I found some Youtube videos of xlfights sequencer software and did some timing marks of our "Do you love me" song. I like the technique in general and the software seems to be easy to use. I ordered some driver chips for the Huzzah to drive an LED strip. I'm getting the DIP version. Dinner tonight was hamburger on a bun with tomato and a Vidalia. We had some leftover Shiraz with the meal and Bush's Southern Pit BBQ which surprisingly had a little kick to it.

I studied flights for Central America from Costa Rica and to Panama. We did our bookings for Southern California for Christmas. Prices were pretty good to John Wayne so we went for it. We tried to communicate with Joe who is in TN but he wasn't interested in Christmas flights so we went ahead with our plans.
Libbie made her pizza again for dinner which was quite good as usual.

I worked in the morning on fixing the FC4A password. John Carter reported there were no updates for Jul and Sep. After fixing this I also fixed the crash problem with advanced search. I uploaded it all to Google Play. Communicated with Joe about his Xmas lights that he posted on YouTube. I'm toying with the idea of doing something like this for "Do You Love Me" for our showcase in the the Winter Ball.
After lunch today Libbie received a phone call from Bill and her Dad that her Mother passed away during a nap after lunch, somewhere between 1:30 and 2:30. Sad times in the days ahead. I called Arlene then Vicki with the news. Libbie was calling extended family members. Nowadays this has to be done before it is on Facebook. I started the ribs smoking today at around noon. Pulled them out of the Smoker at 6:20. We had the ribs with Buttenrut squash and Mondavi Bourbon barrel aged Cabernet. This is my favorite of the Mondavi line.
After dinner this evening Libbie talked with Christa about MAry Ellen and her last few hours. Later we went out to Brewsters and got a waffle cone. There were 2 young ladies in summer clothes in the store. One had tiny and tight short shorts and the other form fitting leggings. I'm going to miss summer.

In the morning I worked on preparing the ribs by removing the membrane and rubbing some Smoking Gun rub on the meat. I wrapped it and refrigerated it for smoking tomorrow.
We both worked on preparing some Cashew Chicken for dinner. We grated Ginger roots this time instead of bottled spice and used oyster sauce and real garlic to make it authentic. It was incredibly delicious and a real keeper. We had this with a bottle of Shiraz. It rained in the morning during which I went out to Home Depot in Cary to get lever handles for the upstairs doors that Libbie is in the process of painting. since I had a 10% off coupon I also bought the paint, a total of almost $300. I forgot the coupon but not a problem. I took the sales receipt to HD Apex and got my 10% off.
We were too tired for dance tonight so we lay in bed after our showers and just visited side by side on the bed. It was a nice end to the day.

I spent the day assembling and configuring the new i5 computer i will be using as a multimedia home theater PC. I ended up ordering a new DVD burner from Newegg for $13. Late in the afternoon I made some chicken wing rub and prepared 8 wings for oven roasting. Dinner was the chicken wings with sweet potato and a bottle of Shiraz, three buck chuck variety.

Lots of time reading about MQTT today and tried setting this up on the Pi in the closet. It does recognize commands from Alexa o turn on and off an LED. Now I need to send out an MQTT publish command.
We had a very good Swing lesson with Robert today continuing our choreography for the Winter Ball. I ended up paying the extra $348 I owed. This was a charge I didn't want on our credit card this month but better now than later.
I need to purchase plane tickets to Panama and back from Costa Rica yet. In the meantime i sold half of the Ferrelgas stock at a small loss because of a really bad earnings report. The scary thing to me was them stating loan repayments are in jeopardy. I suspect a dividend cut is in the works which will kill this stock. I got out at $13 and put the money into a CEF muni which only pays 5.5%. Dinner tonight was hamburger with vidalia onions and tomato.

I spent a lot of the day tinkering with the python program running on NCID that emulates a Wemo switch. I finally found a typo in the device list. I only had one device named Sprinkler but the REST address was typed wrong. Fixed it and now I can turn an LED on or off onboard an ESP8266. The other issue was the Python script not running when the command window was closed on the Server. I found the & sign added to the end of the startup command gets it to work in the background. I still haven't gotten the program to autostart. So far everything I have tried has not worked. The great news is I have a template to get Alexa to recognize devices and I have a method to issue commands to a device. Next step is to end out an MQTT publish to a broker. Dinner was spaghetti with cheese on top. After dinner I listened to Don Giovanni live from the Met. I didn't make it to the end though. I went upstairs at 11 PM.

