Today I worked on the landscape lights adding 2 lights aimed at the gable over the garage. Last night I put one temporarily on the side of the little decorative roofs under the gable and liked it so I permanently mounted the 2 lights and tied them into the main wiring. We still need lights on the porch roof and possibly one more on the porch ceiling near the front door. We had a nice dance lesson with Robert ending with a "cliff hanger" which he called sliding doors in the Rumba. Dinner was a practice run of succotash which was fresh corn and lima beans with bacon as well as baked tomato halves. I really liked the succotash but didn't care for the mushy bread of the roasted tomato.

Worked at finishing up the MAAVS beg letter before going out to pick up Lib. I also copied the contents of the WWW folder over to a new version of UniServer. I want to use a version where the configuration menu works. This will help me configure SSL using the certificate i purchased. The wiki has directions on how to enable a freeSSL certificate, I may try that and also check into getting my Comodo SSL money back which i think I can do within 30 days. Picked up Libbie at the airport this morning around 11:30. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with cheese. We broke into my beer stash that I bought for the party this weekend and had a bottle each. I bought 4 racks of ribs today at Kroger as well as most of the other items needed for the party.

Alexa alerted me at 7:20 to check Libbie in for her 7:25 flight tomorrow morning. She got TSA Pre and an A59 boarding position which is good. Today I decided to mount two landscape lights on either side of the garage door. I had to spend $45 and purchase a one inch concrete bit to pass a conduit through the wall. Once I had the bit it went very well. I then ran the low voltage wires and tied in these two lights. I also added another pine tree light on the living room side or East side of the house. When I tested it out at night it was beautiful! The peak above the garage is still not lit enough, it's quite dark. I'll try a few more things to light it. Dinner was the other Kroger wood fired crust. This time I made it correctly with the sauce first then the cheese and then the chopped veggies. I didn't like the taste of the cheese as well. Not sure what the problem is.

A pretty good day! I finished the movies for the DVD, I only need to build the final thing and mail it. I started a beg letter for MAAVS. Need to figure out how to make address labels which shouldn't be too hard. I wired the front porch low voltage lights into the main line. I also replaced the 12V malibu LED light above the garbage can which surprisingly was burned out. I now need to drill a hole in the foundation wall for the low voltage line. For now the power pack is outside under the Camelia bush and running on an extension cord. For dinner I bought a Kroger wood fired crust which was pretty terrible and made a pizza on it. I made several errors including putting the cheese down first before the tomato sauce. What a mess. The good part was the peppers and onions that i chopped up and spread over the top. This really added to the pizza. After dark i took a look at the lighting and I'm not sure I like the porch lights portion of the mix. Also, the garage door side of the house is pretty dark. I may mount some lights on the columns on either side of the door near the ground and pointing up.

Tried to install a purchased security certificate on Traviata. I didn't have much success. I may have to switch to a newer version of uniserver. My concern was migrating SQL but it doesn't look like I use sql for anything on traviata.
This is good. The galleries are based on Jalbum which doesn't rely on external programs or databases. I got ceiling lights wired on the front porch but not tied into the main outdoor line yet so I have not tested them. Dinner was Kroger fried chicken with potato salad. Much of the indoor time was spent on either the security certificate or the AVSA DVD. Dinner was a Hormel turkey microwave dinner. These are the non refrigerated ones given out as a Friday freebie.

I worked on the DVD quite a bit today and eventually uploaded a version to Youtube for review. Libbie reported she found a few things wrong with it. She must have time on her hands in RI. This is good, I'll depend on her for fixups. I went outside and started hooking up the floodlights I started installing months ago. I decided i needed to go to Lowes and pick up more lights. Bought 3 more floodlights and a splice to hook up two pieces of landscape wire. I identified a few more places where I would still like some lights but instead I will hook up the lights I already own to be used on the porch ceiling. This will involve routing landscape wiring in the ceiling which is going to be a challenge. Dinner tonight was some Kroger fried chicken and potato salad. I went to the studio party at 8. It was a pretty fun night. I danced with Janet, Anita, Lori, Shannon and Dawn. Dawn is a terrible dancer. I did a Rhumba with her and she was terrible. Anita is a great dancer, so was Lori. I picked up my new glasses today and boy am I happy with them. I could see really well up close and the distance vision is quite good. I'm more happy with them than I ever thought I would be.

