It's a rainy day. After the morning programs I loaded up the cart and headed over to the greenhouse. We had a steady stream of visitors to pick up free pots and almost cleared them all out. I loaded the sofa into the dumpster and also cleared out all the wood from the one side of the shed. We burned all this wood in a huge bonfire. It was great that it was raining so we didn't worry too much about the roaring fire but it also meant we got soaked to our skin. Next big task remaining is to get rid of all the bench supports in the shed. There are a pile of them and they may not fit into the shed. I came home dead tired today, not sure why since I didn't do any heavy lifting. I did manage to tear apart all three workbenches we had in the building. Two of them were put into the fire and the third into the dumpster. Burning is preferable to save dumpster room. We had Libbie's pizza for dinner. She left the broiler on by accident so burned the pizza top but I think it still tasted OK. Had an FC4A inquiry from Marge Farrand. She thought a plant was not in FC4A but was in the desktop version. In reality it was in the user database in her desktop version.

Worked in the office this morning configuring the Obi200 device and initiating the transfer of the home phone to Google. So far everything is working as it's supposed to. Finally T-mobile transferred the number from Vonage to my unlocked phone. This was a 2 week struggle with many calls to support in India which was a pain in the ass. The combination of the accent, the poor connection with delay and people who are not trained very well. They always had the same message - I would get a text within 24 hours that the number was transferred. Ha! That never happened in 2 weeks. Good riddance. I'm thinking of deleting the greenhouse phone number totally. The other option is to use voip.ms and transfer it. I don't have a good price for the service. At 11:15 we left for our Wagner Marathon. I totally enjoyed the rousing music and choruses and the excellent singers of our afternoon at Tannhauser. This group of Wagnerians were fantastic. On the way home we picked up some wine and the missing ingredients to make pesto chicken which I made. We had the chicken with Broccoli and a Cabernet Sauvignon that Kroger was sampling called Paranoia. This was an award winning wine and had a nice hologram label

Out to the greenhouse this morning with the cart and chainsaw. Finished moving the 4 foot lathe fencing then decided to tackle the folded up piles of plastic tops. I used the string trimmer to clear the weeds around the tops and also around a site for a fire that Libbie is going to tend. Libbie burned a lot of the lumber from the shed while I continued filling the dumpster with the old sign that needed chainsawing and hauling to the dumpster. I put an ad on Craigslist for free pots and we had a steady stream of people coming to get the pots which was good. Went home very tired and after a lunch soup I felt sick to my stomach. Not sure what the problem is other than I went out to Kroger and picked up some Pepto Bismol and took 2 doses an hour apart. By the time of the Halloween party at the studio I was feeling a little better. Our showcase performance was in Act I and didn't go very well. I'm not sure what Libbie was up to but she wouldn't do the Zigzags after a twinkle and then at the end she decided to change sides during our ending routine. Mitzi did the cooking for the evening. We had corned beef with meatballs, wedge potatoes and some salads along with beer and wine. It was a nice evening of food and dance but I wish I felt better. We left a little early at 10 PM.

Went out to the greenhouse and opened the back of the dumpster. Used the string trimmer with a new blade to clear a path to the piled up lath fencing in the shed and started moving the stuff. I got almost all the 6 foot fencing into the dumpster. There is less of the 4 foot fencing which I'll do tomorrow. I'm not sure the dumpster is going to be big enough. It's a fill and wait see situation. This afternoon we went for a lesson before the performance tomorrow night. The lesson was a waste of time, we didn't do very much. Dinner was leftover lentil and squash soup.

It's another rainy day. The dumpster was delivered right where I wanted it. Went to Home Depot and bought some new work gloves for Libbie and I. Took the string trimmer with blade over and tried cutting some brush which worked well. Also used the chain saw to trim the bushes around the door to give us better access. Left the brush piled up since I didn't have a cart. Shut the bluebird website down this morning. That's the end of an era. Lots of comments on Facebook about the greenhouse even from Mark and Brandon. Dinner was Lentil and squash soup. This is a very tasty combination.

It's a cold, wet and generally crappy day. Neil sent the pics to my dropbox and I'm busily putting together some York pages for MAAVS. We had a highly successful dance lesson with Robert. I even taped the whole performance and it looks pretty good. We had a few flub ups but in general the whole thing is not too bad. For dinner Ii made the chicken breasts with basil pesto and mozarella which we had with peas and a bottle of Fetzer Cabernet. I didn't care for Fetzer's version of Cabernet, it tasted oxidized or not aged. Tannhauser came on during dinner, I stayed up until the end of Act II before going to bed since I was tired.

