of drip edge. I got all the fascia boards up but not the soffit board. I need to cut the plywood and nail it up. Got cleaned up and ready for dance lesson at 3:30 with Robert. It's been almost a month with bad AC, Fourth of July and our trips. We had a good shag lesson learning natural and underarm turns, cuddle and belt loop turns.
This afternoon I ordered roundtrip tickets to John Wayne for Sept 3. Bottom line for 2 of us was $700 total which was outstanding.
We came home, laid down and fell asleep. I fell asleep for an hour. Dinner tonight was hamburger with baked beans, Vidallia onion and tomato from the garden.

Went to the airport at 9 to meet Libbies flight which was showing a 9:16 landing. My timing was good since I parked in the Sheetz gas station and sh called shortly after I arrived. I'm amazed at the number of dressed up workers in business clothes stopping in to get coffee and donuts on the way to work. Came home and got the soffitt 2x6 straightened out by shortening the patched up rafter with the Sawzall. It started raining at noon with about 1/4 inch then a huge rain at 5:30 where the sky got black as night and almost 3 inches fell. Our total for the day was 3.21 inches. The backyard was underwater. Talked to Joe about us getting plane tickets. He said Sept 3 would be better for he and Christa. The Southwest sale ends tomorrow so I'll order in the morning. Dinner was curry chicken over spaghetti.

Up at 5:20, checked the calendar for sure since I have to check Libbie in for her trip tomorrow. Had time to shower, shave and have breakfast before getting on and fetching the reservation number, etc for check in. Did the check in on time - she's in the A group with TSA-Pre. Nailed up the new treated 2x6 but it's not right. The underlying repaired rafter is sticking out too far. I chose not to fix it further. Today's agenda was to finish the Nashville convention accounting then uae the free coupon to get a photo book from mypublisher. I ended up with 22 pages and submitted it. I made an offer on an ethernet gateway which was accepted. I guess I'm on the way to a solar system. Found some 300 watt panels and enphase inverters on ebay. I'll wait until Saturday to order this stuff since we go to Edenton next week and won't be home. Dinner was a nice salad with a can of tuna on it.

After the sunday morning shows I went out onto the roof and ripped down the rest of the rotted wood including the wide fascia board. it's quite warm outside. Went to Lowes and picked up a 2x6 and a few PVC pieces. Will need new pieces of plywood to finish the job. Still haven't figure out how the water is getting in. Dinner was a bean burger with Vidalia. For lunch I had a Trader Joes Briyani casserole. It was pretty spicy and good. I have a lot to do - the AVSA accounting, the library photos and some web work.

Did the Iris sale at the arboretum today. Bought 9 Irises, 2 of them were free because it was buy 5 get one free and get a free one for joining the Iris society. I helped Barbara verify the website this morning. She was still having trouble but we now have an embedded file and an html meta tag for verification.
Went up on the porch roof and started the demolition of the rotted fascia and soffitt. It's a real mess. The underlying 2x6 is disintegrated completely. I didn't expect that. It means the whole 1x8 needs removal to get to the ends of the 2x6. Even the horizontals that support the plywood are rotted. Much destruction. I went into the backyard in the afternoon and did some chain saw work. Removed the big young Oak next to the apple tree and trimmed the oak that was touching the house in the corner. I had to remove a big branch of this tree. It's much better now. Hopefully this will bring more light into the garden. Dinner was a salad with thai pepper, lettuce and cuke as well as a yummy beanburger with vidalia and garden tomato. Always good! I finished reading the book "Finding Me" about the Cleveland kidnappings. It was fascinating and surprisingly an easy read.

I went out onto the ladder and finally finished the front of the house except for the section over the porch. Cleaned up the brushes and then went to HH Gregg and purchased another WNDR3700 router to use as a wireless repeater. Before I did this I struggled with some other routers to make a remote access point. I finally decided the best way is to replicate the current router but put the new one in repeater mode. The reason for doing this is because the Honeywell thermostat in the playroom keeps losing the wireless connection. I think the wireless signal strength is now much better upstairs. On the way home I stopped in Kroger and picked up a watermelon and carrots for dinners. Dinner tonight was a bean burger with cantaloupe for desert. I also had a peanut butter sandwich because I was still hungry. Elisir is on tonight as an encore presentation. It's a delight. Libbie called during the opera so I missed some of it. All is well in RI. I'm enjoying my time alone here. It's pretty productive.

Tried painting at 9 but it started raining. Got down, cleaned up the brushes and the sun came out. Crap. Worked in the garden tying tomatoes, weeding and general maintenance. We got a good dose of rain at 6 PM giving us .6 inches. Dinner tonight was a bean burger with vidalia, fresh garden tomato, spinach salad with garden cucumber and garden tomato slices. Yummy.

