After a pretty smooth flight from Miami into Raleigh we got our suitcases nearly the first. They were marked priority. I guess it was something to do with business class which I really liked. We also were the first one off the Park and Relax shuttle. It was cold at 45 degrees. There was a college girl across from us coming from Houston in little short shorts. She was concerned about a broken nail she had. We got home around 1:30 AM and brought the suitcases inside then went to bed. Woke later in the morning around 7 and did the morning thing. Opened the mail, paid some online bills, etc. Libbie did the wash from our trip which was many loads since we went through a lot of changes of clothes. I worked on classifying and backing up pictures. Dinner was Libbie's wonderful pizza which was so good after not having it a while. Everything in the hosue seemed to be OK. The big item was all the leaves were on the trees and many things were in bloom including the azaleas.

Took a shower on the boat at 6 AM then packed up the remaining dirty clothes before going to early morning coffee. Sat with Karen and talked about lodging on the Ossa peninsula. Had the breakfast at 7:30 while they moved the boat to the dock. I had bacon, eggs, fruit and a cinnamon roll with coffee. We sat with Jane and Dan and discussed the week. They are pretty negative people and of course their expectations are much higher than ours for a birding expedition. We got our passports back along with a thumb drive of all the pictures. Boarded a very comfortable bus and headed on our way to San Jose. We had to wait 15 minutes down the road because 2 people were on the wrong bus. this was the couple that had created many other problems during the week. Rey was our guide on the bus accompanying us back to San Jose to the intercontinental Hotel. The hotel is beautiful, we retrieved our suitcases for the airport transfer which we were doing with another couple, Muffy and Mark from Palm Garden Florida. They were going through Panama City while we were going through Miami. We had easy sailing through the San jose airport which seemed very crowded and confusing but American Airlines help us tremendously and we even got the equivalent of TSA Pre through Costa Rica security. We had business class which included a beef lunch which wasn't very good. it was a piece of chuck steak that was tough but the free wine was OK. We had a glass of white then a glass of Cabernet on a mostly smooth flight across the Caribbean. We checked into the Admirals Club in Miami. This was pretty good. They had free drinks, peanuts and cheese and chili. We each had a glass of Champagne. Libbie had the cheese which was a very good Swiss while I had the black bean Chili.

Early morning wakeup then 6:30 breakfast which was a half bagel
wit egg and cheese as well as a fruit plate. We saw a beautiful
sunrise before boarding the skiff at 7 AM for our bird walk with
Karen. It was noticeably cooler and dryer when we headed out
this morning. We took two skiffs for a wet landing at Curu
National Wildlife refuge Park camp. The walk down the gravel road was
rewarding. When we first came ashore a pair of scarlett MacCaws
greeted us then we started seeing many varieties of colorful and
beautiful birds including a woodpecker that resembled the
pileated. There were many many varieties that we spotted. I
thoroughly enjoyed the walk with Karen and really appreciated
walking with Karen. She is an open book and shares her
knowledge freely. We ended up at what they called a lagoon but
was a large pond with an island. Saw a lot of waterbird birds
in the pond including an egret and a beautiful family of brown
birids with green necks with their babies. Came across white
face onkeys along the river on our way back as well as a few
hummingbirds. Back at the camp we encountered white face
monkeys again, this time everywhere. At the lodge we bought
some tee shirts which were made in Costa Rica and also Libbie
bought a grandchild toy, a pair of monkeys. Lunch was a
delicious black bean chili with rice and green onion rings. I
had a blonde ale beer by ???? which was quite good. I was
scheduled to take a skiff tour this afternoon with Archie but
cancelled. Tim, the Hotel Manager, sold us a coupon for our
next cruise and also collected our tip money and the $170 we
owed for the two Uncruise shirts we bought. We have run out of
clothes. In the afternoon i downloaded the Camera and got caught up
on some of my writings of this week.

In the evening we had dinner which is the Captains dinner which
was a tenderloin in wine sauce with potatoes and veggies. We
ordered a bottle of Macelus Cabernet with dinner. Desert was a
delicious chocolate torte. After dinner we adjourned to the
lounge to watch the uncruise creted slide show for the week. It
was pretty good. We're going to get the pictures on a thumb
drive from Uncruise tomorrow morning.

