It rained pretty hard this morning after some thunderstorms overnight. We left at 11:30 in a rainy mist for the theater in Bradenton. Got there very very early, there were only 2 other people in the theater. I also bought tickets for the Romeo and juliet performances in 2 weeks. We thoroughly enjoyed this opera. It was full of choruses plus James Levine and Placido Domingo were good. When it was done we went over to Walmart across the street and bought a yoga mat for Libbie as well as a Brita water filter. We then drove over to Bill's condo on a golf course. We had some nice wine and cheese at Bill and Barb's then wnt out to dinner at Anna Maries Oyster Bar. We had coupons for Margaritas. I also ordered Fish and Chips which were quite good. Left there happy and drove home via Siesta Key where we saw what was left of the Christmas lights.

Played some more with configuring a Pi for the HVAC closet in the condo. We went out at lunch time to the club house for lunch. I had a Southwestern chicken salad with a Yuengling. It was good but needed some spice to turn it into a Southwestern dish. We then drove to the Whimsy Museum. It was fun walking around viewing all the art and kitschy stuff on display. I talked to Marietta about her Backus paintings. She must have about 10. and another dozen or more of the highwaymen paintings. She said she is working to catalog the collection.
We came back and had our wine and cheese at sunset then a peanut butter sandwich. That was our dinner.

We took it slow today. After the long drive yesterday which really wasn't too bad, it was just long, we eased into acclimating ourselves into the condo. We unpacked our suitcases, found towels and missing items and set up the satellite radio. Lunch was the leftover fish and chips from yesterday. We then went out for a bike ride around the neighborhood. It's a warm 78 degrees out with a little bit of wind. It was nice to be on the bike again. We had wine and cheese for sunset. Libbie had a very nice conversation with her Dad this evening. He talked about the book he finished reading which made her incredibly happy. We then went out to rib night where we had a nice booth. The ribs and horseradish were delicious which I had with a yuengling that I couldn't finish.

We had a leisurely morning since it doesn't make any sense to leave before 9 AM due to Tampa rush hour traffic. We left at 8 and surprisingly breezed through the south side of Raleigh on the beltline. We stopped for breakfast and coffee just before Florence at the McDonalds/Shell combo station. Once we got back on I-95 we ran into a traffic jam. We lost around 30 minutes creeping into a merge then a single lane over the PeeDee River where there was bridge work. Further down I-95 there was another closing so we went around. unfortunately a bridge was also out on our alternate which was 301 so we went back and further down to June Burn Road to Manning, SC. It was a quirky road through the swamp and wetlands. incredibly scenic in it's own way. We lost a total of 1 hour. Our next stop was Darien, GA for gas and Wendy's lunch. Darien is an old rundown outlet mall and barely any serviceable services. The Wendy's looked like it should close soon, the dining room furniture was in tattered shape. We sailed further down the highway and had a small backup merging from I-95 to I-295 in Jacksonville. We chose to avoid Gainesville at rush hour and kept on 301 to just before Ocala. With the bikes onboard our gas mileage was only 26 so we stopped again in Zephyrhills at a nice Marathon where I also did a bathroom break. We got into our condo at 8:15. After putting away the bikes and unloading some of the car we went out to dinner at Mad Moes. I had Fish and Chips and a Yuengling. I was hungry and it was good. It came with some nice fries and coleslaw.

Today I got a webscraper running on an ESP8266. I was going to work on the garage door sensor but chose to do this instead. The gamble paid off because by late afternoon I had the device scraping the enphase hub page and publishing the solar production numbers via MQTT. I'll do the Nodered portion of this remotely from Sarasota. I spent the rest of the time packing. Dinner was spaghetti using the rest of the tomato sauce and leftover pizza cheese.

I spent quite a bit of time with a Pi and SSL. I want to be able to use Alexa to send commands to it so i need a certificate on port 443 of traviata. I installed Apache and successfully got a certificate. I spent some tinkering getting it working with Nodered. I finally was able to get Nodered to work with the SSL certificate. The settings had to have the exact path to the certificate in Pi. Apache is no longer needed. Unfortunately I did not work on the garage door sensor. Dinner was penne pasta and the leftover spicy marinara sauce.

My first entry of the new year! I spent the day organizing files, both the end of year ones and some basic organization of photos and other files. I got the old Manon 2 up and running and copied a lot of older files over and also fired up the Family Address list which is on Pagemaker. It's a pretty clunky computer and takes a long time to do anything but i survived.
I also tried to install a free SSL on nodered but so far I have failed. I do have the SSL port exposed which is 443 as well as the traditional port 80. Found a neat tool called Webmin which manages the server. Libbie made our traditional Sunday pizza which was excellent as usual.