I ordered a dumpster today for the greenhouse property. They can't deliver it till Wednesday when it's supposed to rain. Lots of mail arrived today including the extension bellows, my flannel shirts and the Obi 200 telephone adapter. I did some MAAVS website updates but need the pictures from Neil before I get really serious about the website. This time I just built the York landing page along with a menu for the pictures. Dinner tonight was spaghetti.

We had breakfast in the hotel in York then picked up some gas before getting on I83 to head home. We left around 7:30 AM in light rain which continued almost to the NC border. We chose to do the beltway and I-95 for Washington. Sunday morning traffic was not too bad, we had no delays. We did a bathroom stop in Fredericksburg and also used our coupons and got 2 Big Macs. We got home at 1:45 PM. My knee was killing me. The downstairs furnace was not working when we got home, I left a message for Anthony. Not sure what's going on down there. Worked a little on the MAAVS photos and the York 2015 web page before going to bed. Libbie made her wonderful pzza and I dashed out to Walmart and bought brand new Rain X wipers for her car. I originally got Michelin wipers but they did not lock down properly so I returned them and got the Rain X which have a locking clip that I think is much better. It was $30 for 2 wipers. Still having T-Mobile troubles. I called them again and furnished the zip code they said they needed. Lets see how this works.

Rich Follet had another one of his meltdowns and went storming out of the building. Libbie took over Ways and Means for the day. I never want to see that guy again, he's out of here as far as I'm concerned. Libbie had to miss the Donna Turner Strep presentation which was outstanding. steve and donna do a nice job in Streps. I went out to McDonalds and picked up lunch for us both with our coupons. Dinner tonight had me as the MC. We both had Salmon with the MAAVS 25th anniversary cake for dessert. After dinner I presented Down Memory Lane which many people said they enjoyed. We hung out in the bar afterwards until around 11 PM before we went off to bed.

Judging was this morning. I called T-Mobile and s pent an hour on the phone with them before giving up and driving over to a T-Mobile store and getting my phone activated. The beautiful blonde had a wonderful body to enjoy in her tight jeans and form fitting T-Mobile shirt.
We tried to go out to lunch to Mission BBQ but it was very crowded so we went to chick Fil A next door. It was quite good, we met a lady there who came over to the show at our hotel with her two grandsons and bought a bunch of violets.
Libbie entered two Sinningias and a Chirita in my name and they each won a blue ribbon. We wore our pacman costumes for the costume show and didn't win. Libbie thought it was skewed towards the Baltimore group. We sat with Steve and Donna, Sue and Carol and Marie and Paul. It was an amicable dinner group. After dinner we went for drinks in the bar and listened to the nice duo singing and playing. We even danced a Rumba and Foxtrot between the tables. It was a fun evening.

Woke at 4:30 this morning and had some coffee then packed the car and headed out the door at 5:03 AM. We stopped at exit 4 in VA at Loves Truck Stop for gas and McDonalds biscuit breakfast. We hit some stop and go on 95 near the beltway then the beltway was stopped near the BW Parkway exit causing us to get on the exit lane and take the parkway. It was crowded but moved along. The rest of our trip was uneventful and we got into the hotel at 12:30. When we arrived at the hotel we went to Walmart across from the Wyndham York to get batteries for the car key FOBs. Mine stopped working for the Prius so we bought a battery 2 pack and replaced the batteries in each of our Prius key FOBs. We also had lunch in the Walmart McDonalds before going over to check in. We got a convenient room, rm 119 on the first floor, near the lobby which was handy.
A lot of the regular MAAVS members are not here, it's a pretty small show for us. In the evening we went out to a military themed barbecue restaurant named Mission BBQ. They don't serve alcohol but we had very good baby backs and the best baked beans I ever had.

Libbie finished the costumes for us to wear this afternoon at dance. I went through and finished selecting images for the Memory Lane presentation. We went to our dance class at 3:30. The costumes were a big hit as well as the pacman. Robert had no problem with it. We tried our routine several times so that it's getting quite familiar. The emphasis today was to cover the entire dance floor. Robert set up chairs along the sides to simulate the other ballroom. This is going to work. Dinner tonight was a salad and some cooked deli BBQ chicken breasts we picked up in Kroger on the way home from dance. After dinner I finished packing. We have to leave at 5 AM tomorrow morning to make the trip to York.

