Libbie changed her Thursday return trip to next Monday since her Mom and Dad need her at the nursing home. They are going to transfer Mary into a nursing room which means her Dad will have to move to a single room. Major changes are in store for them. I got the rest of the jpg pictures finished for the convention DVD. I sure missed Marjorie's pictures. I used what Paula took which was hard since she took pictures of every design, red ribbons and all. I slogged through it and got it done. When Anne gets the script completed. Dinner tonight was a Kroger frozen hamburger on a bun with ketchup. This was part of the fourth of July purchase where I purchased what they had left in the case.

During GMA this morning I played with the IRKit device. I manged to read the Samsung TV remote for TV on/off and use the codes to control the TV. I also got a code to turn the DVR off but I can't get the DVR on command to work.
Finished up the Horticulture photos and put the thumbs in a Jalbum and uploaded it to AVSA. Had a chat with Ann later in the day about the DVD and the movies. Paula will not be working on the design photos. It looks like it's up to me. I have enough to do. During the afternoon I tried again on the DVR IR power command. This time I used the power icon on the remote instead of the one labeled Sat. I recorded it and played it back and the DVR switched on or off. Yes! This was the missing link. Now I can record some of the other commands to populate the web app that is now on Traviata in the www/IR directory I created. While I was at it with AVSA stuff, Amy wanted the password changed which I did and Candace and I exchanged eMails about getting the newsletter on the website.
It poured rain last night, I got trapped in a fierce thunderbuster on the way home from a drive to Sanford. Dinner tonight was a grilled burger which was perfect thanks to Alexa timings.

Started working on the DVD photos today around 8 AM. It's not a nice day out, there are raindrops on the pond. Steps are to 1)toss the bad exposure and duplicate entry cards, 2)label each photo using the windows image properties tag, 3)select the target images into the Anne's choice directory and renumber them, 4)crop and adjust lighting, contrast as needed, 5)create album of thumbnails. I got the culling done today. For dinner I went to Kroger and picked up frozen hamburger patties and buns. Fourth of July is not a great time to get burgers and buns. The meat case was picked over and the hamburger bun shelves were pretty bare. I ended up with frozen burgers instead of fresh meat but I did find large wheat burger buns. i already have a vidalia onion in the fridge. Grilled the burger with assistance from Alexa who kept the time for me. I even used it to time the grill clean time at the end, 5 minutes, and it worked! At the programmed time I was surprised when it went off since I was into my burger but thank goodness or else the grill would have been left on like last time.

I tried to modify the Huzzah code from NCID to turn it into a universal IR bridge but after doing much reading on this device I could not find reference to a reliable hardware timer. There is a timer in the OS stack which will not be consistent depending on tasks in the queue. Dinner tonight was a frozen pizza from Kroger. I heard from Anne tonight. She set a list of needed pictures for the DVD. The list is way bigger than i thought it would be. Much work is ahead.

Packed up this morning and cleaned up the place a little, throwing out the trash, etc. Left at 7:30 but turned around to fetch the binoculars to use on our Alaska trip. Finally got going for real at 8 AM. I was surprised by the number of cars on I-75 and quickly realized these are people leaving for a weeks vacation including the 4th of July on Monday. Groan. I hit heavy rain just before the Gainesville exit on 75. Went up 301 in light rain and turned off on the 228 shortcut and hit heavy rain again. Turned off onto the unfinished road by accident. Had to back up in the pouring rain about 1/2 mile to get off the road I wasn't supposed to be on. Got onto I-10 eventually and pulled off at the first exit to get gas. While pumping it started downpouring again. I drove in driving rain for the rest of I-10 and up the 295 in blinding rain. Fortunately I had a tanker in front of me with bright lights on that I used as my navigation beacon. Finally North of JAX the rain let up and it was clear sailing up 95 until Savannah where it was stop and go where the road goes to two lanes. It gpt much worse. At Mile Marker 78 I was stopped for about 30 minutes because of some accidents. The drive home was a nightmare. At one time I got off at exit 33 and went up 21 North and 17 for quite a few miles parallel to 95 but moving at 55 MPH. My phone showed that 95 was stopped. When I got back on it was moving along but that didn't last long. I did not stop for food but ate the 4 plums I had with me. They were not bad. I wish they were more tart. At home I went straight to Bo's and got a 3 piece dinner with dirty rice and iced tea for dinner. I got home at 8:30. Libbie was in RI and saw me on the camera. She called and was surprised I was home. Everything looks great around here. The garage smells musty. I will hook up the foundation wall fan on a timer tomorrow.

I worked on my computer pretty much all day studying ads. At around 6 PM I went to Ellenton to the outlet mall and got 2 pairs of Jeans, one black and one gray. They are a perfect fit, I really like them. On the way back stopped at Chick Filet on SR 70 had had a spicy chicken sandwich with lemonade. It was exceptionally good. I decided to leave tomorrow for home since there's not much to do around here and I have a lot to do at home.

