Did a pretty big grocery run today - $80. Picked up the ingredients for crabcakes for the party Friday night. It was a pretty good solar day most of the day. The new patio doors came this morning. I took the old doors out along with the door frame and sized up fitting the new frame into the rough in area. We went to Rumba almagamations which was pretty good since Andrew focused mostly on techniques. Mary and Jennifer were the other two ladies in the class. Dealt with the charge back this morning by calling blue pay. got the runaround and found the money was credited back to us but the person has 45 days to contest the amount. Dinner was spaghetti and tomato sauce.
After Rumba we drove home in a blinding rain. We got 2 inches at home - there were many reports of flooding around Raleigh. It was the worst rain we have driven in since the Shriners dance in June.

After GMA this morning I sat down, hooked up the headphones, and listened to the entire convention DVD slide show, marking the recordings that were bad. Almost done with this piece of the puzzle. Talked with the Nicholas's. They didn't receive the DVD until after 6 PM. They had a few corrections for the DVD that I started working on. Today was a light day so we had tuna over salad.

The rain cleared a little. We had a total of 2.5 inches in the last 2 days. Not good for solar production! We made less than 1kwhr of electricity each day. Saturday was only 500 watt-hr, Sunday was 800. I needed to move the ladder off the house and put it away but first I leaned it agains the leaning tree and climbed it to hook up the come along. Made a little cut in the base with a brand new chain then hooked up a second come along and pulled the tree to the side and made a bigger cut. Kept pulling to the side until it eventually fell down. Now I need to move it. Spent the rest of the time indoors reading about how to display graphics on a display attached to a Pi. There's a library called pygame that looks promising. It uses the IDE named Geany. It's made mostly for gamers but should suit me for displaying large letters on the screen for my family room mounted display. Went to Walmart twice for socks - the first time I bought ankle socks. Returned them for crew socks and also picked up some sticky traps for the critter in our cabinet. Dinner was Libbie's pizza. My side had thai pepper and onion. Her side burned a little cause she left the broiler on from warming the stone.

I woke up to rain this morning. The TV station said we might get 5 inches over the next two days. It kept me indoors. I'm cleaning up misc odds and ends that I left hanging before the DVD work. I tried moving the envoy gateway in a few places in my office and didn't have any luck. It will have to live in the garage for now. It's a dark dreary day. solar production is a minimum. Oh well, I should expect days like this. I did some preliminary accounting and we should be able to pay the Visa bill this Wednesday without dipping into savings. I did a lot of catch up work today, scanning an old performance into LifeBits and also making a copy of the squeeze player software run on the Pi in my office. I'm happy with the new version. In the future i won't have to burn a new image - just do an update in place. This is an improvement. They also have some nice web based tools to rename the host name and the name seen in squeezer. Nice. Dinner was Chinese 3 meat takeout from china chef which was very good as usual but a little bit spicy. My sinuses really cleared from this one!!!!! We had a bottle of Shiraz with dinner. It rained a total of 1.47 inches so far at 9 pm and it's still raining!!!!

It's supposed to rain over the weekend so I spent some time spraying 4 gallons of roundup along the fence and along the creek and the side of the hill. The hillside was a maintenance dose.
I did a Home Depot trip and ordered a new sliding glass door to be delivered. It cost $429 with tax, delivery and new screen. We had another poor day of solar production. It was a mostly cloudy day. I'm getting to like the solar system. I'm already thinking of 4 more panels.
We had a light dinner of hamburgers and Lima beans. Went to 80s movie night where Libbie was Gertie from ET and I was Patrick Swazee from Dirty Dancing. We had a nice time tonight. I danced with Atlanta for the first time tonight, a cha cha. After dance we went out to the pub and sat with Nancy and Steve and Ken and Anita. We had 2 Yuenglings and a half plate of wings. Yummy. The talk was for drag queen bingo to be held tomorrow night at the fair grounds.

Finished up the DVD, burned a final couple to go out tomorrow. Worked on securing the soffitt where it pulled away from the woodwork on the back porch and added a clamp and screws for ground conduit from the solar array. Dinner was salad covered with tuna. Eating light.

Finished solar wiring to the breaker box. Threw the switch at 1:30 but could not see anything on the Envoy. Moved the envoy to the garage and used the outlet in the corner where the cameras are plugged in and hooked to the internet there. The envoy found the inverters and started reporting the power output. Happiness!!! Later I found the envoy is reporting to the enphase website. I updated the bookmarks and put them on traviata and onedrive. We had a very good rumba lesson with Robert. After a dinner of Salmon and Lima beans we went back in the evening for Roberts 8:00 bronze rumba class. It went pretty well. We tried some spiral turns and also the cuban break. I feel we did well.