Left at 9:15 to take Lib to the airport. Back home and started painting by 10. Finished painting the side of the porch and the upper 2 bedroom windows. It's a hot day - high of 95 while I was painting. Finished at 2 and a little after 3 it started raining. The paint had plenty of time to dry although a little more time would be better. Saw on TV that Clyde Coopers was torn down today. That's the end of an era. It was built in 18 something. Dinner tonight was a lettuce and spinach salad with a can of tuna over the top.

Did some web work on AVSA transferring content to the new Shows and Judges page. Today is grocery day but since Libbie is leaving tomorrow for PVD I don't need much. Fired up the pressure washer and washed half of the house, upstairs. this included two bedroom windows, the side of the porch and the fascia and soffits. I got totally soaked. My foot is starting to act up like it did 3 years ago. I'm not sure what's going on there. I stopped by Lowes before dinner and picked up a new ballast for the violet towers. One of them apparently has quit, bought a new commercial one which is lower in power than the residential one. We coordinated the Lowes trip so I called Lib as I was leaving Lowes and she called in an order for Chinese takeout. I stopped back at home and picked up Libbie who went with me and picked up our dinner. We had eggrolls, 3 meat szechuan and a bottle of Merlot. I was done for the evening!

I worked this morning replacing a fascia board on the side of the porch. Next I caulked it all, it's ready for pressure washing when the caulk dries. I worked on genealogy stuff today, it's sadly out of date. After trying a few programs including the open source Gramps I ended up going with the copy of Family Tree Maker 2012 that I have. I registered it with ancestry.com and am using their online tree storage capability. this gives me web access from anywhere (I think) as well as edit ability from any computer that has Tree Maker. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with bits of fresh tomato and a sprinkling of cheese. Yummy.

Finished up the front door handles. The non locking door needed a 2 inch hole drilled to accommodate the new handle since it wasn't drilled before. The old handle was a dummy that didn't need a 2 inch hole. Libbie made her outstanding pizza again.

Libbie painted the 2 downstairs windows next to the porch this morning. I did some web updates but not much yard work. Spent more time than I thought I would replacing both front door handles and the deadbolt lock. The great news is I had the deadbolt keyed to match the other doors in the house. This is a big plus. I spent $300 on 2 door handles plus the deadbolt which I thought was a lot of money just to get a new door handle but that's life. Dinner tonight was hamburger on the grill with the rest of the corn. We had a bottle of Barefoot Merlot wine to complement the meal.

Did a little Nashville app work then got into my paint clothes and started painting outside. Finished the garage door and the porch ceiling. This was pretty tiring. The pond pump quit so we went to Home Depot to get a new one . I want about 600 GPM, they were out. We bought another gallon of paint then went to Lowes and found one. Bought a 560 GPM for $69 which may have been a little high but it works well. I also replaced the UV light to filter the algae in the pond. Hooked it all up before dinner. On the way back from Lowes we went over to Kroger to get wine for dinner. Sampled something called Midnight Passion by Manage a Trois winery in St Helena. It was OK but the barefoot was on sale for 2 for $10 and the Midnight Passion was $10.50. Dinner was hamburger with onion and tomato and corn on the cob. We accompanied dinner with Barefoot Merlot. After dinner we enjoyed sipping wine on the back porch and listening to Readers Digest Waltz compendium via the Traviata server and our stereo system.

I worked on the Nashville app, fixing a number of issues and moving menus around. Went to the Farmers market around lunch time where we picked up peaches, corn, tomatoes, lettuce and a small plant from Longwood, In the evening the hurricane was off the coast but we only got 1/4 inch of rain which was disappointing. Dinner tonight was farmers market corn with hamburger and Vidallia onion. We also had a bottle of Merlot.

I'm a little groggy today trying to get back onto EST. Sorted pictures out from our cameras today and backed things up. Managed to backup Libbie's cell phone to a free MS OneDrive account and download a zip file of the pictures. I also got out the slide projector and tried scanning a roll of Disney World pictures of Nov 1979. The pictures are of poor quality but the scans are relatively decent. It was disappointing in that while we were gone a deer got into the lower fence in the West garden and ate the vines, peppers and tomatoes. The eggplant looks great! Dinner was leftover chicken with the rest of the potato salad and some cole slaw. Good stuff.

We got up at 4:50 am Pacific time and got ready to go. checked out of the hotel and hit the road by 5:15 AM. Topped off the tank at Seal Beach for $4.25. Pricey but we only needed 5 gallons. The freeway was crowded as usual. We were glad it was between 5 and 6 in the morning. Rental car return and check in went smoothly. They rejected my printed boarding passes, claiming they were too big. We had to reprint them at the airport which was no big deal. Ii was TSA Pre but Libbie had to go through the full security search. I waited for her then we found breakfast at Woodies Wood Fired pizza. They had English muffins with egg and bacon for $9 each. Bottom line was $25 for 2 sandwiches with drinks. Ouch. They were OK however. The flight started out 15 minutes late but we landed 10 minutes early. We had no luggage so we went right out to the Park N Ride shuttle which was waiting for us. How convenient. We were home by 5. For dinner we had a Kroger rotisserie chicken with potato salad. Pretty good. Now we have to get used to EST.