I'm disappointed this morning when I saw the Live Oaks outside were cut down. I did some real estate searches to see if I could find a place golf fee free. I like our condo but hate the fees for facilities we don't use. I went to Walmart and picked up salad fixings including the balsamic we can't get at home. For dinner tonight I went to Golden china and ordered a Hujan Beef. It was pretty much flavorless but fresh. I watched them cook it while I waited. The price was right but the only reason for getting it was because Publix had closed their food bar for the night. Sarasota loves rolling up the sidewalks early. I did a 2 mile walk in my new hiking shoes and love them. They are very comfortable to walk in.

Drove Libbie to the airport for a 7:50 AM flight. I went home and continued packing for the trip. The drive was fairly easy. There was traffic in all the usual spots - SC near the border, Savannah and 295 around JAX. I took 23 South but missed the turn off to get to 301 and ended up going South. I pulled over and used the navigation on the cell phone to help. Found a Walmart gas station and tried to buy gas but the card was declined. Tried 3 times and went up the street to a Convenience store and got the same result. Went to Wendys next door and had a single and fries while trying to contact the security department at the CU. No luck at all. My single had cheese on it which I don't like but I was hungry. I had rain on and off through SC, GA and Florida. It was mainly summer showers but heavy at times. The drive was surprisingly easy but long. Stopped at Subway on Clark to get a sandwich for dinner then Publix near Clark for a bottle of Woodbridge Cabernet. Dinner was the sandwich and a glass of wine. The Internet was down so I called Frontier and was surprised at how nice they were. He did something in the office and I was up and running. He called it provisioning the account. I have been paying for Internet service all this time and have not had any the past 3 months. Once this was up and running I was able to tune into Adafruits live broadcast. I got the code for the 10% discount and ordered the parts to build a replacement weather console. I ordered an RTC breakout, a barometer breakout and a power supply. Next issue was calling the credit union and getting the credit card straightened out. This was frustrating because they wanted the account number which their system wouldn't recognize on the touch tone. I also tried to speak the number a few times and then finally got in. What a pain in the ass, the CU doesn't have any customer support.

Studied Smartthings some more. I'm convinced it would be less complicated to skip Smartthings for the IR and only use the Alexa to Openhab bridge for the IR Arduino. Went to Quickpass at the airport and picked up a transponder and also made an initial $20 account deposit. The thing needs 24 hours to activate so it won't be available tomorrow if I drive to Sarasota tomorrow. I may go down on Thursday or possibly go down half way tomorrow. My review was accepted at TER and now I have a free account for 2 weeks. I also canceled the Texture account yesterday and they offered my 4 months of Texture for $5 a month. I went for the offer it was such a good deal.
Dinner tonight was a flatout bread wrap with eggplant, onion, zucchini and parmesan-mozarella cheeses. This is very good. Afterwards we went to Brewsters and got two waffle cones. During this afternoon I tied up the tomato and pepper plants. For some reason 1 box of zinnia plants is dying. There were nice banana peppers on the pepper plants. I had my first pepper BLT of the season for lunch. It was yummy.
I was pleasantly surprised looking at the portfolio values after the disastrous Brexit vote which caused markets to drop. The individual and IRA protfolios hit new all time highs today.

The 900 Mhz Moteino came today. I'll use this one to monitor Davis weather packets and possibly replace the console and software with something better. I programmed it and received Davis packets right away. This is good news. Now I need a few parts to complete the console build. I hooked the wiring up and now the outdoor outlet outside the greenhouse is live. This is to plug the fence controller into. Dinner was another veggie wrap with eggplant, tomato sauce, onion and squash. it was yummy.

The pain is duller today. I drilled a hole in the foundation and ran the wire through it for the outdoor outlet. This was enough for me for today. I'll hook up the wire tomorrow. Libbie made her excellent pizza this afternoon while I spent most of the day watching developer tutorials for Smartthings. This thing is too complicated to be of practical use. I'll just leave it alone where it controls the porch tree. I won't commit too much to using this system.

I had intestinal pains today. For a while it was so bad I thought I had appendicitis. I googled this and decided I didn't have all the symptoms. We had a nice bike ride this afternoon and admired the sunflowers lining a driveway down by Laura Duncan Road. We came back via the Shepard Vineyard greenway which was a nice ride. Dinner tonight was Salmon, corn and Rodney Strong Cabernet. I didn't feel well enough to finish the wine which was a surprise.
I got the water line hooked up and turned it on without any problems. We now have a spigot outside the greenhouse door.

