door
Friday, September 19, 2014, 06:00 PM
I worked on sheathing the 2x3s today. To make up for the foam siding I put on two layers of 5/8 inch plywood. The result is a pretty strong structure. I installed the door frame and put the door on it's hinges. It swings nicely. Dinner was BBQ on bread. I left home at 10:55 for Libbie's 11:10 flight from John Wayne. Picked her up without problems and got to bed at 12:20 (20 minutes past midnight). I was pretty tired.
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frame
Thursday, September 18, 2014, 06:00 PM
Cleaned up the rotted wood around the door frame today and managed to nail 4 treated 2x4s in place. This was about all I accomplished. Dinner was deli lasagna with candy for desert. I had an excellent dance lesson with Melanie today. I learned waltz but nit much quick step which she hates. The waltz section was excellent. i twinkled into flip flops, zig zags and waterfalls. Excellent.
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alamode
Wednesday, September 17, 2014, 06:00 PM
Not much going on today. I was supposed to have a lesson with ?Melnie today but her mother in law passed away and she was at the funeral. The alamode finally came today. I got the IDE set up on the thing and ran the demo program. I was happy with the device, not happy at all with the company, ABBRA electronics. The postage said it was $6. They charged me $29, then $9 after complaining by me. It was still too much. Dinner was PBJ and also some junk snack food, mostly granola bars.
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door
Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 06:00 PM
Ran out to get groceries. Also picked up some trim wood at Lowes. Dinner was fried chicken. Worked on cleaning up the door frame and removing the old trim. Vacuumed the backporch and picked up a lot of the wood in the yard to go into the garbage can on Thursday. The Ottlite came today which I only ordered yesterday. Still no alamode however. Bad news. Dinner was fried chicken and potato salad. Finished reading Low Tide bikini.
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chicken
Monday, September 15, 2014, 06:00 PM
Not very motivated today. I also slept in until 7:30 -- wow, that never happens. I looked at the education page of the AVSA website. Tried a few Drupal modules out that looked like they may be useful. Discovered that it is very easy to display random content using a Global random flag in a view. My Ott lite burned out this evening making it pretty dark. I ordered a new bulb on ebay when I found that Lowes doesn't carry it. Dinner was fried chicken and potato salad. this was also lunch. Did a lot of reading on TER and BP then returned to my novel, bikini Island.
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misc
Sunday, September 14, 2014, 06:00 PM
This morning I read through the mail and found the note from the Town that starting Monday our streets will be repaved. I hooked up the trailer and went to Lowes and picked up the door which had come in while we were in Calif as planned. This thing is fiberglass clad with the center glass and is heavy!. I got it home and stored it on the back porch. I went back and picked up some conduit and an entrance lock for the back door. I had it rekeyed in the store to match our other keys. The conduit is to run some ethernet to the tool closet to relocate the enphase hub. I think the location is a problem when the light towers are on since the hub can't communicate with the panels until the lights go off.
On the back porch I took off the door trim but didn't go any further. It's cold out and I didn't want to remove the door until I'm ready. Lunch was a Jimmy Dean frozen turkey sandwich which was a Friday Freebie. I didn't like it. For dinner I had leftover BBQ from the freezer on sandwich bread with a Quaker yogurt with raspberry topping for dessert. Went upstairs early to cntinue reading the book I started on the plane. I really am into it.
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fly home
Saturday, September 13, 2014, 06:00 PM
Joe and Libbie went for a walk while I did some computer and picture maintenance. They brought back a bagel and cream cheese which was yummo. We left at 11 for the airport and got there in ample time for my 12:45 flight. TSA was easy but I had to take out my computer and take off my shoes. Waited at gate 17 for my plane to Vegas which was on time. Ii had the exit row but there were three people. In Vegas I walked the entire terminal before stopping into Sbarros for a slice of plain pizza. This was my meal for the day. Left on time at 4 for a very smooth flight back to Raleigh. I had the exit row and no person in the middle. Arrived 35 minutes early in Raleigh at 11:00. I was the last person to be dropped at my car from a full bus. Even though it was 11:40 I went through the car wash since the car hasn't been washed in a while. Arrived home at 12:07 where I waved to Lib on the driveway cam. She called when I got into the door saying she saw me. Nice! The mail was waiting in the mailbox, I had it delivered which was a plus.