I downloaded the audio files today. It apparently never made it to my inbox when the Nicholas's sent them over the weekend. Most of the day was taken up assembling the DVD with the pictures and MP3s. I also dropped the interview videos into the mix. They were surprisingly integrated in by the ProShow software without a problem. I took the steps today to get a certificate from Comodo for the traviata.dyndns.org domain. I can get my money back in 30 days if this doesn't work out. Dinner was fried chicken and potato salad, both from Kroger. The chicken was an impulse purchase. I was in the store and hungry. The fried chicken smelled good so I went for it.

Took Libbie to the airport for her 8:15 flight. Worked on the Sprinkler for the outdoors. The Pi was bad but not the SD Flash. Later found that the relay board was bad. Turned a solenoid on and later found it was still on, hours later. Wasted lots of water. The hose attaching the water from the solenoid to the outdoor sprinklers rusted out and the hose let go. Will fix this tomorrow. Dinner tonight was a hamburger with tomato, onion and ketchup on a bun.

Finished up the layout and had enough confidence in it, after doing and redoing it several times, that I sent the final off to Oshpark. I paid the extra $5 for priority mail otherwise shipping would be free. The price for 3 boards with the extra shipping is $42.
My BAC preferred was called, I got an extra $20k in the individual account. I ended up spending some of it on a purchase of 500 shares of GAINO, a term preferred that pays monthly but has a mandatory call 5 years from now.
Dinner tonight was hamburgers that I picked up in Kroger. I got fresh instead of frozen. I think the frozen tastes better. We had this with tomato and onion and a garden pepper on mine. Libbie has her bags packed for tomorrows trip.

Did more work on the Huzzah schematic and learned the layout portion of the program. I did some preliminary runs of the wiring program but I still have more to learn.
Because of Libbie's trip we had our lesson with Robert today, a Monday. We did some waltz chassez and lock. I'm going too fast in the lock. He had me slow down a few times. It was a good waltz review.
We had spaghetti with cheese on it for dinner. It's been a while since we had spaghetti.

Created the schematic for the Huzzah based sprinkler system. This is my first time using Eagle for building a schematic and PCB. I started watching the YouTube tutorial yesterday then muddled through the hookup today. I had to locate libraries online for all of the parts. Outdoors I used my rake to pull the rotted logs out of the high grass watching for my friend the copperhead snake. After I cleared the logs I took the mower and mowed the other side of the creek where the big mower missed. this really wore me down. Late in the PM I picked up a Google chromecast at Walmart for $35 after reading that there is a plugin for the Logitech Media Server that will stream audio to the chromecast using the media Server. After fiddling with this for a while I actually got it to work well controlled by the Squeezer app. This is great news. I can put Chromecasts on various stereo systems to stream music to them. Woo Hoo!!! Big news. Dinner tonight was Libbie's outstanding pizza. It came out better than well this time because it was loaded with basil and tomato pieces.

I started watching a tutorial on using Eagle. The goal is to make a PCB for a Huzzah hooked up to a shift register and relays for sprinkler control. We went to Costco this morning to get a new Uninterruptible Power Supply for Traviata. The old one died and won't power the computer anymore. Costco had a CyberPower 1300 for $99. We also picked up a bottle of Rodney Strong Cabernet to go with the King Crab we will have for dinner tonight.
I took the tractor across the creek to mow the weeds. while clearing one pile of rotted logs in the high weeds a copperhead snake came out across the front of my shoes. I almost picked him up with the handful of brush I picked up!!!!! This was too close of a call! That ended the mowing for the day although I was pretty much done.
We had a salad which i didn't care for, the King Crab made in the steamer and a bottle of Rodney Strong Cabernet. Nice meal to end a nice day.