We had a fun day today. Had a very nice hotel breakfast after getting up somewhat later then went over to Joe's. Hung around there for a while then after a lunch of Joe's leftover pizza, we went over to Laguna at the Montage. The flowers were not as spectacular this time, they replaced a lot of the annuals with succulents because of the drought. found a guy to take a picture of the four of us with Paige, then my cell phone alawrm went off at 3:30. We had an appointment with Hans at his assisted living in Dana Point. We had a very nice visit with him. He's amazing. Then we left at 5 to go back to Joes in heavy traffic which was manageable. Went out to dinner with the 5 of us to La Capilla. Paige was good for the first half of the meal, then Joe used his magic on her when she started fussing towards the end. I had the taco and enchilada combo with a blue moon. Very nice. We stopped briefly at Joe's to say our goodbys then went back to the hotel and fell right asleep. Up tomorrow at 5 to catch an 8:15 flight at LAX. fun.

After breakfast, Joe met us at the pier. We walked with Paige out to Ruby's and back. It was chilly and overcast. We went back to Joes for a while before I went out to Fry's for a memory card and Bluetooth dongle. Helped an Asian couple fix a flat. We did babysitting before taking a walk to the over 55 community Pam lives in. It's pretty nice over there. Joe fixed some delicious pizza he said was pretty hot. I didn't think so. Back to the hotel at 8:30, after dinner.

After breakfast we walked down to the CVS and got a bday card for mike and gas card. We went to the party for Mike at 2 with the car seat in the back of our rental car. Nice party, we had hamburgers with potato salad, baked beans and all the trimmings. I liked the banana pudding desert. We drove straight to the hotel from the party.

Up at 6:30 then Best Western breakfast of cereal and bagel. Enjoyed sitting on the deck having coffee waiting for Libbie. Over to Joe's to visit with Paige and all. Paige is high maintenance!!! Called Andrea about Hans. She had some suggesdt I ns. At Joes we did babysitting while they went out to lunch for a Margarita and all at a very nice resdtasurasnt. Joe GH iced a nice dinner of T none steak and baked potato. Nice. We finished a bottle of Merlot.

Busy morning since we're going to Calif this afternoon. Wrote Cynthia a thank you note for the flowers, paid a few bills for the convention and filled out a Medicaid form for Sheenans then took it all to the Post Office after getting the medicaid form notarized at the Credit Union. Tried to close Aunt Helens account at the bank but they wanted a death certificate. May go back next week to complete this.
Packed our suitcases, made ham & turkey sandwiches and left at 2:45 for our 5 pm flight. The flight was full, all went smoothly. We were TSA pre which meant we sailed through security with shoes on, no undoing our baggage. The flight was smooth but I had an obese guy next to me who spilled over his seat. We got a 2014 Corolla which is very nice. Traffic on the 405 was stop and go in spots. We stopped at Joe & Christa's for a while to see Paige before checking into the Best Western. They have a parking garage under the hotel. I finished the last of the walk by Evans in the hotel. It was quite good.

I released Version 10 of the Nashville app then went outside to paint. finished the garage door frame, the pillars and the porch support beam, all faces of it. Next will be the ceiling but it will be done when we get back from Calif. Went to dance at 3:30. The AC is working again. Robert reviewed our underarm turns and the correct steps for the chasse'. We also did a little bit of work on the Cuban walk. It's a cross body followed by step side together and walk, walk,walk. Draw her in and resume. For dinner we went out to La Cocina and had the normal Quesadilla La Cocina with a Yuengling draft. It was Mariachi night. We enjoyed the Mexican band singing various songs including Ray Charles "I can't stop loving you". I'm reading the last book in the Richard Paul Evans walk series, "Walking on Water".
Took the Corolla in for a 1:30 PM appointment for oil, tire rotate and DMV inspection. Rode my bicycle home from the auto dealer, Hendricks Toyota of Apex on 64 and Laura duncan. The car has 40,900 miles and was well due for oil.

Worked on the inventory aspect of the Nashville app and got it working reasonably well. Went over to Kroger for Tuesday groceries but we didn't need much since we're going to Calif on Thursday. Robert called off group dance for tonight because the AC is broken again. Did not paint today but cleaned up the yard of sticks and stuff. Dinner was BBQ chicken on buns.

I finally recreated the Nashville database and got it to display correctly in the app. I'm not sure what happened but it was a one day setback for me. Now I can move forward with inventory and wishlist items. This morning at 8 AM, Michael O'Rourke of the Knights of Columbus came over to fill out the paperwork for our claim for Aunt Helens life insurance. I also heard from Sheenans. They have a form for me to fill out from Medicaid about her Life Insurance and Bank Account. I hope they don't notice the withdrawal the day after she died. In the late morning I dragged the ladders out and painted the gable facing the driveway as well as the soffits and fascia over the porch. This was a long day of painting. Dinner was curry chicken over angel hair whole grain spaghetti. I felt really beat up by the end of this day.