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solar is on
Friday, September 12, 2014, 06:00 PM
Joe went surfing this morning. I hooked the terminator up to the Enphase cable on the roof and also tied the system into the power panel and ran the ground wire to the stake. The 8 foot ground stake was amazing. Joe rented a $16 hammer drill and drove all 8 feet into the ground. He was out returning the rental tool when I hooked it up. He flipped the switch when he came home and watched his electric meter read a negative number. It was -260 watts which increased to -460 watts later in the afternoon. We parked at the library once again and walked down main street. It was comical at the library. We did not know how to release the car seat from the back in order to put it onto the stroller. Joe eventually showed up and demonstrated the release to us. We walked the pier and ended up at Rubys for lunch. I had the black and blue sliders with onion rings which were hamburgers with blue cheese and Cajun sauce. Yummy although the Cajun sauce wasn't very hot like I expected. We stopped at the pier Farmers market on the way back after lunch. This morning I checked into Southwest and got seat A41 but was disappointed that there was no TSA Pre. on my ticket. Oh well,I'll survive. For dinner we ordered Thai takeout. I had chicken Pad Thai with a bottle of Merlot. Very good. Went back to reading "The Show" after dinner. I'm at 80% in Kindle terms (they don't give page numbers).
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solar
Thursday, September 11, 2014, 06:00 PM
Lib and I took a walk downtown this morning. We stopped by Wahoo's and picked up three Kahlua bowls for lunch. this was a bowl of lettuce with teryaki pulled pork, rice and beans. It was yummy. total bill was $28. After lunch I rested a little and then Joe and I started moving panels to the roof. We managed to get all the panels to the roof, 3 yesterday and 6 more today. We got the entire system mounted and wired up. This was tiring work. I got the J box put together and installed on the conduit, then wired the enphase cable to the #8 copper wires. This was tedious and hard work since #8 is not the easiest to deal with.
I was really tired after this roof work. Since this was the 10th anniversary of Joe and Christa meeting we went out to dinner at La Capilla. Christa wasn't happy with the choice and during dinner got pretty quiet. I had the beef taco and cheese enchilada special with a Negra miyaga beer. Bill was $69. I enjoyed it.
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Utt Elementary
Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 06:00 PM
After breakfast and after paying the credit card bill online, there was a planned electrical outage. We packed up and went to visit Christa at Utt Middle School for lunch. We picked up some salad bowls at Rubio's. i had an Orange chipotle with blackened Tilapia bowl. Wow, was all this good. It had corn, black beans, avocado, lettuce and mandarin oranges. I drizzled the Mandarin Chipotle Orange sauce over the mix. Nice. We had this in the conference room at Utt. We had Paige and took her into the cafeteria to meet the staff then she went into the office and was passed around to many of the staff. We met her principal Dean who said he had 3 kids ages 8, 12 and 14. We left there around 1:30 which was a long lunch for Christa. Joe drives like a maniac on the freeway. It didn't seem like there was any reason to be so reckless.
This afternoon I helped him to move solar panels onto the roof. We attempted to put down the first row of panels but had difficulties with attachments, layout and cabling. Joe will modify his design. For dinner we had sliders, salad and mesquite potatoes with a couple of Coronas.
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wiring
Tuesday, September 9, 2014, 06:00 PM
This morning I went with Joe to Home Depot for electrical parts then helped him string wire through his garage from the roof solar panels. He managed to drill 1/2 inch hole in the sidewalk for his ground rod. I'm pretty happy since I got the MAAVS database transferred and Drupal working on the site. I previously had transferred the files but they were down one directory. I used the host gator file manager and moved the tree structure to the expected location. The website works well now. I made a few minor edits here and there to update the site.
Libbie made us tuna sandwiches for lunch and Joe cooked an excellent tritip for dinner which we had with a bottle of Los Olas Merlot. Before dinner we went to Pams house in the Landmark subdivision. Nice small 2 bedroom condo. Early to bed at 9 PM, I was tired.