I spent most of the day studying how to interface Alexa to an ESP8266 to turn on a relay. Once I can do this I can do a lot of control things. I found an emulation of a Wemo switch which I'm basing my work on. I also fine tuned the newsletter archive on avsa.org dressing it up a little. It's ready for prime time. Dinner tonight was eating lighter. We had Salmon on a salad. The Salmon was leftover from Saturday. Too bad I had lots of other things during the day upping my calories. Tonight was opening night at the Met. The Opera started at 5. I listened to all of it and really enjoyed it.

I spent most of the day studying how to interface Alexa to an ESP8266 to turn on a relay. Once I can do this I can do a lot of control things. I found an emulation of a Wemo switch which I'm basing my work on. I also fine tuned the newsletter archive on avsa.org dressing it up a little. It's ready for prime time. Dinner tonight was eating lighter. We had Salmon on a salad. The Salmon was leftover from Saturday. Too bad I had lots of other things during the day upping my calories. Tonight was opening night at the Met. The Opera started at 5. I listened to all of it and really enjoyed it.

This was a pretty good day of accomplishments. In the morning I fixed up the Android program to eliminate the crash in the semiminiature listing of results of the Advanced Search. I also got the NCIDdisplay running using some tips that Tod had sent me. When the ESP credentials get corrupted it's hard to restore functionality unless you flash other credentials into the device. After lunch we went to Lowes for a new door opener they had on sale. We also got out Fall bulbs and a shopping cart of bargain plants from the $1 table in the back of the garden department. The total for everything was $117. Once home Libbie planted the Salvia and other plants while I mowed the lawn and then chopped down the Japanese Irises with the mulching mower. The hose broke on the pond pump and half the water in the pond got pumped out. I added a splice to the hose then I checked the chlorine level and was not happy. I changed the Chlorine filter and was still not happy with the results. I used the hose and brought the pond up a few inches then turned the pump on for an overnight run mixing the fresh and old water while aerating the mixture to get rid of the Chlorine. We'll check it in the morning.
Dinner was Libbie;s wonderful pizza after which I listened to the Met Opera encore of Elektra with Nina Stemm. I loved this performance. While listening I fine tuned the Growing Tips section of the website. For the rest of the evening I read some blog articles of how to control a relay using Alexa and an ESP8266.

I tried getting the NCIDdisplay running but had lots of trouble. I sent a query to Jack for help. He forwarded it to Tod who sent some suggestions i will try in the morning. Outside I installed the new generator fan and then bolted everything back together. I did a test run and was happy with the results. The generator seemed to run pretty smoothly although all I thought was wrong was a slow idle speed in addition to the broken fan. Now it has a new air filter, oil filter, fresh oil, new spark plug and a valve adjustment. Dinner was Salmon with sweet potato and another bottle of the Mondavi Bourbon Oak barrel aged wine.

Today is a slow day of recovery from our California trip. I did a lot of paperwork in the morning backing up the photos, copying entries to my journal, processing the mail and other activities of day to day life. I registered for both the LSAVC and the MAAVS conventions. The envelopes will go into the mail tomorrow. A pile of awards came in while we were away. They all needed to be put into my tracking spreadsheet with names, addresses, etc. Once done with this I ran the checks over to BB&T, $260 dollars total.
One of the mail items was a MyPublisher album that i put together before we leaved. It's not great. The cover is badly over exposed, I shouldn't have used it. The cover makes a difference in making a good book. The Roku came today as a result of a prepaid subscription to Sling TV for 3 months. Not sure if I really need it but it will get the Met Player on our TV. Dinner tonight was Chinese 3 meat takeout with eggrolls and rice. I bought a bottle of Mondavi Bourbon cask aged Cabernet Sauvignon which is really good for 11.99. Kroger was sampling it.

A relaxed morning, our last at Joe & Christa's. We packed up and left at 10 for John Wayne airport and got there in less than 20 minutes. Joe and Paige drove us. Our first flight left Orange County on time at 12:10. It was pretty bumpy but downright scary landing in Vegas. We had to pull up at the last minute after a gust of wind pulled us off course while at tree top level. The pilot went back around and tried again. i certainly did not like this flight. Our next flight was delayed out of Oakland due to wind. We ended up taking off an hour late. The plane was 100% full. We finally landed at 11:45 PM and waited a while for a Park and Relax shuttle. Libbie called them because the card said to call after midnight. We got home around 12:30. Everything looked great. We lost connectivity with the house during the week. Fortunately it was only a cable modem reset. I need a UPS on the modem and router for this reason.

