Oct 1
Thursday, October 1, 2015, 06:00 PM
The new month is bringing a possible hurricane this weekend, Juaquin. It's lightly raining now but is supposed to intensify. We took the old media cabinet to Goodwill as well as a luggage scale and a wine bottle holder. It's great to clean the house and get rid of some of these items. I have so much more upstairs to dispose of. We brought this stuff to Goodwill before the rain started. I cleaned off the table top in my office, putting the wallbox into a plastic tub for work later. I'm getting ready for the projector I ordered that will need work. Dinner tonight was a tuna sandwich, then we went out to the Elks where the Tune Swingers were playing. They are a 21 piece big band. The room was small so they were loud but it was enjoyable, we did some more Foxtrot stuff. Attendance was light. it was pretty rainy on the way back.
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foxtrot
Wednesday, September 30, 2015, 06:00 PM
I went back to the second of Libbie's albums and finished scanning it. Now I need to label the people in the pictures. Next I started reviewing our Foxtrot routine for the showcase we're doing on Halloween. We went early to dance and practiced for 25 minutes in the studio before our lesson. We had a great lesson, roughly outlining what we are going to be doing. It's hard dancing with Libbie, she doesn't follow well. I probably am not a great dancer either. After our lesson we met with Anne Cain about renewing our listing for the land. We left there and went home for a while before going out at 6:30 for dinner at La Cocina. We thought the last Wednesday was a Mariachi band but there wasn't any band. I ordered a Bell and Howell Projector from Florida today. I'm going to convert it into a telecine machine which converts 8mm films to digital. At La Cocina I had a Yuengling and the Queasadilla La Cocina which was very good.
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SQL problems
Tuesday, September 29, 2015, 06:00 PM
I wanted to keep scanning albums today but a Facebook posting from several people on AV Nerds complained about the updates crashing in the Android program. I fired up the debug mode in B4A and found that mine crashed once in a while as well. The problem was not closing a cursor, it kept creating new ones in a for next loop. The result was an out of memory error after several hundred cursors were created. I closed the cursor and put the new version which is 2.14 onto Google Play. All people who had trouble reported that the update was successful. Dinner was rigatoni with the imported pork sausage, wine and tomato sauce which is very good.
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scanning
Monday, September 28, 2015, 06:00 PM
I started scanning the second of Libbie's albums. This one is in worse shape but it's easier to scan because it has screws that allow the book to be disassembled and the pages to be individually removed for scanning. This eases the scanning process. I also hooked up the older scanner because it is flatter and has no control panel edges that are higher than the glass. Dinner was my homemade chili. I made it this time with corn and the beans. I really liked it. Libbie made some corn bread to go along with it. I had to buy more corn bread flour because the other stuff was hard as a rock. Libbie took apart the pantry closet and is cleaning it totally with borax. She is also going to put polyurethane on the doors.
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TV
Sunday, September 27, 2015, 06:00 PM
After the CBS this Morning Show I started working on the TV again. Had to make a run out to Lowes and then Home Depot for speaker wire to make the leads longer. I also picked up an Air Conditioner heavy duty extension cord to run power up to the shelf. Moved the amplified and DVR to the shelf then mounted the TV using bolts and nuts on the 2x12 instead of the self tapping screws they provided. The TV is supported quite well up there, I am surprised at how stable it is. I'm thinking now that maybe I should have mounted it higher. Also, the DVR is peaking out above the TV. I like it this way since I can see the lights on the box. The center speaker however is visible above the TV. I may move this down to behind the TV below the shelf. I also want to install a lower shelf for the IR WiFi bridge and IR repeater. This also will need a power strip. While I worked on the TV Libbie took the pantry apart and cleaned it out, discarding unused things and scrubbing mold. I removed the folding doors for her which will probably get a coat of poly urethane. Dinner was the Libbie traditional pizza from scratch. Yum!
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dinner
Saturday, September 26, 2015, 06:00 PM
Made ribs in the Smoker today out in the rain. We got almost 2 inches yesterday and almost one inch today. All went well with the smoker. Started rubbing them at 10, turned the smoker on at noon then put the ribs in at 12:15. Loaded wood chips into it hourly and also mopped down the ribs hourly until it was time to wrap them in foil for 2 hours. The last hour they cooked with a glaze over them.