Picked up an 8 foot copper clad ground pole along with some conduit at HD. Ran the ground cable from the solar array down the roof using stainless screw in loops. Where the cable goes to the ground I put it into a metal conduit to make it neater. It took quite a bit of pounding to get 8 feet of pole into the ground. In the afternoon I worked some more on the convention DVD, finished the Holtkamp video and made videos for both the main show and new intros. Dinner was a hamburger with Vidalia. I put thai pepper on mine. Tonight was the first of the new series of Rhumba amalgamations. We learned some nice ornamentation with Andy. The only other class member was Mary Lindsey. I enjoy dancing with her. Tonight she wore her painted on tights with a white tee shirt. Nice!

Finished up the wiring on the roof when Joy came over. I greeted her from the roof which surprised her. Now the roof job is complete except for the ground wire to a pole in the ground. It's quite a bit warmer today, I was pretty wet on the roof. Dinner tonight was a bed of lettuce with tuna over it.

This morning I went out on the roof and hooked up the enphase cabling. Next step was to move the panels onto the roof. I used the 1 1/2 inch stainless screws into each panel to stop the panel from sliding down the rail on the slanted roof. this worked well although I probably would feel more comfortable with a 2 inch long screw if it would fit but the 1 1/2 was a good solution. the connectors needed a lot of pressure to click them together from the panel to the inverter. They have a gasket which makes mating difficult. It's necessary to squeeze together until there's a click. I ended up having to slide the panel to the side so I could grasp the connectors with two hands and squeeze. I Put all 4 panels on the roof and also hooked up a disconnect switch panel on the roof. For Libbie's traditional pizza tonight I chopped up a slice of Vidalia and added some thai and regular banana pepper to my half of the pizza. I love the heat from the thai peppers.

Went out to Home Depot and picked up a link that screws shut - I plan to link the come along to the hook on the solar panel. I also bought a 2x4 which I cut in half and mounted on the back of the panel along with a hook. Attached this hook to the come along and hauled the panel to the roof without any problems this time, unlike yesterday. It went so well I hauled the other two panels to the roof, now all 4 of them are on the flat roof. It started raining as I finished up the last panel but I was a happy camper!!!! Woo Hoo.
After lunch Libbie and I went to Kroger for corn shucking, produce, wine and misc. We tasted some Dreaming Tree "Crush" which was a Dave Matthews band blend. It wasn't too bad and not worth it at $18 a bottle but was on sale for 12.99. Still high but we bought it. Dinner was corn, pork chops and the wine. For desert we had Key Lime greek yogurt with crunchies over the top. Yum. It was a very cold day, the high was only 70 and it was dreary and wet all day.

In the morning I worked on the Convention DVD, finishing up the merging of audio and slides and doing the captioning. This morning is the funeral for Anne Musnicki. Pretty sad. I heard from Sue Glembocki, Harry's wife about genealogy. She was looking for the former glembocki.info I need to work on getting that back up and running. One issue is the underlying software, birthwrite, is no longer in existence. This is too bad. I'm hoping family tree maker can replicate some of the online functionality.
I used the ladder on the side of the house and laid a solar panel against it. Ran the cable from the come along down the from the roof and tried hoisting the panel. It only weighs 51 pounds but I had lots of problems because the hook kept getting caught on the ladder rungs. I spent an hour getting one panel on the roof and exhausted myself in the process. It rained shortly afterward.

After a dinner of bean soup and homemade corn bread, we went to the studio for the dance party. We had lots of trouble with foxtrot and waltz. No problem at all with cha cha and rhumba. The studio was going to Brewsters after the party but we didn't go. I was too tired.

Went on the roof early and tightened down the rails. When done I took pictures of the progress to date. Next task was to scrape and wash the 3 upper windows painted previously. I added the screens and removed the ladder. Promptly at 1 PM the RL Trucking truck came down Downing Place with my solar panels. He wheeled them to the garage doors. The box looked beat up so I unpacked it all while the trucker waited. The panels looked great. Libbie helped me move the big ladder around to the side of the house where I'll hoist the panels to the roof. I'll probably use the come along like I always do but with a pulley at the top of the ladder. Still not sure what to do when I get the panel to the top. The pulley rope needs to go down the back side of the ladder so as not to interfere with the panel going upward.
Before the truck came Libbie and I ran the power washer and washed the siding around the glass doors in the back. This is the next area to be painted.
Dinner was a very very nice leftover eggplant casserole. Yumm. We had it with corn on the cob I picked up at Kroger. It was the you shuck it variety. Iput all the cardboard from the panels out for the recycling tomorrow. It rained tonight! Just my luck.