This is the last entry for this year. I started building a perfboard to fit into a case for the garage sensor hardware. We leave Wed for Sarasota, much to do before then. I researched an SSL once again for Traviata. I need it to get HTTPS for Amazon Alexa. Talked to Vicki today. She told me Barbara Cybulski died but i knew that from Facebook a few days ago.
I studied how to implement an SSL certificate on Apache or some other web server. I even tried a few times to validate my domain traviata.dyndns.org using the free ssl along with a webserver. I had no luck but need to read more.
Around 8:15 we started the oven and I cut the baguette in half for the party. I coated both halves with spicy marinara sauce then coated them with cooked italian sausage that Libbie cooked in a skillet. I topped it with cheese and put it in the oven for 450 for 10 minutes. I took them out and sliced them in little squares for the party and served it in aluminum pan. For dinner earlier in the evening we had tomato sauce and a peanut butter sandwich.
We went to the party at 9 and danced quite a bit. I was really tired towards the end of the night. We met all our friends there and had a good time. I danced with Anita, Anne, Terry and Jennifer (I think). I had a great time. We had a champagne toast at midnight, kissed, said Happy new Years to all our friends then left around 12:15.

Today i tackled the new garage door receiver in the garage. I mounted a new electrical outlet below the opener and then mounted the receiver. Everything worked. I also removed the old Moteino with the intention of using either open Garage or a custom huzzah implementation to monitor the door remotely. I needed a new jewelers screwdriver and ended up going to home Depot for a husky screwdriver set as well as the box for the new outlet below the door opener.
We had a dinner of spaghetti with sauce and cheese then went over to the studio secret party at 8 PM. It was light attendance but a fun evening. Getting together with everyone was fun. I danced quite a bit. After the party we went to BJs Brew house at crossroads. We ordered BJs Amber beer and a plate of flatbread nachos which was delicious but not what i expected. I thought it was nachos with a plate of beans but was a pizza style with some black bean sprinkled on and also avocado and sour cream. We got home at midnight.

Didn't get up until almost 8 AM this morning due to our late night arrival. I sorted the mail and surprisingly quite a bit of it was not junk. Did a quick grocery run for supplies then settled in on putting up the LED light in Libbie's closet. The job was harder than mine since I had to cut through the plywood in the attic to access the old recessed light. My measurement was spot on and after doing the cutting i was exactly over the old light. It took a few more hours and finally the light was working. I previously covered the clothes in Libbie;s closet with drop cloths to protect her clothes since i would work in the ceiling. I'm glad there is no dance tonight. I'm pretty tired. We had tuna noodle casserole and peas for dinner.

Joe made banana pancakes and bacon for breakfast. I finished up the work on the EPROMs for garage door configuration. Would love to test it. Went to gymnastics with Joe and Paige then Inn and Out burger for lunch. Next stop was John Wayne airport. Tsa was light and no problem. We were at the gate around 12:40 for our 2:25 pm flight.
The flight was quite bumpy. We hit some pretty good turbulence crossing into AZ. The plane really rocked around before settling into a chop pattern. We landed on time into Houston, it was a quick turn. We hardly had time for bathroom and a 6 inch turkey sub we split from Subwy. We were late getting off the ground waiting for three other flights to connect. Lib and i both were in the exit row with no one in the middle seat. The flight to Raleigh was smoother than our first leg. we waited a while for our luggage and once again waited a while for Park and Relax. Some people couldn't get parking so they took keys and parked cars when space was available. This meant we had to wait for them to retrieve these valet keys before we could go into the parking lot. We waited in the bus a while which was not great since it was after 1 AM. We finally got going and luckily our car was first. We got home at 2 AM. All was well.

Joe made banana pancakes and bacon for breakfast. I finished up the work on the EPROMs for garage door configuration. Would love to test it. Went to gymnastics with Joe and Paige then Inn and Out burger for lunch. Next stop was John Wayne airport. Tsa was light and no problem. We were at the gate around 12:40 for our 2:25 pm flight.

This morning after breakfast I worked some more on the garage door firmware. I worked on adding the config page which uses Java Ajax for configuration parameters. I mostly got it to compile before lunch but the EEPROMs need some work storing int values which require more than one location. We took Paige and Emily to the park for 2 hours so the house could get stripped of Christmas and vacuumed and cleaned. Libbie and I had brought Turkey sandwiches for lunch. Once we got back from the Park we checked into our Southwest flight at 2:25 PM for tomorrow. I got Christa's cranberry salad recipe typed into Tom's Life Bits.
We went out to the downtown street fair around 6pm. Paid 1.50 for parking and found Joe at the HB Brewery. We ordered appetizers of nachos and beans as well as chicken and fries. Had this with a blonde beer then ordered a Catalina chowder bowl which came with clams, clam chowder and salad. The chowder came in a sourdough bread bowl. I was stuffed and tired. On the street we danced severa swings and Rhumbas to a live blues band. Very nice.