Took out the pressure washer today to do the front steps. Had to go to Kroger to get gas then dragged it over to the side door to pump up the tires. It started readily. Hooked up the hoses and tried it a little then Libbie wanted to use it to clean the steps. she also did the brick walk which wasn't bothering me very much. It looks much better now. I want to raise it but doubt if I will get around to it with all the other items on my plate.
For dinner tonight we made the shrimp Po Boys again.
After dinner we went over to the studio for the Friday night party. The theme was Southwestern night. I wore a flower shirt and straw hat. Libbie wore a tie dye skirt she had purchased in Huntington Beach. I had to use electronic tools to fish out the string that ties the skirt up. It was back inside the seam pocket and couldn't be reached. My knitting needle was able to snag it and pull it out so we could grab it to be tied.

Didn't do much today. Went outside and mowed the front and back with the tractor. The grass was pretty high. The grass needs the hand mower now to do trimming. I'll do that tomorrow.
I spent some time today with the Robert Service Poem "Yukon", memorizing the first 2 verses. I got out the MP3 recorder, plugged it into the charger, a tried recording the first verse a little as practice.
I used a new cooking light recipe for dinner, Pan Seared Shrimp Po Boy. I bought 10 oz of frozen shrimp at Kroger along with pickle relish needed for the tartar sauce. A 1/2 tsp dose of Tapatio into the tartar gave it a little zing. The sandwiches came out really good. Even Libbie liked them.
Paul posted some really nice wildflower pics on FB today from our Alaskan trip. Beautiful.
Dinner was the Shrimp Po Boys with a half bottle of Rodney Strong Cabernet. I decided to book an Uncruise Costa Rica to Panama trip after studying some of the options. I will call them tomorrow.

I had success getting NTP running, fetching the time and setting the RTC. NTP does not include Date info or daylight savings time info. I guess in the Pi version of the sprinkler this is handled by the OS. We had a good dance lesson with Robert. This time we did Rumba and expanded it with a double spot turn with an underarm turn between the two spot turns. Dinner tonight was hamburger, the last of the frozen ones, with vidalia, tomato, banana pepper and a whole wheat bun. We had leftover baked beans with the hamburger. I stayed up late looking at more YouNow and also answering Phil about my camera.

I spent a lot of time reading about NTP and trying various things but did not get very far. I watched some shocking YouNow broadcasts of little girls behaving badly. Dinner tonight was hamburger on a bun with vidalia. Accompanying this was baked beans.

Using trial and error I hooked up the DS3231 RTC from Adafruit to a Huzzah and got it to store the time/date and then read it back ever 10 seconds. It finally works. The secret is to use pin #4 for SDA and pin #5 for SCL. The library example code runs. Now I want to hook this to the NTP packet to set the clock.

We went to the Roadhouse for Mr Wonderful. It's been a few weeks since we've been out dancing. Curtis gave Foxtrot lessons. We skipped the first one since our soup arrived but at the break we took the group class. We ordered the Salmon BLT which we split and had sweet potato fries and a Yuengling to go with the meal. We left at 9 since we were tired. It was a nice evening.

This morning we learned that Emily was born at 10:36 PM last night. Spent some time watching the stuff on YouNow. Libbie has a rabbit in the garden so I tried to find how it got in. Ended up cutting the weeds all around the fence to look for an opening. Found out a log fell on the electric fence and broke it. Tomorrow I'll clean up this mess and repair the fence. I located the Bill Price interview audio and uploaded it for Phil to sync with the video. He thought it was excellent and wanted to know what equipment i was using. This is happiness. Throughout the day new pics of Emily have been emerging on FB, instagram and email. There is one very nice one of Paige looking at Emily. it's a winner which i sent on to Denton for Anne and Richard to see. Libbie made her excellent pizza once again which we had for dinner.

