Did more work on Android today. It still needs more debugging. I tried something different. In the afternoon I rode the eBike to Kroger for the first time and picked up baked beans, hummus and triscuits. I had already done the Tuesday groceries this morning. The ride to Kroger was easy. One issue is the bumpy sidewalks along Shepards Village. This is too bad, they're 20 years old. We had Andouille sausage with onions and peppers on a baguette along with baked beans. Yum! I managed to call CBC and push our dance lesson out to 4:15 tomorrow. We have the Segway tour at noon and I wanted a little more time. Temperature today was a perfect 75. It won't be so great tomorrow but the weather will at least be sunny and good for our Historic Oakwood tour vis Segway.

Libbie went to a Dr appointment this morning and texted back that her tire was at 15 pounds. She topped it off at Capis Exxon in Regency park and came home. Since the front tire has 3 plugs and this now is the back tire we went over to Costco and bought 4 new Michelin Defender tires. Total price was $475 including new pressure sensors and mounting and balancing. This should solve the tire problem she has been having. Beth reported a crash on user db entries and repeating pictures. I fixed both issues and submitted the app to Apple for review at 10 PM. This is version 1.0.9
Dinner was spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese.

I worked on bringing the FC4A app to the same standards as the IOS version. Around noon we went downtown to Artsplosure. It has been moved to Fayetteville Street which I don't think is as great as it used to be. It could be just that it was a cold gloomy day and rained when we got home. On the way back we stopped at the Farmers market for tomatoes, strawberries and blueberries. We also bought some plants from Longwood gardens. At Kroger this morning I bought a 50 percent off Clematis. Libbie made her yummy pizza for dinner today.

We woke to rain today. I spent a good part of the day working on the Android screens trying to make them equal the new IOS app. After a dinner of BLTs we went out to the Symphony for a night with the Rat Pack. I didn't care for the vaudeville routines. Love the symphony music but amplified singing is not foro me. They were singing and shouting too loud into their mikes to be pleasant.

We practiced a few times today while I worked off and on doing the new screen colors for Android. We left for the party at 5:45 and did a few run throughs of our routine. I think we have it down OK for now. The party started at 7:30. We chose a table with Ken and Lana and their two daughters as well as Anita and Beth and Steve. We had a few misses in our waltz. Libbie started off on the wrong foot. The turns were a little out of sequence but acceptable. Something happened during the Chasse and Lock, I'm not sure what. We had too much wine but the food was good. We had BBQ, small fish things and crab quesadillas. Various cookes for dessert finished the meal.

I researched bonds quite bit and ended up buying 25 units of Goldman Sachs for $29,000. This will yield 4.8% which isn't great but it's super safe. We had tuna sandwiches for dinner on some of the bagettes from Tuesday.

We went over to the studio and had a pretty good final tuneup for the dance on Friday. We're starting to bring this whole thing together. We went out to Esquires at 5:45 and made good time. It was lightly attended but we enjoyed it. I tried a waltz but the dance floor was too crowded. The mahi Mahi and the beef were really good. I ate too much dessert.

Today is a day off. We don't have to be anywhere or do anything. I need the time for my apps but I spent too much time learning about telecine machines. Dinner was a shrimp and ceasar salad with homemade dressing. The dressing was terrible. It was too salty probably because of the anchovies.

We did quite a bit of practice today for our waltz. We had a light dinner of spaghetti with cheese then did the rehearsal at 7:30. Our routine went well, we had a few rough spots that need fixing.

I worked on the IOS program today, finalizing the hash tags and removing the import menu item. This afternoon I took a bike ride around the neighborhood when i returned I spoke with Anne on the phone for a while about ALBQ planning then went out again with Libbie. We went around Buckingham then into Vintage Grove into Seagrove before returning home. Libbie made her excellent pizza again for dinner. It came out perfect this time. I managed to upload IOS 1.0.8 into the Apple Test Flight. This one has database updates and also the hash tag function. This will be the version that is released to the public this month.

I spent a good part of the day working on the Raspberry Pi. I found that the Jessie Lite image does not have Java runtime installed. I chose instead to get a full Raspbian image and start the process of configuring it and adding FTP. I learned a thing or two about FTP and CHOWN. I used CHOWN to set the ownership to Pi which allowed me to FTP with a write into the directory. Last night we decided to get together tonight with the Carlsons to go to the Backbeat concert which is Beatles music at the Roadhouse. The Carlsons arrived a little early at 6:15 instead of 6:30 but we toured violets of course then left at 6:30 to get to the Roadhouse at 7. The place was very busy. the band was great as usual but very loud. I enjoyed the two young girls flashing their panties. One in a short red dress sat at the table next to us and another in a black dress kept kicking her leg up on the dance floor giving a wonderful view. I had the Fried Flounder sandwich with a Yuengling. Libbie had the Mac and Cheese. We stayed until 11 and left tired but happy. It was a fun night out with Gary and Janet. During the day I called Uncruise and paid the 14,000 balance with a credit card. They amazingly took it! I get $282 cash back for this.