The day after Christmas. After a leisurely morning working on my garage door MQTT sensor we packed everything up and headed to Cory and Darshelle's house for Christmas with their family. Present were Craig, Debbie and Granny as well. We played a card game of Sequence during hors d'oeuvres. I sipped cabernet sauvignon which was excellent and had celery with Ranch dressing. Dinner was BBQ tritip and chicken with Broccoli salad. Very nice. The Lapworths had a gift exchange afterwards. Wow, the kids have too much stuff in my opinion. Helicopters, drones, monster trucks, shopkins and programmable dinosaurs make it a fancy and extravagant Christmas. We got home around 8 PM very tired. The kids were really tired and crying.

After breakfast we watched Paige open her presents from Santa. She sure got a lot of presents, mostly of Dora. Once breakfast was over we sat around the tree and exchanged gifts. At 1 PM Debbie, Craig, Mike and Janice came over. We had another gift exchange then Joe fired up his propane fired oil fryer. He made potato straws and onion rings before cooking the turkey. The onion rings were delicious. He also tried stuffing balls which I didn't care for although everyone raved over them. The turkey came out very good. Christa made cranberry with apple and orange and Debbie brought some very nice mashed potatoes. Granny brought a green bean salad which i was not keen on. It's made with canned green beans and tastes like canned. Christa loves it, me not so much. We had another gift exchange with the Lapworths then we had Christa's Tiramisu cake which was quite nice. Everyone left at around 8:30 and I went to bed and literally passed out. I was either in a food coma or tired from doing nothing.

This morning we took a walk to the store again. This time it was to Smart and Final for Candy Canes and then next door to the liquor warehouse for wine. We got some Ravenswood Cabernet for $6.79 which was a deal. The same stuff in Stater Bros yesterday was $9.99. In the evening we made Meatloaf Muffins for dinner which were a hit. They were pretty tasty. We used 2 pounds of beef instead of 1 1/2 pounds. We had the Rvenswood Cabernet with the meal. Earlier in the afternoon it was cookie baking time. Libbie and Paige made cookies then Christa came home and made her Tiramisu cake.

Libbie and I took a walk to Ace Hardware then stood in line in Lucci's Deli to get Swiss Cheese. The cheese was wonderful but the place was crowded and we waited a long time but all was well. I had to run the last few hundred feet home to make a bathroom visit. We had a nice walk in Pacific City this afternoon. It's a nice shopping mall at the beach front on pretty high priced property. We had Hot Chocolate at a coffee bar called portolo but it took them a long time and the Hot Chocolate was on the cold side. It was a nice afternoon. We came home and the kids napped then we went out later too La Capilla which was pretty crowded but the food and the company was fine. Earlier Libbie had a hard time with Emily who wouldn't stop crying. It must have been gas since Christa came home and gave her some drops which cleared everything up. At La Capilla I had the combo of a Chili Relleno and a Beef Enchilada. I had a Dos Equis amber which was a nice beer to accompany the meal.

up at 6:30. It's still raining which was unusual for So Cal. The rain barrels are overflowing, i printed out the Shrimp Pad Thai recipe for use as a shopping list today.
Took a trip to Frys. Really liked the Galaxy Note Tab A. It's a small tablet that seems to be responsive. Joe bought a fairly expensive toy for Kyle for Christmas. I also looked at the Pelican plastic cases. After Frys we went to Stater Bros where i shopped and bought the ingredients for Pad Thai while Joe walked around outside with Emily. It was pretty crowded, we ended up parking far from the store. Later in the day Joe sent me the link to Paige's 529 account. We deposited $250 in her account for Christmas. Libbie and I made the Pad Thai while Joe and Christa went out for an hour. It came out OK. We had the Shrimp Pad Thai along with a bottle of Ravenwood Cabernet Sauvignon which was pretty good.

up and at em today. It was a leisurely morning, Libbie made bacon and eggs for breakfast on toast. We then went to gymnastics with paige. I liked the other Mothers and instructor in Yoga pants. Very nice. We then went to the Ballast Point brewery where Lib and I split a chicken tosta with fries and also had black beans and salsa for the table along with chips. I had a California Amber beer to go along with it. It's raining pretty hard today.