I spent a lot of today looking at the ESP8266 as a replacement irrigation controller. I like that it can be WiFi attached which keeps it physically off the network and doesn't have proper shutdown problems like Pi and also not wearing out a flash card. Hopefully it's self contained and independent. I went to Kroger to look for seafood - either Salmon, crab or shrimp. The shrimp was 4.99 a pound so it won. Dinner was shrimp with corn on the cob and Rodney Strong Cabernet.

Woke at 6:30 AM with a headache. I'm also a little dizzy this morning. I hope
it's just getting settled back in to a routine and not something more serious.
I have gained quite a bit of weight since my physical - 8 pounds that I want to
get rid of by my 70th birthday in November.
I went to Costco before lunch to look for a coffee grinder. I ended up buying 2 bottles of Rodney Strong. It was a lackadaisical day. I got most of our home LAN working including the cameras. Still no irrigation controls.
Dinner was salad and a squash medley. We were both tired and worn down so we chose not to go to the studio dance tonight.

After going to bed at 1 AM this morning after our all day flight home yesterday
I woke at 7 AM. I had oatmeal for breakfast since we didn't have milk for
cereal. Went to Best Buy when they opened at 10 and exchanged my burned out
router for a new one. The extended warranty is the best thing I have ever done.
This is the 3rd replacement modem for the 9.99 price of the extended warranty.
Once I got the modem activated with Time Warner I spent several hours trying to
get Internet connectivity. The issue turned out to be the cable. I used the
yellow crossover cable which it doesn't need. It needs a straight through cable
instead. Once this was corrected I tried the house network but no dice. So far
i replaced the cable modem and the router. Later at night when I was going to
bed I replaced the switch under the office desk which supplies Manon and the
switch in the upstairs closet. I suspect the 8 port switch in the office closet
is bad. Once Manon was running I watched some YouNow live broadcasts before
bed. I was shocked by some of the shorts that teenage girls were wearing with
their butt cheeks exposed. Oh my. Dinner tonight was trying to eat light. We
had cottage cheese and fruit for lunch and salad and a squash medley for dinner.

We had a false wakeup when Libbie alarm went off at 12:05 instead of 4:05. It
was not on Alaskan time. We got the correct wake up at 4:05 AM, 4 hours later on
her cell phone. It was raining and dark out when we left for the airport at
4:33 AM. Got there before 5 and dropped the keys into the bin. The airport is
tiny and did not have TSA Pre. They gave us a blue card to use so we didn't
have ot remove hour shoes. We got off on time and had a very smooth flight on
time into Seattle but faced a 3 hour layover. Picked up a very expensive 2
biscuits and 2 coffees for $14. at McDonalds in the airport. Wow.
we had a 3 hour layover in Seattle which is not a bad airport. We got some
seats with power outlets and hung around until it was time to load our plane for
the 3 hour flight to Minneapolis. We had a young college student between us,
Ann, who was flying from her parents assignment in China. She was going to her
boyfriends family in Charlotte before returning to school Aug 29 in Alabama.
In Minneapolis we bought a sandwich and chips for dinner and then boarded a very
cramped flight to RDU. The plane is an MD88 with 3 and 2 seating. We were on
the 2 side with uncomfortable seats for the 2 1/2 hour flight. We got in 10
minutes early and began the drive home which was easy. It cost $133 for
parking. our car once again was first to be dropped of by the Relax and Park.
We got home and found the cable modem was totally dead. It doesn't even light
up. The violet tower watering is also toast. It won't reboot when i tried it.
The great news is the moteinos running the fans worked great. The back room is
circulating and also the foundation fan circulated.
I need to do something to improve the water controllers for the tower and the
outdoor sprinkler.