Sold my 300 shares of Double Eagle this morning in the Individual account and and picked up 300 shares of Breitburn. Double Eagle continues to lose money so I started bailing. Still need to do this in the IRA. Went on the roof at 8:30. It was nice and cool out so I finished mounting the top rail then installed all the feet for the bottom rail and installed it as well. I found that I don't have screws for the enphase inverters. Need to get some stainless at Lowes or HD. The shingle ripper tool really does the job at getting under the shingles. It's pretty useful but I probably could have survived without it. We returned to the studio this afternoon for a really good foxtrot lesson, applying all the stuff we learned in waltz to the foxtrot but with different timings. Dinner tonight was La Cocina. It was Mariachi night which is the last Wednesday of the month. We had the usual Quesadilla with a Yuengling. Very nice.

Got a message this morning from Tom Musnicki. I looked up Ted and Lorraine and called Ted and chatted with him. Ted put Tommy on the phone. Anne had breast cancer twice and a brain tumor that wasn't getting any better. She was quite sick in the last few months then died Sunday. I called vicki and Arlene and we sent a flower bouquet to the funeral home. Sad. In the evening I found Harry Glembocki's number and called him to pass the word to the Glembocki side of the family. Around 10 this morning I went on the roof to begin the solar mounting. It was a cool day but it was really hot on the roof. The sun is brutal on the dark surfaces. I mounted the first row of roof mounts. Using a brass rod through the ridge vent I was able to locate the rafter easily. Had a little trouble getting the first bolt started inn the 7/32 predrilled hole. I eventually got a pattern setup in which I put an old socket over the nut on the end of the bolt and pounded it in the first inch. I ran out of caulk by the time of the last mount. Went to Home Depot and picked up new caulk and also the shingle ripper tool I ordered. Dinner was eggplant parmesan with a glass of Shiraz and Bluebell Nutty chocolate ice cream. The mounting rails for the solar mount system arrived via FedEx today. Now the only part remaining is the panels themselves. They are on a truck going to the Wilson trucking terminal.

Painted the side of the house between the chimney and back corner. The painting went well including the window. The box of solar rack mountings came today via FedEx. I was bewildered at first by all the little pieces but I went online and looked up the manuals to figure out how all this stuff is supposed to mount and studied the diagrams then drew a little sketch of the installation. Went to Home Depot and bought a disconnect switch and some water proof flex conduit to route the cable off the roof. Dinner was BBQ chicken which came premade in a tub. We had this on sandwiches.

I went out to the side of the house and dragged out the pressure washer and all the hoses. Washed the soffits and window on the side in prep for painting. i also did the door and side fixed window but I think I'm going to replace them rather paint. The moulding is in fair shape but the glass is really bad. I did a Kroger run to get fruit and pizza cheese. Libbie made her wonderful pizza from scratch again today which we had for dinner. I worked on arranging the pictures for the convention winners show into their final ordering. This took a lot of the afternoon.

Up on the porch roof this morning and put the drip edge back on the front of the building. I used silicon sealer to hold it in place but also ended up with nails on the ends to secure the strips until the silicon sets up. I also coated the nail heads with silicon. Next I scraped and washed the front 3 windows so I could take down the ladder and move it around to the side. This was hard because of the bushes and trees in the way. Libbie helped me get the ladder against the building. This concluded the painting in the front. In the afternoon I worked on the new introductions and also chased down 3 chargebacks on Bluebird. They appear to be part of a marital dispute. I assembled all the evidence to send to the credit card company. Dinner was peel and eat shrimp, corn on the cob and Mondavi Pinot Noir. Kroger was tasting the wine and I liked it so picked some up. We had Chobani Greek yogurt lime flavored with crumbles for desert.

Back in gear today after a lazy yesterday! Went out and put up the ladder, dropcloths, brushes etc and painted the entire side of the house over the garage. Walking at an angle on the garage roof wasn't too much of a problem. Glad to have this done. Next I mowed the lawn both back and front. While painting today the UPS guy came with the 4 enPhase Inverters. Talked to Joe today about this. He has 8 panels, I will have 4. Dinner tonight was beanburger with Vidalia and a bowl of gumbo soup since Libbie is still nursing her cold. We didn't go to dance party tonight because of the cold Libbie has.

I felt pretty lackadaisical today and basically didn't do much. I did some research on the hardware aspect of the Wifi thermostat interface in the plant room and sketched out a schematic but I was too lazy to do anything about it. Dinner tonight was tuna sandwiches and tomato soup because lib is nursing the beginning of a cold. I was pretty disappointed today since Sirius dropped the classical pops channel effective today. This sucks since it was one of their better channels.