We went to a sandy beach for a wet landing in pretty rough surf
and walked the Cathedral trail in Manuel Antonio National Park.
We walked the cathedral trail with Dani which was fun. Although
there were many steps, the overlooks out to the ocean were
breathless. We saw quite a few monkeys down on the beach as
well as many nice bikinis. The crowd was surprisingly crowded.
We walked past the rest room area and found a sloth that louis
guided us to. We would not have found it without him. The Sloth
had a baby with it and just hung out in the tree canopy. The
surf was incredibly rougher on the way back. We hung out in the
lounge and drank beer. I finished my bike about making music.
It was a relaxing day. Dinner was Prawn Shrimp with Chipotle
sauce. We enjoyed our company with George and Susan from
Richmond and a couple from Arkansas. After dinner we went to the
lounge and watched Rey give a presentation about monkeys which
was quite good since Rey is a dynamic kind of guy.

Up at 5:50 AM and breakfast at 6:15 AM for an early morning bird
walk. We boarded the skiffs early and landed at a Biological
Research camp. Our guide was Karen on a small bird walking tour.
We climbed up the hill and once in a garden type area of the
camp Libbie spotted a Blue Macaw but we couldn't get the
spotting scope on him. Walking into the woods we came across
some smaller birds and then a rare mammal that looked like a pig
that was called a Tapir. When we got further back into the
woods we came to a waterfall. Above us were spider monkeys that
were remarkably agile in how they moved from tree to tree. At
one point they were throwing branches down at us from above. On
the way out we saw a baby spider monkey who was cute. it sat
in the tree and played hide and seek with us. We also saw a
Toucan with a yellow bill. He was beautiful. In the afternoon
I canceled my beach time and instead sat upstairs in the sun
area and drank 2 martinis, two distinctly different drinks. One
by jesus hardly had any Vermouth while the one by Danielle ahd
the normal amount of Vermouth and tasted much better to me.
Dinner tonight was surf and turf. I had a ribeye steak along
with a nice fish I couldn't remember the name of. After dinner
Karen gave a talk about the Ossa Bird Center that she is a
director of.

We had a regular breakfast today consisting of bacon, potato and
an egg sunny side up along with coffee and juice. In the morning
we had to stay at port docked in the bay while customs boarded
and did our paperwork. When they were done we moved the boat to Golfo
Dulce in Costa Rica. After a lunch of black bean and avocado on
a Tostada we boarded the skiffs and went over to Golfo Dulce
where there was a house with landscaped gardens and fruit trees
as well as walking paths in the woods. We did a nature walk
with Archie then did a bird walk with Karen. The owners of this
property allow Uncruise to use it for nature stuff and also sell
native crafts in their tiki bar. Libbie bought a Costa Rican
Rainforest mask for $90 but we had to borrow the money from
somebody on the ship. Later that evening during dinner on the
ship we found the couple and paid them back. Dinner tonight was
a Lligosto fish with veggies and cheesecake for dessert. After
dinner we went to the lounge and we listened to Erica tell us baout her home country,
the country of Costa Rica. I'm running out of clothes and ended up buying
an Uncruise shirt for $85.