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tri tip sliders
Monday, September 8, 2014, 06:00 PM
After finishing the Mine last night I went to Amazon and ordered the second book in the series by John Heldt, "The Show". It follows the tale of Grace leaving 1941 to seek out Joel from the first book. I debated a long time about getting this one. Libbie and I went out in the morning, put gas in Joe's car and went downtown. We walked Main Street then the pier. It was cloudy and cool, I had long pants on. We parked up Main Street past the parking meters but in a 24 minute space which we exceeded. Joe and Christa went out to Hurricanes in the evening since it ws Monday Night football while Libbie and I did babysitting. Joe previously made some nice sliders for us from ground up tri tip. We had them with a bottle of Ravenswood Zinfandel.
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picnic
Sunday, September 7, 2014, 06:00 PM
After a slow morning we packed up and went to Lapworths for a picnic. We had some delicious chicken salad and cranberry on sandwich bread from Costco and then some snacks. Craig showed his movie of Paige first few weeks which is way too long at 32 minutes. The ladies went to a jewelry demonstration party down the street. It was warm in Whittier today, almost 100. I enjoyed it. Craig cooked some nice Carne asada beef and chicken which I had on a flour tortilla with lettuce, sour cream and salasa. Yumm. Topped it off with a Pacifico beer. For desert we had banana pudding. What a nice picnic. I stayed up in the evening and finished reading the Mine. It was a 10 in my book.
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saturday
Saturday, September 6, 2014, 06:00 PM
Joe went to the beach this morning . We found there was no cereal or milk so I went down to Stater Bros and got shredded wheat and skim milk for breakfast.
Christa and Joe picked up sandwiches from Meatheadz in Huntington Beach for lunch. Wow, easily the best sandwich I ever had. I had tuna with their own sauce. Really nice. Tonight for dinner we had a bottle of beringers cabernet with the leftover sandwiches. Joe and Christa took off to a music and food festival on the beach but they stayed outside the fenced, pay for admission, area. I'm really enjoying the Mine by John Healdt, a free eBook from bookbub.
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electrical
Friday, September 5, 2014, 06:00 PM
Up at 5:30 Pacific time, hung around in bed then took a shower at 6. Joe made waffles for us which were incredibly good. We saw Christa off then I started transferring the MAAVS files. The electrical inspector came this morning. I went on the roof to see Joe's installation while he inspected it. Everything passed except Joe didn't have a ground bonding system. We chopped a hole in the sheet rock in the garage looking for an electrical ufer ground but didn't find anything. The alternative is to drive a stainless steel ground rod below the electrical panel. Libbie and I took a walk around the neighborhood while Joe went somewhere with Paige. When Christa came home from work we were going to have BBQ at the beach but we went down there and the parking was miles away and Christa has a broken ankle that's healing. We went to Mama Mia in Newport Beach instead. This was an outstanding dinner. We ordered a bottle of Avalon Cabernet Sauvignon with my Chicken Parmesan. The bread and olive oil was also outstanding. It was a nice night out but the bill was $166 with tip. Ouch.
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HB
Thursday, September 4, 2014, 06:00 PM
I woke at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. It's 7:30 Eastern time. Had a shower at 6 to begin the day then caught up on email and stuff. Joe made bacon and French Toast for breakfast which was yummy. Paige is quite a handful. She needs constant attention. After a restful day of playing on the computer and writing the NCID client in python, Christa came home early. She had a Doctor appt that Joe went to with her. We left in the late afternoon for the La Copellia happy hour. I had a Magarita and two of the specials - a cheese quesadilla and a tortino. The specials were 1.49 eeach. Paige was incredibly good through the meal. It was a nice dinner.
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travel
Wednesday, September 3, 2014, 06:00 PM
Up early after passing out early. We finished packing this morning for our trip then left at 10 AM for the airport. Everything went smooth. We were in the new terminal for Southwest. Security was a little different in that our palms were swabbed. Mine were done twice. The flight was totally full to Phoenix. It was a relatively smooth flight. We had a nice young girl between us. for the first time in many years the stewardess was very attractive. This was quite a surprise. Landed in a very hot Phoenix where we had our peanut butter sandwiches. Couldn't have them on the plane because there was a person aboard with peanut allergies. They didn't serve peanuts either. I liked the snacks though. Arrived a little early in OC. Joe picked us up with Paige in the Chrysler. It was very cold outside on Joe's patio where we had Thai takeout and a Sam Adams Oktoberfest. This was good food after a very light eating day.