Breakfast at the Captains Inn this morning was an egg and onion quiche with homemade sausage, potatoes, roasted tomatoes and toast. What an incredibly good meal. Right after breakfast we checked out and started the drive home. We had one stop in Williamston at Bojangles for blueberry biscuits and coffee. We got home shortly before noon in an incredibly pleasant drive. The enPhase cables were waiting for me on the front porch. This afternoon I bit the bullet and ordered the 4 solar panels from Renogy. I got the 300 watt ones which would be equal to 5 of the 240 watt panels. The difference is more cells per panel resulting in longer panels. Now it's a matter of waiting. I tried Home Depot and Lowes for a shingle ripper but had no luck. I ended up ordering one from Home Depot online.
I decided that for the electrical portion of the solar cells I will mount a disconnect on the roof with a waterproof conduit A/C type cable from the disconnect box to the enphase inverter cable. The surge supressor will mount on the box and a copper ground wire will go from the box down the house to a ground rod. I will probably have to drill through the roof to make this happen.
We had a very good dance lesson with Robert at 3:30 learning to fine tune our waltz. After dance we went to Kroger for our weekly groceries. They were out of cereal but we got everything else. We had spaghetti tonight for dinner sprinkled with some pizza cheese. I did a little research on smokers online but it was just research, nothing serious.

Coffe was out in the hallway at 7 as promised with a little piece of pound cake. We went down into the dining room at 8. Don served smoked bacon with blueberry pancakes and blueberry compot over the top. Super. We started with juice and a bowl of fresh fruit. We had our rub lesson at 10. We sampled a few rubs and chose "Smoking gun", a competition rub. We put vinegar on the ribs to start with. Libbie was the dry hands while I wore gloves and was the wet person, rubbing down the meat while she sprinkled the rub on. After all was done, we marked the ribs with 2 toothpicks since we were couple number 2. Don cooked the ribs. We walked downtown again and had dinner at 309 bistro. Libbie said she had the best grilled cheese sandwich she ever had. I had an absolutely delightful thai chicken wrap which was wrapped with red and green cabbage and infused with ginger and other spices. Absolutely yummy. My side was homemade chips. We wlaked back to the Inn and then got into our car at 1:15 to drive to the trolly. The $10 trolly ride was a histroic homes tour of edenton. We had previously walked most of it except for the old cotton mill which is now converted to condos. Edenton is surely a beautiful town. Back to dinner at 6 where we sampled each of the 3 couples ribs. I could hardly tell one from the other. Don accompanied the ribs with wine, cole slaw, bicsuits and baked beans. What a nice dinner. We polished it off by walking down the street to "Freeze" and had soft serve ice cream. When we got back we lay in bed reading and we could hear it raining outside again. We had a perfectly clear day until now which was lucky.

Packed our suitcases this morning and took care of all the plants. We left around noon in heavy rain. The rain continued on and off all the way to Edenton. We stopped in Tarboro for lunch at Bojangles. I had a single chicken breast with dirty rice and sweet iced tea and a biscuit. It's been a while and it was certainly good. Despite the rain which was incredibly heavy at times it was an easy drive to the coast. We were a little early so we did a drive of the town and waterfront before checking in at a little past 3 PM. Don our host was pleasant. I had to pay $27 cash for the tax on the groupon. Took care of business then in a light rain Libbie and I walked downtown. We had a tasting of sauces at 6 with a glass of wine and a few smoked ribs. It was yummy and we had a chance to meet theother couples in our group. After this we went downtown in search of dinner. 309 Bistro was closed so we went to Kristy's, an Italian restaurant. It was nothing fancy. I had a nice garden salad with a dish of Fruits of the Sea which was clams, oysters, scallops and shrimp over linguini. Another couple joined us, Stan and Ann from the Captains quarters. I had a beer with dinner then we walked back with the other couple.

Put all the ladders away today in prep for our trip tomorrow. Groomed my plants and then digitized another roll of slides using the projector and camera. I'm not happy with the results and may go back to the scanner for digitizing slides. The results are slow but possibly better that way.
After investigating several possibilities for roof mounts of solar panels I ended up going with aluminum rails and flashed roof mounts from Mile High Eco in Colorado. I also ordered a surge supressor with the rails since I'm a little worried about lightning hits. I will mount this on a disconnect panel on the roof.
Dinner was Libbie's excellent pizza of course.

Finished the AVSA horticulture pictures today and uploaded all to avsa.org for anne and Richard. I found the Windows 7 labeling in the explorer which i used to title the plant pictures. This will make it easier in the future I hope. Dinner tonight was homemade eggplnt casserole with a bottle of Shiraz. yumm!