I put the finishing touches on the pictures for the Memory Lane presentation but it's too long!!!! I have somewhere around 210 pictures. A good show has to be less than 100. I piked up a Sim card for the unlocked European phone I bought and will transfer our home number to this phone. Then I can transfer it to Google. This will cost a little money but we don't want to lose our home number. We had soup at home then left for the State Fair at around 1. We had some trouble finding close in parking but eventually scored a front row spot. We spent tons of time walking the fair, almost 4 hours, leaving there at 5. The horticulture was our first stop. I fell in love with the Dahlias, they are really beautiful. We need more of those in our garden. Next stop was the village of yesteryear where we liked a wood carver who makes toys with a scroll saw. We bought some fudge in the craft building then bought some chickpea fries with curry sauce opposite the church restaurants. Next stop was the art which is my favorite stop in the fair. Before going in we did the Goodness grows tent where I discovered Bone Sucking Sauce Mustard flavor. Libbie bought a bottle of water. In the education building i bought a sour pickle. wow, it was sour. We then went into the cow barn and sat down to watch a cow judging before visiting the veggies. Saw Jennifer and McKenzie working the veggies before starting back at 5:02. By the time we got to our car it was 5:23 and then home at 5:45 in pretty busy traffic. We chose to go out to dinner at La Cocina where I had a Quesadilla La Cocina and a Yuengling. It was a pretty busy and physically active day. I was sore all over but happy. Listened to Rigoletto live on Sirius this evening to the end and then went to bed.

I assembled the pacman two sides and it was incredibly unstable. I'm going to go back to a one sided design. I quit this stuff for now and went on to picking out pictures. Earlier today I went to PIP when it opened. The door was locked. Went to Brueggers for some bagels then went back. A very pretty young girl was in the front office and tried to help me but she couldn't. Dave comes in at 9:30, Chuck gets there at 1 o'clock. Dave called me around 10 and I set the job up with him. He thinks it will be done tomorrow. The heat quit downstairs this afternoon. I took a look at it and couldn't figure anything out. The flame comes on and then immediately shuts down. I put in a call to Anthony who returned it later in the evening. He's swamped with people with broken heaters. This is the first day of the heating season. Later in the day the furnace decided to restart itself and seemed to work reliably. I scheduled a maintenance call with Anthony for next week instead. Dinner was creamed tuna and noodles which was excellent.

After the morning CBS shows I went upstairs to work some more on the MAAVS convention booklet. I finished the job late at night and uploaded to PIP in Cary with plans to visit them when they open tomorrow morning. I made the Panini sandwiches again for lunch which were excellent. There was some mozzarella left over so Libbie used it on her excellent pizza which we had for dinner. This stuff is infinitely better than the pizza we had in RI last weekend. I also went through the image files and came up with all the pics froom MAAVS over the years for the Memory Lane presentation.

This morning I worked on the convention booklet for MAAVS and made very good headway laying out the schedule and the membership directory. We left at 12:15 for Otello live from the Met and playing in Crossroads. Libbie made tuna sandwiches for intermission. The performance was just OK, I'm not much of an Otello fan. The singing was adequate, the staging was something I didn't care for and the Opera didn't leave you singing with any hit tunes. Dinner was pork chops, homemade apple sauce, baked yam and Shiraz. It was very nice. After dinner I went up to the computer and worked another hour on the booklet. I certainly don't want to do this next year but am not sure how to get out of it.

I cut the mouth out of the second Pac Man half and painted both of them, this time with the roller which doesn't leave brush marks. Went to Lowes and the place was deserted. I asked why and the cashier said everyone is at the State Fair. Bought some threaded rods and washers and nuts to hold the thing together. I picked up some ingredients for Ham, cheese and basil Paninis which we made on the stove. Meanwhile Libbie made the PacMan Ghost costumes. There is so much to do. Tomorrow we go to Othello and in the meantime the MAAVS booklet is due as well as the Memory Lane slide show.

I thought it was going to be another day working the Internet problems since it wasn't working this morning. It turned out to be a bad connection of the cable connector. Got that fixed and the connection was solid. Resumed working on PacMan by cutting the plywood into circles and cutting a mouth and painting one of them before we went to dance at 4:15. It was a good lesson, we used the other ballroom to see if we would fit and learned a few things about spacing ourselves across the room real estate. Dinner tonight was Pork chops and fresh apple that we picked up in Kroger on our way home from dance.

I was working in the garage on the pacman when Libbie came home from the dentist and informed me the Internet was broken. I powered down several times and got nowhere. Ended up going to Best Buy and bought a cable modem with their 2 year warranty for an extra $10. This thing has gone bad so many times I decided the warranty may be worth it, especially considering the modem was on sale for $10 off. This got the Internet going again but derailed my efforts on Pacman. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with cheese over the top.