I wired up some IR LEDs and a receiver to the Smartthings shield. This is going to be a smartthings to IR bridge so Alexa can control the TV and other devices. We tried to get peaches today at the Apex produce stand but they were closed for the summer. Too bad, it was a good source of local veggies. We had eggplant parmesan in a wrap for dinner. Libbie grilled eggplant and onion on the cast iron grill. We heated some tomato sauce and coated 2 pieces of Italian flatout bread, covered it with Parmesan and pizza cheese then rolled it up for dinner. I packaged up the 10 new DVDs I made for Robert then we went to the dance party. Afterward we went out to McGregor tavern where Libbie and I shared a plate of wings and had 1 1/2 Yuengling beers.

Libbie was out at quilting all day so I took advantage of the uninterrupted time and worked on the open and close sensors on the garage door. I hung a Hall effect sensor from the ceiling and glued a magnet to the door top for the open sensor. The close sensor is a hall effect device on the wall which detects the same door top magnet. This works well and replaces the magnets which were glued to the belt. The issue was the belt with the open detector magnet would twist over time. Libbie brought home some leftover Pizza slices from her quilting today which we had for dinner. Lunch today for me was a PBJ sandwich since Libbie was out quilting. The Smartthings hub came today. When i tried to activate it I got an error message that the hub had been previously been activated. I contacted support and had them reset the activation once i sent them a picture of the serial number and barcode on the hub bottom. I'm not too happy with the eBay vendor who sold it as new in the box. I'm not sure what to do other than give them a negative rating. Once I got it activated I hooked up the GE/Jasco outlet which also arrived from eBay. The outlet is plugged into the porch tree socket. I can now command Alexa to turn the tree on and off by voice. We did a video with me and then Libbie commanding Alexa to turn the tree on and off. I emailed a link to the video to Joe.

We had a good dance lesson today. Robert took us through the various turns for the Rumba. We learned a lot of good tips and techniques. I finished up the water for the side spigot and turned it on. This will be useful. Dinner tonight was hamburger with onion and tomato on a bun.

No breakfast today. We left at 9:20 AM for the colonoscopy which was running late. I was rolled into the OR at 11 AM instead of 10:45. They couldn't do the procedure because the prep was inadequate. I suspected this because i couldn't get the liquid down. The Dr said they will schedule a recall in 6 months. When I came home at 1 i had a bowl of tomato soup and a peanut butter sandwich. We went out to the grocery store today at 3. Libbie drove since i was still woozy. We bought some ingredients for veggie wraps which we had for dinner. They are delicious as usual. After the grocery store this afternoon we both went next door and had waffle cones. I had a raspberry truffle which was good as usual.

I worked outside in the greenhouse on both the outdoor water spigot and the electrical conduit. The water is complete but not tied in to the main line. The electrical job needs some wood around the outlet to staple plastic to and also needs a hole in the foundation to tie it to the house wiring. I'm on a liquid diet today so i only had a bowl of french onion soup but without the onions. I started the prep today at 4 but had great difficulty getting the liquid down. I spent 6 hours and only got less than half the liter bottle of prep down. I kept gagging on the stuff. One of the issues was the amount of liquid. I had too much to drink today with soda and iced tea mix as well as the soup so i couldn't take any more liquid. I finally gave up around 11 PM and went to bed.

I watched Croquis Cafe video and a few others from my subscription and stumbled across Bruce Winter's videos. He is the Mr House guy from years ago. He's an IBM engineer still working in MN but telecommuting. I got inspired by his Smart Things videos in his new house in Alabama. After doing some research I ordered a hub on eBay and also an Arduino Smart Things shield and a GE smart outlet. The GE outlet plugs into the upper outlet of a duplex pair. It reminds me of the old X10 appliance modules sold by the old Radio Shack. The reason for Smart Things was because it uses the Z-Wave standard so i can get it from many vendors and the appliance modules look decent enough to use in a room. It has an interface to both OpenHab and Alexa. I can use Alexa to control it immediately.
The weather is fantastic. There is no humidity and the temperature is perfect. I started running the conduit for the outside outlet at the greenhouse that the fence will plug into. Libbie and I also worked on the pond to get the water clear. We ended up going to Lowes and purchased a new 560 GPH pump which is an exact replacement for the old one. I also picked up some glue for the conduit

I mixed up the gallon of stuff i need for tomorrow's colonoscopy prep. It has to be refrigerated to make it more palatable. Dinner was Lib's excellent pizza with fresh garden basil.