This morning we went to Paige's gymnastics class. Libbie joined in on the fun down on the floor. There were quite a few young mothers with their kids also in the class. You need to be in shape to do this stuff as Libbie found out. After gymnastics we picked up Jersey Mikes subs. I had a turkey and provolene "Mikes Way" which makes it easy to order a sub. Debbie and Craig, Granny and Mike came over later in the afternoon for pizza. Joe bought us a bottle of wine to have with dinner. The pizzas that Joe made were over the top delicious. I had too many. Christa had picked up some vanilla and peanut crunch candy ice cream which was pretty creamy and quite good. I lay down around 9 and passed out with my clothes on. I woke up an hour later and finally went to bed.

We went to dance class with Paige and Christa. Charley was there
making it a private lesson with two girls and 2 instructors.
When it was over we went next door to Lucci's. I liked the
sample of Bread Pudding. The bakery is over the top with yummy
looking treats such as cannolis, raspberry Jelly rolls and butter
cookies. We next went to a park over by Cliff Side Country Club
and watched Paige play on a very nice jungle gym. We went to
the 1531 Sub place and ordered sandwiches for lunch. Libbie and
I split a turkey and provolone with avocado and Basil Pesto.
Earlier today I created a new custom search module for Drupal in order to
search the growing_tips page. I'm having trouble submitting it to Google
for indexing.

We went to the Aquarium today. It's a great place, especially
for Paige. We bought $4 worth of Nectar to feed the birds but
they weren't interested. it was warm and they stayed in the
shade. After we left there we came back late in the day and had
hors d'oeuvres for lunch which were the egg rolls leftover from
yesterday's dinner.

I found the cable modem at home is dead since 1:21 PM. For dinner today
we had the leftover Pad Thai along with Cabernet Sauvignon that Joe bought for us.

For lunch today we went out to the Park where hey run one inch
scale trains around a large track in a figure 8 layout. Libbie
and i went with Paige on one of the runs. Joe went out on
another with her. We had Quesadilla;s for lunch with Avocado
and Jalapeno. In the evening we had an interesting order from
Gulf Thai. hrista and I went to pick up th eorder aafter
waiting around 30 minutes. We got there and it was 20 more
minutes waiting for our food. When we got the order it was
missing a few items which was another 15 minutes. The food was
good and we had a bottle of Ravenwood Zinfindel to accompany it,

We went with Joe and Paige to a trampoline place. They bounced around on various mats and trampolines. Paige is very well balanced and athletic. After the park Joe dropped me off at 11:30 at Enterprise Rental cars on Beach. I rented a VW Jetta for 2 days. After a lunch of In-Out burger Libbie and I used Joe's toll transponder and went to Laguna Woods to look at some Open Houses. We initially had some trouble at the gate - they wouldn't let us in. We called a friendly Realtor who let us use her name to get us in the gate. We stopped first at an old guys place who was selling it by owner. His price was $180k for a 2 bedroom unit. It was near the main gate and was a coop unit with new carpeting installed by the coop association. We next visited a totally refurbed unit that was beautiful and showed well. Our last one was a pre listing called a cottage which had no one above or below.
We returned home to baby sitting duty. Joe and Christa went out to a 20th HS reunion while I entertained Paige non stop and Libbie dealt with Emily. It was a chore keeping up with these two. It's definitely a job for younger people. For dinner I went out to Photastic and ordered 2 Grilled pork sandwiches and a raw beef noodle soup as well as Spring Rolls. I waited up till 11 before falling asleep. I heard them come home at 11:20 PM.

I woke up at 6 this morning after going to bed at 8:45 last night. It was a much needed catch up sleep. We went to Paige's gymnastic class. There were bleacher seats above the floor for us to sit and watch. After class we went to Ballast Point Brewery which was a nice brewery restaurant overlooking the water. Libbie and I split a Cuban sandwich with a California Amber beer. It was a lot of food but the bill with tip was $90 for lunch for all of us. Ouch.
Dinner in the evening was a bowl of chicken and beef over rice. We had a bottle of "California Red" wine which was pretty good for a no name wine.