The ribs were delicious, moist and tender and meaty. We had Butternut squash and chateau St Michelle Cabernet with the wine topped off by a Key Lime yogurt. It was all good. I drilled the hole in the TV shelf today and painted it. Will try to move the amplifier and the DVR up to the shelf. Don't think they will fit together but it's worth a shot.
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dance
Friday, September 25, 2015, 06:00 PM
Mounted the shelf today. It went very well and is quite solid. We practiced our holiday routine of Foxtrot then went to Big Lots and got some sheets for less than $10 for the ghost costumes. We had the leftover chicken basil each having a small piece. My Mother's scrapbook has been scanned freeing up the scanner but I don't have Libbie's book she wants scanned. We left for dance tonight. It was a small crowd and Robert's birthday. It was fun seeing most of the folks again. We went out to the pub after dinner to celebrate Robert's birthday and came home around 11:30 PM. We had chicken Wings and 1.5 beers while at the pub.
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shelf
Thursday, September 24, 2015, 06:00 PM
Screwed the bracket down in the morning then cut a sheet of plywood for the shelf. Painted it with the wall white paint and let it dry in the garage overnight. Dinner was chicken Basil with Mozarella that I made. It's such a simple and delicious meal.
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dance lesson
Wednesday, September 23, 2015, 06:00 PM
Spent the morning making a template for the corner TV bracket then cutting the 2x12 and sanding it to fit. It took several tries to get it to fit properly. Tacked it in place then used the drill and 3 inch deck screws to permanently fix it to the wall brackets. Unfortunately I was short by 3 screws. Will do a Lowes trip after dinner.
We had an excellent dance lesson with Robert. We taped the whole choreography, it's pretty cool, especially the grapevine where we both dance in parallel. It's going to be fun!!! Stopped into Kroger on the way home to get Libbie's prescription as well as some carrots. She wanted baby carrots for snacking, I tried them but like the long ones better since they're easier to handle. Tonight Turandot was live with James Morris. I enjoyed it but missed the first part since we went to Lowes and picked up the screws for the TV corner support. We also made our bulb selections for Fall planting and bought around $100 worth of daffodils and crocus bulbs. Dinner was spaghetti with the leftover chicken from yesterday.
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welcome home
Tuesday, September 22, 2015, 06:00 PM
Libbie got on a plane at 7:25 this morning coming home. I watched GMA then took inventory and went grocery shopping. I just barely got back when I noticed her plane was early. I started out and got a text from her that she landed. It was good timing that she texted me again to come get her just as I got off the I-40 exit. I went straight to the terminal and picked her up.. Once home we had a BLT with the fixings I picked up this morning. After lunch I finished scanning my Mother's album. That's another one in the digital vault. I still have lots more but Libbie brought me 2 albums from her Mother's shelf that I am going to scan. One is really falling apart. Took a little nap where I essentially passed out but woke in time to start dinner. I made chicken with Basil pesto, Roma tomatoes and mozzarella cheese in the oven. I served it with Ravenwood Zin which I bought for her coming home.
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tree cutting
Monday, September 21, 2015, 06:00 PM
Put a new chain on the saw and worked outside for several hours today. Cut the rest of the dead tree up from yesterday and attempted a repair on the Azalea that it fell on. I also removed the dangling old spotlight from the pine tree next to the driveway. The wires tested live so I may hook an LED spotlight up to it or possibly a few trees over. I then went down to the front of the front yard and sliced up the two dead trees laying there and hauled them away and did a little trimming on the Maple tree. This completely wore me down, took a shower and lay on the bed a while reading on the laptop and cruising BP and YouNow. Dinner tonight was hamburgers off the grill. Earlier for lunch I had the rest of the Asian salad mix.
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tree cut
Sunday, September 20, 2015, 06:00 PM
Mounted the supports onto the wall behind the TV using 3 inch wood screws. This will make it easier to remove if I ever have to. I tied a mason string across the supports and traced the angles for the 2x12 piece. I want to transfer this to a piece of cardboard before making the real cut.