I left the house at 3:30 AM. The roads were empty but the shuttle from the Park n Relax was totally full. The Southwest check in counter also had long lines. I waited quite a while for people who had no idea how to check in to somehow get through the line. In contrast, I was the only customer at TSA Pre which was nice. I got the exit row on both flights. I had a very nice normal sized woman next to me going to houston on a very smooth flight. She was going with her family to Jamaica, a husband and two college aged kids. On the next flight I had a 300 pound woman next to me who took part of my seat space. This flight was pretty rough and felt like a trip in a dryer tumbler. The plane rocked back and forth as well as up and down. I was glad when we finally got to orange county. At least the Wifi worked on this flight unlike the RDU to HOU leg which it didn't so I could see where we were once we left Houston. Libbie, Joe and the 2 kids picked me up on time at John Wayne. Later in the afternoon we walked down Main St which was closed for the Tuesday night street fair. Paige got to see Santa. There also were Princesses in costume for the girls to visit. The Princess was more popular than Santa. Joe made a yummy pizza with Pepperoni for dinner. I went to lay down around 9 PM to read with my iPad and totally passed out. It was several hours later that I finally woke up and put the iPad away and went to bed for good.

I woke at 5:15 using the alarm and checked into Southwest for the flight tomorrow. I got A57 of the Houston flight and A53 on the Orange County flight. I started up a new version of Raspbian and configured Node-red on it. I found the version of Node-red is 0.14. i did a simple upgrade to 0.15 and all was well, the menu item "Pallette Manager" then showed up. This allowed me to add the Thingspeak node and also have access to many more nodes in the future. I was pretty happy with the final result and updated the bookmarks as well as port forwarding so that Tom's Bookmarks could access the device as well. The Pi has a power manager and a 3.6V Lithium battery for backup. It's all mounted in the keybox in my Office closet. I'm reasonably happy with the configuration and implementation. For dinner I cooked the ribs for 2 hours at 350 degrees in a glass container in the oven. They started burning near the end but I pulled them out after the full 2 hours. They were pretty good with the Kraft freebie BBQ sauce. i spent the rest of the evening packing for the trip to Calif tomorrow. At the last minute I ended up going out at 10 PM after my shower to put gas in the car. That was not intended but I was glad to find they're still open.
Earlier in the day I watched the NC electors in the Electoral college vote. It was a formal ceremony with pomp and circumstance. All 15 electors voted for Trump as the Broughton HS choir sang Christmas Carols. It was amazingly ceremonious.

It's freaky outside - almost 70 degrees. After CBS Sunday Morning I went outside and picked up the leaves Libbie racked last week then I blew the driveway off. IT's supposed to start raining today around noon then get colder.
Indoors I finished the Sonoff device I'm taking to Calif and also untangled the caroling bells I'm taking. The bells were a discard from when Peter and Christa moved 2 years ago. I tried mounting the Pi and a battery along with power manager board in the metal box in my closet and ended up breaking the SD card on the Pi.
The rains did come. IT rained the rest of the afternoon. The gentleman from Craigslist named Owen came over at 7 PM and bought the telescope for $150. He is going to clean it up and have it as a Christmas present for his Son.
After he left I baked the two last pizza shells but had to run out to Kroger to pick up more cheese. They were all out of the small packages so I bought the large package of pizza cheese.

Time is counting down too quickly. In a few days I'll have to get on a plane for Cali. Uggh, I hate travel although once I get there I have a nice time. I really like it at home, I must be weird.
I played late last night and again this morning with Node-red. It's hard to learn but easy to make good looking web pages with sensor readings. I hope it's a contender vs OpenHab.
For dinner tonight I had the other half of the ribs along with the Smoking Loon Cabernet. Nice

I mounted the dome camera on the porch ceiling yesterday but couldn't do the hookup because the wires were under th plywood flooring. Today I brought the skill saw into the knee wall and cut into the floor and did the hookup. it didn't work at first, traced the error to an RJ45 that was not plugged in all the way. Finished mounting the camera and put the dome on but forgot to include the black plastic shield. I may open it up again to add this back to where it should be. My CU ATM card came today. Now i only need a PIN number and I will have this all straightened out. We will need cash in Florida.
WEnt to Home Depot to get a 12 V transformer which seemed inexpensive at $15 for a 60 watt unit. It worked when I hooked 2 LED spotlights up to it. Now it needs a Sonoff switch to complete the job. Dinner was ribs which were pretty good along with Cabernet by Smoking Loon which was quite good. It was highly rated in Kroger, 91 points by Wine Spectator.

The camera came from China in the mail today. I ordered it on Dec 2 from Newegg. I temporarily mounted it on a ladder on the porch and plugged it into the outdoor outlet as well as plugged the ethernet into the garage router in the corner by the lights. It works similarly ot the others. Assigned an IP address to it in the router and set up some of the config including time and date and time zone. Ran some Cat 5 wire in the knee wall from the porch to the office closet. I also logged into the brokerage account today for the first time in a long time and paid the Stoneybrook maintenance payment. It's almost $1,000 dollars which is a significant amount of money quarterly. Dinner was the pizza again. I bought ribs but they need 2 hours of cooking unknown to me. I alos picked up some bagels at Brueggers. They know how to make bagels.