Up at 3:30 AM for our flight to California. We left the home at 4 AM for the 5:55 flight. After parking the car and checking in we were through TSA at 5 AM which was good. Both flights were incredibly smooth. We split a ham egg and cheese croissant at RDu for $10 plus 2 small coffees which were pretty good. On the plane I managed to get the long seat in the exit row with no seat in front which allowed me to stretch out. The guy on the aisle in my row had never flown before. That was hard to believe at his age. The husband and wife were going to Corpus Christi to visit a new grand child. We only had an hour in Houston before our next flight. We had an empty seat between us which was nice so I could sit sideways and stretch out.
Joe and Paige met us at John Wayne. Paige had a nice card for us. We stopped by McDonalds and picked up some egg McMuffins before going to a playground park where we had our meals while Paige played on the playground equipment. During the day we enjoyed some time with Emily and also Paige. Out to dinner to La Capilla for Happy Hour at 5:30. I had a chicken Taquitos and beef Flautas with a Pacifico beer. When we got home i was incredibly tired and went to bed at 8:45 and basically passed out.

Got up at 5:30 this morning to check in for our flight tomorrow. After a quick shower I checked us in and got 'A34' boarding for the Houston segment but 'B09' for the Houston to SNA portion. I did some last minute work on the Huzzah Sprinkler and then devoted the rest of the day to hooking up the replacement Netgear router. This involved getting a list of MAC and IP addresses, a lot of which were already documented on Life Bits II. After about 4 hours I got everything configured and working then tested it from outside by using my cell phone. It all is accessible from the external internet. I also secured our router for the first time using Libbie's cell phone number. This meant logging in with all our wireless devices and adding a password. We had a nice lesson with Robert today continuing our choreography for the Swing dance we will do. We came home and packed then had a tuna noodle casserole for dinner.

I left for a haircut at 8:55 but at Great Clips there was a line so i bailed out. It is Senior Day. Later I went to the bank for MAAVS awards check, went to the CU for trip money, $150, then went to Kroger to get gas and finally got a haircut. At 12:30 there was no one waiting and 3 barbers working. Later in the PM I got on my bicycle and went to Foodlion to pick up a can of peas. I also picked up a jug of Roto Rooter and poured it into the upstairs bathroom sink to unclog it. It worked pretty good. It's a lower temperature day so it was perfect for a bike ride. The cashier in Foodlion was amazed at me, she said she can't balance on a bike anymore. Dinner was leftover Kung Pao Chicken.

This was a busy day. I got the relays working at the proper times in the timer program. This took a little bit of doing working out the functions to select individual relays. I did the MAAVS awards accounting for check deposit tomorrow. We went to Mr Wonderful tonight and had a really nice dance lesson with Gaylord from Esquires. I danced a Rumba with Tess. Boy, she's elegant. Ken and Lana joined us at our table. We split a Salmon BLT which came with Sweet Potato Fries. Accompanying the meal was a Yuengling. We stayed until the end at 9:30. We stayed around because Adrienne and Marie lost their car key and we were ready to drive them home if needed. They did have an extra key.

I started building another sprinkler breadboard from one of the PCBs but didn't complete this effort. Instead I used the breadboard and put a 595 onboard along with a Huzzah and tried the test program with that. It still wouldn't work so I looked at the datasheet and found the line called MR stands for Master reset. When it is held down like i had it all the shift registers are reset to 0. When I moved the jumper wire to 3 volts the circuit started working. I modified the PCB of the sprinkler to make the rest line high instead of low on the 595. The relays all worked perfectly. This is a breakthrough. For dinner Libbie made her pizza but added lots of fresh tomato slices and fresh basil. It was good.
Libbie cleaned the train cars out on the back porch and let them dry on a sheet in the sun. They all fit nicely in the old hard sided suitcase which we will leave in California.

Ran out to Home Depot to get more wire and ran into the Kretchmans at the return desk. They were returning a towel bar from their bathroom remodel project. Finished up the wiring for the landscape lights and installed the timer in the front hall closet. Dinner tonight was Kung Pao chicken. The veggies in the stir fry were pepper, onion, snow peas and broccoli. We had this with Louis Martini Cabernet Sauvignon. Still no luck with the relays on the sprinkler. I can't get the 595 shift register to accept commands.
We got the old train set out and started cleaning it up for our trip to California. We'll leave it with Joe.