Did some journaling this morning and also researching on Trip Advisor of some
Juneau venues. We left around 9:30 for The Shrine of St Theresa. it's about 20
miles North of Juneau and was beautiful. There is a little causeway you walk
out across the waterway to an Island. On the Island is a little chuch and
stations of the cross and other religious artifacts. The whole place was
peaceful and reflective. i enjoyed it. Next we tried to go to the Botanical
Garden next door but it was closed for reasons unknown so we headed to the
brewery. We easily found it in an industrial park by the airport. They give
you three beers of your choice from which they are brewing. They give out
bottle caps to be used as currency. I had the Oatmeal stout, an experimental
Spruce Berliner sour and an Alaskan Red which Libbie also had because she liked
the Red Dungeness crab on the label. I ended up buying a tee shirt with Alaskan
Amber on the front and also a packet of sourdough mix. We drove up the highway
to Fred Meyer and picked up a Boars Head turkey and cheese wrap in a Jalapeno
jam spread. We had this with leftover Tims Extra thick and crunch and water.
Had our sandwiches at the Mendenhall Glacier overlook on Glacier Hwy just as we
did yesterday. This little rest area was a find with a good view of the
glacier and yet convenient to the highway. We packed our trash and put it into
the trahs can on the way out. Next stop was downtown Juneau where we turned on
Main and went up the hill looking for the Capitol. We found it but it was
covered in black cloth since it was being renovated. We found street parking
near the capitol and saw the Juneau City museum across from the Capitol so we
decided to investigate. It was an OK museum. Watched the movie and toured the
exhibits. I liked the traveling art exhibits which consisted of a show by a
local artist of oil paintings. We left the museum around 3 PM and came back to
the BnB.
We liked the Alaska placemats in our room so we asked the home owner, Jean,
where she got them. She said they were from the Tee Shirt shop at the Cruise
terminal. We planned to have dinner on the island at the island pub but changed
our mind since we were going across the river to the cruise terminal. Parked at
the terminal for $2 per hour, 4 hours and bought the placemats. Lots of cruise
ship tourists buying chinese crap! We went to Tracy's Crab shack for dinner
instead of the Island Pub since we were in the neighborhood anyway. We ordered
the Captains Premium leg and 2 bowls of crab chowder for a total of $80. We also
ordered 2 Alaskan Ambers with dinner, my new favorite beer. There was a huge guy
who said he was a chef at our table along with his mother. Both came from the
cruise ship. His Mother was buying trinkets to decorate an Alaskan themed lamp.
I'm convinced this is the kind of clientele that takes cruise ships. Overweight
and not very intelligent. This may be a stereotype but walking downtown Juneau
confims my suspicions. I don't think we had any fat people on our uncruise.
On the way back to the island I stopped for gas to top off the tank for
returning the car tomorrow morning. Got back and packed everything and gathered
our other things for the 4 AM wakeup tomorrow. Our flight is at 6:30 AM.

I woke early and had a wonderful shower with a waterpic wand in our BnB. I
liked it because I could adjust the water pressure in addition to the water
spray pattern. This is what our Downing Place wand lacks, it comes out too
hard. I tried downloading pictures from the camera but got a disk full error.
it's hard to believe but the hard disk is full on my laptop. I deleted somee
movies which gave me 10 Gb more space but the reality is this is only 1/2 of an
SD card worth. Libbie and I had our shredded wheat with Blueberries. This is
quite a difference from what we had been having for breakfast everyday. I
surfed the web and purchased the Robert Service collected poems book for $4.50
on eBay. After some cereal with Blueberries in our room we left for the
Gardens. We couldn't find the place at first but we were persistent and asked
at the Safeway Liquor Store and then again and then again at a little rooms by
the hour motel. The clerk used to work in the Garden so we found the place
finally. They don't have a map on their brochure and also don't have a very big
sign in front, it's just a little mailbox sign. The place is spectacular. Kyle
drove us to the top to see the lookout then drove through the Tongass National
Forest. There wasn't much of a snack bar there for lunch so we drove to Fred
Meyer and bought a Cuban from the Deli dept. Picked up some water and Tim's
chips and found a scenic pullout overlooking the Mendenhall Glacier. We walked
the field a little after our picnic lunch then drove to the Glacier. A 2 mile
walk back to the Falls was certainly worth the trip. We watched the glacier
movie in the visitor center before leaving. I couldn't believe the number of
cruise ships that had arrived in port. They send buckets full of tourists to
the glacier. It was very crowded and jam packed when we left for the day.
We had wine and cheese on our patio then our host recommended the Island Pub for
pizza on Douglas island in the little town of Douglas. This was about one mile
away down the highway. We ordered a build your own pizza of mozarella and
provo;one on marinara sauce with /italian sausage. Alaskan Amber accompanied
the meal. The sausage was a little hot for Libbie but i thought it was OK,
not too hot but with a little heat to make it interesting. We drove aorundd
Douglas a little and noticed a second cafe in the town as well as a picnic area
on the water with a shelter where people were grilling food. It's a nice little
community away from the crowds of Juneau. We came sriaght back home with a
slight amount of difficulty since we were approaching our little BnB from the
opposite direction from where we normally approach.