I went out and cut down the dead tree in our coral bell azaleas. It was still pretty solid and heavy to move. It fell onto the white azaleas across the driveway which is not what I wanted. I moved all the logs off the driveway and stacked them down by the creek. Libbie suggested taking them to the street but I would have to cut them up into smaller sizes so I didn't. The Chain saw needs a new chain. Came back in and lay down for over an hour. This wore me down and I only moved half the tree. I'll do the rest tomorrow. For dinner i made a couple of hamburgers. I used smoking gun sauce on the first but it was weak so I used plain ketchup on the second. Watched a little of the Emmys this evening but I wasn't very into it. The dresses were modest and I never saw any of the shows nominated.
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paint problems
Saturday, September 19, 2015, 06:00 PM
Outdoor work today. Mowed all the lawns and then cut the 2x4s for the TV corner bracket. While the chicken cooked for dinner I painted the 2x4s white. One small problem is that the lid is too rusted to go back onto an almost full can of paint. Will see if there is a solution in Home Depot. Dinner was the basil chicken I oven baked. It was quite good but light on cheese compated to last nights chicken. During dinner I watched Gigante Sabada, It's their last show and ran over for 26 minutes saying goodby to everybody. They had the usual collection of gorgeous babes in slinky form fitting clothes. I'm going to miss this show. I watched it all the way from 8 till 11:26 and also recorded it.
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wood
Friday, September 18, 2015, 06:00 PM
This was a lazy day, I didn't accomplish much. Did some reading of nnon technical things then marked the wall behind the TV to mount the TV in the corner. I don't have any pieces of wood to support the 2x12 so I went to Home Depot and picked up a fairly clear 2x4. I also took a look at Hardwood Flooring. The only thing they have in stock is prefinished flooring. The lady explained the microgrooves help to keep dirt off the floor surface, thus protecting the finish. Sounds like marketing to me. Dinner was chicken with basil pesto and Mozzarella. This came out incredibly good and was delicious. I made it in a disposable aluminum pan which made cleanup easy.
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Thursday, September 17, 2015, 06:00 PM
Packed up the old siding into the trailer and 2 of the bags of shingles and took it all down to the dump. Two Hispanic guys helped me unload. The biggest part of the help was they picked up the two bags of shingles and tossed them in the dumpster. What a big help. The Timer appears to be doing it's thing on the septic pump. This was a project I really wanted done and it worked out so well. Libbie is thinking of bringing 2 of her Mothers old albums home. I'm sure I can handle it with all the MAAVS stuff I have to do. Dinner was a hamburger on a bun with ketchup, this was the last of the hamburger package but I still have an unopened package of burgers I bought Tuesday. I also have some chicken breast tenders I want to use.
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Foxtrot
Wednesday, September 16, 2015, 06:00 PM
Worked on the FC4A updates this morning. As usual it took a lot of learning to do it but I did a test run which was successful so I went and did the real thing and put it out there. I also painted the board for the hole over the electrical box in the garage. The board will mount a timer which will tap into the wall cables going to the spetic and the power box. Dinner was beans and a hamburger.
I had a dance lesson with Melanie. She had to ad lib quite a bit since she wasn't sure what we were doing. I feel it was useful though as a review of Foxtrot. I enjoyed it anyway, she's a lightweight dancer easy to move around.
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Chili
Tuesday, September 15, 2015, 06:00 PM
I cut into the wall above the power box to mount a timer I picked up in Home Depot. It's a 220 volt 40 amp timer and will be used for the septic pump. This was old geezer day at Kroger so I went and bought the ingredients for Chili featured on Lifehacker. it's pretty good and easy to make. Chili with a few bread slices from hamburger buns was dinner. Had a good check up with a new hygientist, Deena and chatted with Dr Paul. I'm convinced he doesn;t work their anymore, just walks around and visits. The 6T drive from NewEgg arrived today. I hooked it up and began transferring files over to it. It's a long slow process, but it's almost 5 T of data.
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IRKit
Monday, September 14, 2015, 06:00 PM
Worked with the irKit that came yestrday. This time I used the IOS software to set it up and was successful. Then I used Curl to read the latest IR command which was also sucessful. Hamburger on a bun for dinenr along with Asian Sesa,e salad. Updated the Field of Dreams blog to add the IRKit to the mix. This will serve as my personal documentation
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trip advisor
Sunday, September 13, 2015, 06:00 PM
Did some catchup on files, my travel blog and general house keeping. Everything is going well. Did some reviews for trip advisor then reviewed some of the entries on BP. Dinner once again was a hamburger which was nice.