Outside I moved the trunk of the tree I took down yesterday. This was not too bad of a job - one cart load of wood to the wood pile did the job.
I did a lot of reading about openHAB today. I tried getting a Pi 3 ready for openHAB but had a few problems. Still need to understand this stuff. We had a pretty good dance lesson with Robert today. I got a few things straightened out going into the releve and also the runaround. His suggestions were pretty good. We went to Jessica from the studio's graduation party today. We picked up a $25 Amazon gift certificate for her and put it in a card. There was food and drinks but I suspect most people didn't know there was food. The party ran until 10:30 but we left at 10 because we were tired. Dinner was leftover penne and chicken from yesterday.

I nicely have the hashtag search working in IOS which is a plus. I use the front page screen to do iterative hashtag searches allowing the user to drill down into the tag. I went out at 9 to get a haircut at Great Clips when they first opened. My stylist was Francine who is pretty nice and also fast. While I was doing this Libbie went to take Lori to the therapist.
I planted the grow boxes with the peppers and tomatoes as well as a grow box of Zinnias. While walking to the shed I noticed the maple tree next to the shed had a huge split diagonally and the tree was leaning over the shed roof. I immediately got a chain and come along out of the garage and hooked it up, jacking the tree back to vertical. After a Kroger run for dinner ingredients I used the chain saw and took the tree down. I hauled most of the crown back to the tree pile in back but left the trunk laying there for more work tomorrow. On the IOS app I managed to implement hash tags and get the search for them working off the front page. This is great. I tried it with a nude photo I put on a plant and called the hashtag #nude. IT works well.

Solved the calendar problem with the IOS app. The calendar wouldn't close the second time it was activated - the app ended up under the title bar. Now I set the target beforehand then call the Show routine. Next feature is keyword tags. I found an icon and added the code to add a column to the database. Next is to develop the search routine based on the tag. We went to dance this afternoon and did pretty good with our routine. Robert helped us quite a bit with the releve'. When I came home the Phillips Hue starter kit was here. I was also studying how to setup Alexa with Openhab. This will control the Phillips bulbs among other things. For dinner I decided to make Christa's Enchiladas. Picked up some corn tortillas and enchilada sauce in Kroger and made it in a casserole dish.

After the groceries today I went into the garden and fired up the tiller to prepare the planting bed for geraniums. The downhill slope and the proximity of the fence made controlling this thing hard. It really took a lot out of me to the point of exhaustion. I ended up taking a shower and laying on the bed for 2 hours reading in order to recover. I productively used the time to read about performing the integration of Alexa, OpenHab and IR Remotes. Basically, Alexa interfaces to a bridge which interfaces to OpenHab. The correct URL is activated which then activates an IR LED on a YUN which spits out the code to perform TV activities such as power on, change channels, etc.
Dinner tonight was the balsamic strawberries on a bed of lettuce with some chicken strips in it.

I did some work on the First Class May update and got it released to the server. When i installed First Class on Libbie's phone I had a chance to test the May update. It went well. Libbie's phone has First Class and the database is up to date. After lunch we went to the Farmer's Market and purchased plants for the flower garden. I found some zinnias in flats and dwarf French Marigolds. Libbie got her Salvia, Basil and other stuff. We also found Amy, the little Asian girl in a hat. We bought a planter from her loaded with a nice arrangement of plants. Left at 5:45 for the roadhouse. We ended up before dinner taking a dance lesson in WC Swing from Andy who was the substitute instructor. The other guy couldn't make it so Andy drove out. We split Salmon BLT for dinner. I had 2 Sweet Josie beers with dinner which was too much, I shouldn't have had 2. We helped close the place and danced to the last song. It was a fun night with lots of foxtrot. Andy taught WC Swing and then during the band break conducted a cha cha and foxtrot class. It was fun.

After the morning programs I went out into the garden and prepared the grow boxes. I then planted the cucumber and zinnia seeds. I tried to get fertilizer in Home Depot but only got an expensive bag of organic crap for yuppies. Took a trip to Walmart and found plain old garden fertilizer which was 6-10-4. I put my seedlings in the shade to get hardened off before I put them into the garden. While i was at Home Depot I also picked up some hooks for the BBQ tools and a case for the NCID Pi server. The case is big enough to hold the modem, the Pi and battery backup stuff. It's a little pricey at $31 but I feel well worth it. It does include an outlet in the box that I could plug the 5 volt wall tap into. Libbie made her traditional pizza from scratch for dinner. While the pizza was in the oven Joe called for Mother's day. She put it on speaker and continued with the Pie. It almost burned in the oven but rescued it in time browning the pizza on top. Joe was making pizza for a Mother's Day party for the Lapworths. The whole gang was going to be coming over.