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meeting
Tuesday, September 2, 2014, 06:00 PM
We did a little light cleaning, I blew out the garage and the driveway and the violet club folks started coming at 10 am. Joy was here at 9, they all were grooming and caring for plants before the meeting. We started the meeting at 11:30 then went to the main program which was the AVSA convention DVD. I showed the Main show as well as the Holtkamp tour. It was well received. We tried some more packing and then picked up a Chinese takeout which we had with Shiraz. That finished me for the evening. I fell asleep early and was out for the night.
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labor day
Monday, September 1, 2014, 06:00 PM
Labor Day. I put the package together to protest the chargeback from the McLaughlin's in Alabama. I'm afraid we'll lose this round and over $200. I had quite a bit of success today at descreening the door frames and also programming the fullscreen buffer of the Raspberry Pi. Dinner this evening was spaghetti.
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sunday
Sunday, August 31, 2014, 06:00 PM
This was mostly a day of relaxation. Watched the morning shows then went outside and did a little outdoor work trimming of the lawn in front before going out for a bike ride around the neighborhood which I enjoyed. The new helmet is nice and secure feeling especially when I go a little faster. Did a bunch of web updates for AVSA by adding the new magazine, etc. Libbie made her excellent pizza once again for our sunday night dinner.
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Visitors
Saturday, August 30, 2014, 06:00 PM
This morning Ken and Anita came over to see the Violets. We had a nice visit, they were amazed with all the projects and we were glad they came over. I worked some more on Nieto II and finally was able to retrieve temperature and solar data and display it. I learned quite a bit about pygame and python which was great. Dinner was ribs with corn on the cob from Kroger and a bottle of Shiraz. For desert I had yogurt with cherry and dark chocolate. Very good. We had our last glass of wine and yogurt on the back porch, enjoying the evening. For August, it's remarkably comfortable.
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party
Friday, August 29, 2014, 06:00 PM
Went to Lowes and got a new spark plug and a 2.6 oz bottle of 2 cycle oil. Stopped by Lowes food to get a fresh gallon of gas to which I added the oil. Put everything in and on the chain saw and started it up. After some rough running it straightened out and ran pretty smoothly. Took the saw to the back and cut down all the pine trees which were blocking my path and also growing in front of the bird house. Next step was to hop on the bike and ride around the block, coming across the dam and through my freshly cut path. Success! After a dinner of Lloyds pulled pork BBQ and the remnants of the baked beans we went to dance at 8. It was not a bad night, we tried out some of the new patterns we learned with Mitzi this week. Afterwards we went to the McGregor Pub at McGregor shopping center. We had wings and beer. This pub is much quieter than Cary pub and was nice. I like the waitresses in the little short shorts.
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land wallk
Thursday, August 28, 2014, 06:00 PM
Went out to the greenhouse property on Jessie and using the map we went looking for the corner stakes on the golf course. We had success and located both irons. Did not find a stake near the Wrenn driveway but there is one on the corner where our driveway comes in. We got covered with mosquito bites and sticker pricks from the dense brush. Took a walk down the pipeline and found Levi or Raymond Wrenns old electric fence line which approximates the boundary. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with pieces of tomato and cheese.
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pi
Wednesday, August 27, 2014, 06:00 PM
I stayed somewhat clean today since we had dance this afternoon. Worked on understanding pygame on the Raspberry Pi. This should work for me. Updated the AVSA web site with the 2014 convention DVD info. At dance today Robert helped fine tune our Rumba. For dinner we went out to mariachi night at La Cocina where we had the usual of a Yuengling and Quesadilla La cocina.
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rumba
Tuesday, August 26, 2014, 06:00 PM
Took all the stuff in the side yard tothe dump then went to the greenhouse and got all the scrap aluminum. Hauled it all to the scrap metal place and got $70 for our efforts. Stopped by the farmers market and picked up fruit and tomatoes. dinner was spinach salad and tuna. We had a Rumba almagamation class with mitzi tonight. I learned a proper cuban as well as a box step rock step. I also learned a proper cross body lead which I was doing wrong.
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