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Flying Home
Saturday, September 12, 2015, 06:00 PM
Got up at 4:15 AM, took a shower and did bathroom things then packed all and left Libbie in bed after kissing her good by. Returned the rental car and rode the shuttle to the terminal. TSA went well, I was through check in, TSA and the train to the C concourse in 36 minutes which isn't bad. This was my first time using the texted boarding pass which worked. Once at concourse C I stopped at Einstein Bagel and ordered a Cinnamon Raisin with Cream Cheese and a coffee and ate it at the gate. Denver has free Wifi so I worked on this journal at the gate until boarding time. I hit the lottery and got the exit row and the seat with no seat in front of me. I was able to stretch out a good 4 or 5 feet in front of me. This is a 2 legged flight, one to Houston and then Houston to Raleigh. One the second leg once we got over Pensacola, FL the air became unstable, very cloudy and the plane rocked back and forth for a very rough flight. Surprisingly it was smoother near landing when we were cruising at 13,000 feet about 20 miles from the airport. I was glad for that. My bag was first on the carousel which was a first then the Park N Ride took me to my car first which was also a first. What a great travel experience except for the rough flight which can't be helped. Storms are predicted for Raleigh this afternoon as a cold front arrives. Too bad I was flying in it.
The house really smells moldy. I set up the fan up for 100% exhaust. I need to do something more permanent. May have to purchase a second 20 inch fan and suspend it in the back of the crawl blowing towards the door.
Went to Kroger for milk and fruit. Bought Lloyds Pork BBQ and some buns. Had BBQ on a bun for dinner. The glasses from our SD wine tasting came back in the suitcase in one piece.
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Drive to Denver
Friday, September 11, 2015, 06:00 PM
We had the B&B breakfast of baked oatmeal and a fruit plate. The oatmeal had pieces of Apple in the baked brick of oatmeal. It was quite good. We packed our bags to go and said our goodbys. We drove to Custer State PArk and paid the $15 admission. The needles rock formation exceeded my expectation with a tunnel cut in the rock and lots of cathedral spires surrounding it. There was a climber climbing the needle when we were there. Also a tourist van of ladies from Adventure tours. We continued the drive through the park stopping at many overlooks before getting on the wildlife loop. Our wildlife total was a coyote, a herd of antelope, some elk, a herd of burros and then a hige herd of buffalo, On our way out there were even some standalone bull buffalos, one right next to the road grazing. He was huge as my car. We stopped for lunch in Hot Springs at a DQ where we had chicken wraps. The Wyoming prairie is beautiful and is an 80 mph road but hardly any cell signal. The traffic was terrible from Fort Collins to Denver, it was stop and go on the Interstate. On the Denver outskirts we chose to take the toll road which was excellent and went right near our hotel. The Holiday Inn was a beautiful new hotel. We went next door to gas up the car at 7-11 and then on the other side of the hotel to an Italian restaurant named DiCicio. It's family owned and has old world charm. The inside is like an opera house with multi level box type seats. We were downstairs. We had a bottle of the house Cabernet which was by Canyon Road for $25. I had the sausage Canneloni which also had an individual sausage. It was very good. Libbie had the eggplant Parmesan. We both ordered a salad with the meal and some kind of heavy bread was served which reminded me of sourdough. Went back to our Denver airport Holiday Inn stuffed. I'm glad it was close by. I have to get up at 4:15 AM so I went to bed at 9 PM. It was a good day.