I got a surprise this morning when Bill Spencer informed me that we didn't sign up for the Shriner dinner-dance. Later in the afternoon he sent an email that he got get us in as a replacement for a cancellation. I spent most of the day trying to get the Moteino working as a timer-controller for the foundation fan. I eventually started over again from the ceiling fan Moteino base and had some success. I need to replace the Moteino framework although for now it's functional. I have some choices - I can adopt the OpenHab environment or I can roll my own. OpenHab seems so complex for my needs, however it integrates with Alexa which is what I want. We left for Shriners around 6 and got there when Ken and Anita were arriving. We had it pretty good since we were assigned to table 7 and the gang had table 6. Steve and Beth were also at our table. It was Nancy and Harry's birthday so Terri brought champagne to celebrate. Our gang seems to have the most wine bottles at the dinner. We stayed until 10 and left because I was pretty tired. The DJ tonight was quite good, in addition the food was better than usual although the caterers salad dishes seemed to be quite dirty.

I worked on the moteino for the foundation fan. I'm having trouble where it's hanging after reading the eeprom and trying to print a double number. It threatened rain today but didn't rain. I mowed the backyard with the hand mower. The grass was getting long in front of the Irises and Libbie wanted to weed the irises. We made the veggie wrap again, this is delicious. At a little before 8 we went to the studio and danced many dances then went out afterwards with a group to McGregor Tavern. Came home a little after 11.

Nancy came over to work with Libbie today. I bought some large paving stones and a frame and laid them down where the water from the garage valley comes down. We had 1/2 inch of rain last night and the water had puddled where I did not want it so I'm going to try the patio blocks as giant splash blocks. We reheated last Saturday's other half of the rack of ribs amd had it with Lima Beans and Ravenwood Zin for dinner.

Went out to get the car inspected first thing. They took me right away. As part of their maintenance they checked the battery and determined the capacity was only half of the 550 CCA. They would install a new Interstate battery for $99. Costco sells an Interstate battery for $65, no installation. Online Walmart has a 550 CCA battery for $100. Wonder what the in store price is?
I only moved one load of clay this morning so I could be rested up for dance. At 3:30 we went over and had our lesson which was excellent as usual. We ended up doing some tune up work on Rumba which we needed. We did the backspot turn, open breaks, cross over leads and a break for the Cuban. We came back and grilled some veggies and had them over a layer of hummus on a flatout bread which was an excellent meal from Cooking Light. What a nice meal. We had wine with our grilled sandwiches.

Back to the wheel barrow work. I moved 4 more loads of clay into the front area and cleared out a little more around the Maple tree where the soil had formed a large hump which is blocking the water from flowing away from the foundation. it's supposed to rain tomorrow but the job is still not done. We went over to the Whisk store and bought a cast iron grill with ridges to make grill marks in veggies. i have a recipe for veggie wraps which I bought the ingredients for. Can't wait to try the grill on the veggies and make a wrap.
I used some scrap 1x4 and made a little box for the moteino and power relay that will control the foundation fan. Took it out to the woods and painted it with aluminum or silver colored spray paint that I had. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with a little sprinkle of cheese and some of the leftover tomato pieces.

I rototilled along the front porch and moved the roots and decomposed organic material. I moved 3 wheelbarrows of the stuff and replaced it with 2 wheelbarrows full of clay from the backyard future pond site. This wore me down. We had another of the WSJ Ice Cream Sundaes this afternoon on the back porch. I tried the new Repel non deet mosquito repellent today while tying up the tomato plants. The stuff has no scent and actually works. I had no bites.
We left at 5:45 PM for the Roadhouse in Pittsboro. Curtis taught a Foxtrot lesson at 7:15 then at the 9 PM break we had a swing lesson. i learned a few things in the Foxtrot lesson such as walking sideways and some help with the sway move as well as an underarm turn. I danced with Tess a few foxtrots and a cha cha. She has a nice frame and is a good follower. She also was wearing a little dance dress that she swished around a few times showing her black boy shorts underneath. We left a little after 9 since I was very tired. The one waltz of the night, the Tennessee Waltz, was a mess. i didn't make it through it was so bad.

Finished up outdoors by cleaning up the brick shards where I punched a hole in the foundation then put some clear silicone sealer around the shutter frame. This concludes the foundation fan outdoor work. I also replaced the chewed up insulation on the AC pipes. It was deteriorated anyway but an animal made it worse by chewing through to the copper lines.
i worked on the MAAVS website today. This time I made archival copies of the files and the database which I ended up having to use several times to make the website functional. I ended up erasing the panels directory and the ctools director and replacing both manually using FTP. The replacement was the latest copy. I then somehow got the database updates function to work which enabled the newly installed directory with their files to become functional. Once I got to this point I took a snapshot of both the database and the file structure and saved it onto Traviata. I need to upload this to OneDrive but for now it resides on Traviata. I then performed the convention updates without a problem.
Libbie made her excellent pizza using fresh basil which was outstanding. Earlier in the afternoon we had the WSJ Ice cream sundaes but without the caramel popcorn.
I then turned attention to the crawl space foundation moteino program. This thing is what will control the crawl space ventilation. I managed to modify the ceiling fan program for the crawl mostly by just changing the address and improving the comments.