I awoke early and lay in bed around 5:15 AM. I
heard the ship horn go off around 5:30 and decided to take my
shower and finish packing for leaving. Our bags have to be out
at 7:30 which is when breakfast starts. I went down to the
lounge at 6:00 to get a cup of coffee. Samantha was setting up
the continental breakfast which is available at 6:30. GPS is
showing that we are approaching Juno. Through the fog I can
make out buildings on shore along the channel on our approach to
Juneau. I returned the book, the Complete Poems of Robert
Service to the ship library. I'm going to order this book from
Amazon or eBay. We packed our suitcases and had them outside at
7:30 AM. Jose stopped by and said the credit card was declined.
I got a text from Capital One which i acknowledge that it was me
who was using the card. We made the $1500 deposit for our next
cruise on the credit card and it appears to have gone through.
The tip amount of $800 was the issue. They were going to rerun
the batch. After a breakfast of cream cheese omelet with
Anaheim peppers and bacon we said our goodbyes and marched out the
gangplank. The entire crew was in a line greeting each person
individually. We used the wifi at the centennial hall while
waiting for our bus to the airport. In the meantime we walked
through downtown looking at a book store and an Alaskan Crafts
building. Our shuttle driver to the airport at 11:45 was pretty
entertaining. His name was Jake and is a college student
studying Mandarin at a college in Utah. He dropped us at the
airport where I tried the rental counter of Enterprise. It
turns out my reservation was in Fairbanks, not Juneau. The
nice lady got me fixed up with a Juneau rental. We stopped at
the hatchery on the way to the AirBnB. Libbie inquired about
the power failure. They did lose some fish but mostly saved the
run. Found our AirBnB on Douglas Island. Met Jean who did not
get our text this morning. Sprint which is used by Republic
Wireless does not have any coverage in the juneau area. We are
on the third floor of a split level. I really like the house.
Our room is incredibly huge. Our host Jean gave us a pass for
Mt Roberts which is the mountain overlooking Juneau with a tram
to the top. We ran down to the Foodland IGA and picked up
cereal, milk and blueberries as well as a bottle of Ravenswood
Cab and a block of sharp cheddar cheese. We sat on our deck
next to the bedroom and had wine and cheese while watching ships
in the harbor. We saw the Endeavor across the channel and the
progress of events for the new crowd. The embarking and the
fire drill. A little after 6 I woke Libbie up and we headed
out to dinner. We found on street parking in front of the
Alaska hotel and meandered down the street to Tracy's Crab shack
where we met Lynn and Linda. It was pretty crowded with cruise
ship people. I ordered 2 cups of the crab bisque and a Captains
Premium ($45) dinner which consisted of 2 Alaskan crab legs with
one of them being a killer claw. Libbie and I had 2 Alaskan
Ambers to complement the meal. It was a delightful evening
having dinner with friends in a pretty informal restaurant if
you can call it that.

After we parted at the docks we used the pass from the BnB and too the Tram to
the top. There was only one other couple on the Tram. They were from Boston
and staying at an Air BnB. I looked for coffee at the top but found some very
expensive $16 bags of coffee. On the way back on Douglas island I found a small
convenience store where I was able to pick up and bag of Klondike Heritage
coffee.