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Crazy Horse
Thursday, September 10, 2015, 06:00 PM
We had a huge breakfast of a tapioca cup to start followed by a plate with eggs, kielbasi, pancakes and syrup. I can't keep eating huge breakfasts like this. It started out as a cloudy day but the sun came out later. The Crazy Horse monument was huge. Rushmore would fit into the face of Crazy Horse. We did the bus tour which was $4 each and well worth it, we went to the base of the monument. There were only 4 people on our school bus. The driver was pretty friendly and knowledgable. A great guy. The Indian Museum was fasntastic and huge, it far exceeded expectations and was well worth it. I enjoyed the artifacts of all the tribes, the museum rooms seemed to go on forever. We had an Indian Taco for lunch in the very nice cafe where our table had a beautiful view of the Crazy Horse monument. Our server was a retired guy who lives out of an RV and will be going to TX next to help Amazon Christmas deliveries. Interesting life these retired folks carve out for themselves. When we got back we had wine and cheese on the deck but I knocked the bottle over which dumped Libbie's glass of wine all over the place including on her white jacket. What a mess I cleaned up while she cleaned her jacket. For dinner we went into Keystone and had Pizza and beer at an efficiently run family restaurant. The wait staff was small and running ragged, they were short handed. We had a nice fresh mushroom pizza with a Moose Drool beer.
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Mt Rushmore
Wednesday, September 9, 2015, 06:00 PM
Our B&B served a delicious cinnamon pear as a starter then a quiche bowl and a side of fresh fruit. Both were outstanding although I'm not sure I liked chicken in my quiche. It also had egg, cheese and bacon. A toast with tomato and cheese was also on the side. The coffee was a little weak. We could not get WiFi this morning so ended up driving down to Keystone to use the free public WiFi in the street which was amazing. It was quite good and allowed us to get our mail. NExt we took our stuff and went over to Mt Rushmore. Hiked the Presidential Trail and admired the sculpture, visited the sculptors studio and watched the movie in the visitors center. It was all interesting although I'm not sure I would return. Been there, done that. We attempted a drive into Custer PArk but turned around after 5 miles of twisty turns driving. Loved the tunnels that have views right out to Rushmore. Such a treat. I was tired so we bailed and drove into Hill City where we tasted wines by Praire City Winery. They were not worth the price so we ended up in the city at a food market where we bought Calif wine as well as crackers and cheese. It was a very nice day. When we got back the WiFi was working. We had the wine and cheese with crackers on the porch and then went out to dinner at the Himalayan indian Restaurant. When we went inside the smell was heavenly, we smelled curry or spices. I wanted Briyani but the waiter suggested chicken Tika Masala which was delicious. It's chunks of chicken with an Orange Curry sauce along with Basmati rice. We shared the entre which was more than enough food. We had water to accompany. Quite nice. We told our neighbors from England, Peter and Jane, about the restaurant. They were interested.
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travel
Tuesday, September 8, 2015, 06:00 PM
Joe was up early working in the kitchen. Christa came down to say goodby then we headed out the door at 6 AM. We were TSA Pre and had no trouble at all at John Waynce, we breezed through. The flight was full but I scored an exit row seat. Libbie was in the same row but across the aisle in a seat that was not in a wide row. We got in early in Denver but landed in Terminal C. Had to take the train all the way past A & B to get our baggage then the shuttle to the rental car lot. We got a Red Toyota Corolla with quite a few miles on it but it was fine. We had to wait since all they had ready was SUVs. IT took a while to get through Denver traffic, at one place the Interstate narrowed to 1 lane which was a long bottleneck. Eventually we hit the Open road and drove through Wyoming for the first time ever. Speed Limit was 80 which was unreal but not terribly different from 130 km/hr in Austria. Found our B&B in Keystone then went out to dinner in Hill City. We ended up in the Alpine Inn which has Filet Mignon for 9.95 which includes baked potato and salad. We had a 1/2 litre of very nice house Cabernet and enjoyed our dinner. The place was recommended by our hosts Lesley and Ron. The road to Hill City as well as the road to Keystone is covered with wandering deer.
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picnic
Monday, September 7, 2015, 06:00 PM
Busy start to the day. I updated the MAAVS website with commercial vendors attending the convention, communicated with the LSAVC folks about adding the newsletter to their website then did the check in to Southwest at 7:45 for our Denver flight tomorrow morning. We got B20 and B21 but it was TSA Pre which was pretty cool.
We took a walk on the beach in Huntington Beach with Christa and Paige while Joe went off on his own to ride his bike, I got a pretty good sunburn, didn't expect it. We then went to Whittier for the Lapworth Labor Day picnic. It was almost 100 in Whittier which was surprising since it wasn't that hot in HB. Craig made Tortillas with chicken and beans, sour cream and lots of fixins. It was quite good. Packed up our suitcases when we came back ready for an early morning takeoff.
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