Up at 6:00 this morning. I was incredibly tired and didn't want to get out of bed. We had breakfast and took a thermos of coffee for the road and left at 6:43. Our target was 6:30. It was an easy drive with a stop at exit 4 in VA for gas and McDonalds biscuits. We got to the meeting a little before 10. The meeting was way behind, mostly because of the 3 boxes of plants that Libbie brought. I gave my program after the break at 11:15. All went well and we eventually went to a Mexican restaurant, La Plaza Aztec which was outstanding. I ordered the Chile Rejeno which came with a beef taco that i didn't need. Chip and Salsa complimented the meal.. It was a nice afternoon, we ended up leaving the restaurant at 2:30 PM. We got to Apex non stop by 5:20 PM.. A quick change of clothes later and wash my hands and face and we left for the Roadhouse in Pittsboro to meet up with our dance friends.
What a fun evening. The band, Graymatter, were 3 siblings and a spouse. They were nice, mellow and played songs from the 60s and 70s. We had beer with our dinner. I had a Sweet Josey which is a dark beer and then a Yuengling. For dinner we split an order of salmon BLT. The group ordered some appetizers consisting of fried green tomato, potato patties and flounder bites.
Joining us were the Cain, Nancy and Art and the Rumleys. There was a large group of 14 next to us celebrating a birthday and a large cardboard cutout of Donald Trump. At one point Anne Cain decided to dance with Donald while Terry took pictures. We left shortly after 10 ending a long day.

Lots to do today. Tried the IOS program but I screwed up something and now it won't compile and won't show me what the error is. Worked on sorting and weeding out slides for tomorrow's program in Richmond. I made the wings recipe for dinner tonight but used the remaining Chicken drumsticks. They were excellent. We had this with lettuce for dinner. In the afternoon we had an additional lesson with Robert. It was a great review of the dance routine for our waltz showcase. We sort of made it through a few times, we are beginning to remember the routine. Sadly I am finding that I can't remember a lot of the steps. I'll just have to work twice as hard. We left for dance at 8 and had an excellent night. There was a group of young people here from an NC State dance club. They were quite good. We also met a couple of newcomers - Karen and somebody. This was their first party. I have the slide program for tomorrow pared down to about 90 slides and also packed the lights, cloth, cameras, monitor and extension cord for Richmond tomorrow. After dance we went out to Sprits in Cary and only had a beer, no bar food which was good. It was a great time.

Another cold and rainy day. I was going to plant the grow boxes but opted out because of the rain. The Amazon Alex device came today so I spent some time getting acquainted with it and giving it commands. I used IFTTT to control the Honeywell Thermostat but I was not impressed with the lack of control available. My best bet is going to be to use my own server to do this. i have an outline on a blog of how to talk to Alexa. I finally got the IOS app doing updates using the password file. Next step is import and export of User db files. Still more to do.
Dinner tonight was spaghetti with cheese sprinkled on. I continued to read about using Alexa to issue MQTT commands. This is what I need for general purpose Home Automation. I also spent some time converting the old Nashville powerpoint into jpg files so I could easily pick and choose which ones I will use at the Richmond meeting on Saturday.

Struggled with SQL saving and retrieving. I'm a little fuzzy on SQL but eventually got it working. We had a good dance lesson at 3:30 with Robert and signed up for Fridays at 3:30 as well. After the lesson we went to Trader Joes. I enjoyed Yeti today since I discovered the hash tags. There's a lot of college kids having sex on there and posting photos.
Dinner was chicken drumsticks using a cooking light recipe, Spicy Honey glazed Drumsticks. It was OK but not terrific. We had it with Lima beans and Shiraz that we picked up in Trader Joe's today.

I worked more on the IOS program and finally got it to do an update! Now I need to store the user supplied password and display it on the updates page. We had another wicked hail storm with twisting winds and tons of rain. the power actually went out which was an issue with NCID since I couldn't easily get the display to run again. Eventually it rebooted when I connected to the hotspot it sets up. The power went out and we ended up having tuna sandwiches. The generator kept the TV and the table lamps running as well as our can opener.

We had a hail storm this evening. I continued working on the IOS program through the day then at 5:45 we left for the Roadhouse in Pittsboro. The Tuneswingers were playing, Bill Moore had made reservations for us. We sat with Sharon and David Raymer. It turns out their son Ryan was in Joe's class. They had a younger son, Carson, who died of heart failure in his 20s. David was the guy we always saw in the cool clothes at the various dances. Fun night. We split an order of Salmon BLT which we had with 3 Yuengling bottled beers. We stayed until around 10:20. The roads were clear on the way home. We seemed to have picked the correct times to go and return in between storms.

Tried writing the part of the software that decodes the updates file. Kept downloading an incorrect file. Went to the desktop and tried uploading the file on the server again, it was not the issue. A few days later I discovered the problem was a typo in the file name I was receiving. Libbie made her yummy pizza again for inner.

Painted on the porch this morning and did the wall with the furnace and stuff on it then finished the roller off on the other wall. the job is almost complete! Went to Elektra at 12:15. Really enjoyed this stirring emotional opera. i know the music so it was nice to see how it melded with the story. the opera as sung by Nina Stemme was intense. After the opera i stopped at Kroger and got shrimp and wine for dinner along with some new selections of Birdseye steamfresh Southwest rice. I liked it all.

Dinner of course was the shrimp with Southwest Rice and a bottle of Malbec from the Kroger wine sampling.