I was groggy yesterday from the trip but today I'm back in gear. I mounted the socket under the house for the fan and tied up the first fan with twine so it did not rotate while hanging onn the chains. It now aims straight ahead. I also used the 2 inch PVC pipe I installed in the floor to run the cable. This makes things easier. Next step is to knock a hole in the foundation and mount the fan which arrived. Dinner tonight was the rest of the hamburgers. We resumed our dance lessons today at 4:30. We tried the entire routine and got many pointers on our performance which were very useful.

We got up at 4:15 with a 4:45 takeoff time. Picked up gas at a 24 hour station next to the rental car return place. There was an attendant at the returns line for Enterprise, he was able to get our numbers and print a receipt and we were off to the terminal and TSA screening. We had to get our boarding passes printed by Southwest, fortunately we were TSA Pre which was excellent. We sailed thorugh and stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and a blueberry donut. The lfights were on time and smooth, the shuttle was waiting for us at the airport. We were able to get home by 11:30. Of course the house stunk from the crawl space which still needs help. I need to get back to working on the downstairs. No mail today since it's Columbus Day. For dinner tonight I picked up premade hamburgers from Kroger which we put into wheat hamburger buns and had with baked beans.

This morning we had coffee and a bagel in the Ramada restaurant then went to Bill and Barbs for a breakfast brunch which they had catered. It was very nice and fun to see everyone. We went over to the nursing home and had lunch with George and Mary which was cod fish, baked potato and corn followed by an awful blueberry pie dessert. We had a glass of Merlot before lunch. While George and Mary did their bathroom break we were able to get the scrapbooks back into their place on the shelf. We also arranged for the pizza from Famous Pizza about a mile from the place. We ordered 2 plain, one mushroom and pepperoni, one veggie, one mushroom and one pepperoni. They were passable but not exactly NY Pizza. Bill and Mary supplied the beer, we paid $81 for 6 pizzas with tip. We got home in the evening around 7:30 with plenty of time to pack for our return trip tomorrow. It was a nice day in RI, the temps were cooperative around 70 degrees and clear skies.

We left home at 7 and parked in the Park and Relax which got us to the airport on time as scheduled. Our plane left at 9 and was a smooth ride into Baltimore where we had a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit in the terminal before our PVD flight. It was a clear day but a little turbulent as we looked down at NYC. The flight was a little early but we didn't have baggage so we were off in good time and over to the rental car kiosk. We got a white Dodge Avenger which I didn't like but it did us well. We stopped into George And Mary's at the nursing home before going back to the Ramada and change into our wedding clothes. The wedding was at the Glen and was very elegant with all the West Point cadets. There were many choices of hand passed hors-d'œuvres as well as plenty of wine. We had a delicious dinner of Salmon and Risotto and then did quite a bit of dancing of Rumba, cha cha and swing. We're getting good at that. I danced with Laura and Freddie doing a 2 step swing which was fun. We stayed until the end which was nice.

I went outside and put the y fitting into the spetic line. Filled the hole with dirt and tamped it down, put the cap on the new cleanout pipe sticking out of the ground. I fired up the chain saw and cleared the 3 trees that were down n the path and then popped th lid on the distro box at the top of the hill. Turned the power onto the pump and waited. No joy! The water was shooting out of the cap but not making it to the top of the hill. Too bad. For lunch we had the leftover chicken from last night which was the last of the 3 filets. Earlier today I went out and deposited the DD check from Jessie and stopped by Walgreens and got a flu shot. It took longer than necessary but I got it done. We are going to Esquires tonight which will be the first of the new season. Woo Hoo.
At Esquires the crowd was smaller than usual. The band was excellent, it was a great ballroom mix of music. I ate too much food, the carving station with the good horseradish was back. Janet and Gary were nice and chose to give up their table to come sit with us. That was nice. We left at 10 to get ready for our trip tomorrow.

Built the new septic lid this morning then dug out the rest of the 2 inch septic line. Cut it open with the Sawzall and found the blockage is in the upper section of the pipe, sewage flows OK from the pump to this point which is about 50 feet up from the pump. Poured some draino down the pipe to try to clear it and then Libbie and I carried 2 pails of water up the hill and poured it down the line as well. I think it trickles out, she thinks differently. Did not put the y fitting in tonight. For dinner I made chicken filets with pesto and slices of Roma covered with Mozzarella. We had a bottle of Shiraz to complement the meal. Late in the afternoon we picked up the check from Annes real estate office and signed a form. Tonight was the season opener of Tanhauser. I love that opera. Hopefully I got it recorded in my office on the small multimedia computer.