We had to have breakfast at 6:15 so we could leave at 6:45 for
our bird Watching hike. It's a beautiful day in the tropics. our
group went out with Archie, a guide who seemed to know quite a
bit of the birds. it was hot and incredibly humid as we hiked
up a fairly steep hill. I was breathing pretty hard. We saw a
number of tropical birds but I was having trouble since we had
to look straight up and it was difficult to do that all the time
so it limited my bird viewing. I need to lose a significant
amount of weight but it's not going to happen on this trip since
they feed us so well. Our guide Archie had some trouble with
his diabetes on the walk. He radioed for help and another
guide, Ray showed up to take us back and also brought along
Louie, our ship doctor to tend to Archie. Louie ended up
running back to camp then came running back with a can of coke
for Archie. The beach was wonderful and was a typical tropical
beach. We were in the shade of a large Mango tree on a white
sandy beach. Several Palm trees with coconuts contributed to an
idyllic tropical scene. After the hike I sat under the Mango
tree and enjoyed the beautiful beach as well as the tropical
breeze in the shade. It was literally heaven. After a while
we had to leave the beach and take the skiff back to the boat.
We had a nice lunch of a falfala tostada which was a mixture of
beans into something like a bean burger. This was my thing. My
shirt was soaked so I washed it in the sink and hung it in the
shower to dry. I put a green polo shirt on for our afternoon.
We went to another little tropical island with a white sandy
beach. This too had some kind of fruit trees for shade and an
assortment of palm trees as well as volcanic rock outcroppings.
While Libbie went to snorkling 101 class i hung out on the beach
under the shade of one of the fruit trees. I stood in the water
a little bit as well as walked around and enjoyed the sunshine
before we got on one of the skiffs going back to the Safari
Voyager. My green shirt was now totally soaked as well as my
shorts so I hung them up as well and changed shirs once again. I
used my camera to take some sunset pictures but the point and
shoot does not do the sunset justice. In a funny moment one of
the young ladies on our boat went to the bow of the boat in a
short mini skirt. Of course the wind blew her skirt up over
head exposing her black panties. The dirty old men sitting in
front of the bridge thanked her for the entertainment. She said
all men are dirty old men no matter what their age. She has it
all figured out! In the evening I once again put a different
shirt on, my third shirt today!!!! I only budgeted one shirt
per day so this is not going to work very well this week. We had
a rum drink in the afternoon, Daniel recommended a Queens Park
Hotel rum swizzle, a rum drink from London. It was mint, rum, punch,
grenandine and some bitters. The drink was pretty with multi
layers of color adn tasted delicious. Dinner tonight was
Corvina, a mild white fish that I also had in Panama City.
Dessert was a flourless chocolate cake with fruit sauce. We had
a few glasses of Cabernet during dinner. After dinner we joined
our Ornithologist Karen in the Lounge for an excellent but very
very long presentation on neotropical birds. She showed many
many very good slides of tropical birds. It wasn't over until
9:45 PM. Many of us were very tired.

I got up early and after a shower and shave went to the lounge
at 6:30 AM where I had a cold toast sandwich with egg and
sausage, fruit and a muffin and coffee while I read my book.
Later in the morning after a safety talk about the skiffs and
other water vessels we went down to a brunch which was a ham
sandwich wrap with bacon and optionally eggs, etc. It was a
very nice brunch. After lunch we took our skiff tour with
Heather as our driver at 2:20 PM. As a bonus our Ornithologist
Karen came along with us. We saw Frigates, Boobies, pelicans and
other birds. Karen was helpful in supplying trivia about the
bird species. Once we got back we heard about tormoorows
activities. Libbie and i had a couple of rum punches
accompanied by totilla chips, plantain chips and a delicious
salsa. Libbie had the guac which was freshly made and
outstanding. For dinner tonight we had Snapper in a peach
ginger with potatoes and accompanied by a glass of Cabernet. We
had the chocolate Biscotti in a creme de cafe sauce which capped
the meal off wonderfully. After dinner we got an excellent
overview of the national parks of Panama and Costa Rica that we
are going to visit. The presenter was a Costa Rican woman who did an
outstanding job selling her country.

After a very nice hotel breakfast we settled our bill with the
desk for 2 charges - one for the Moijitos last night and one for
dinner the night before. We checked our bags into Uncruise
hospitality on the 4th floor. We then called an Uber and got a
ride out to Panama Viejo.

Our driver first took us to an old ghetto area then found we
wanted to go to Panama Viejo. He then entered Panama Viejo into
his GPS and took us to the correct place. The ruins are just
that, ruins. We only bought Park admission and skipped the
museum. We walked around a while, read some of the signs then
called for another Uber to take us back. This time I requested
an English Uber and got Juan Diego. He was an excellent
conversationalist. I ended up tipping him $5 for the $5 ride.
We got back to the hotel and filled out passport papers then
waited. Finally the bus was loaded outside the hotel for the
long ride to Colon. There was an accident on the North Way, an
overturned Cement Truck. We finally got going and got to our
boat where we disembarked. At the top of the gang plank our
greeter was Heather from our Alaska tour. What a surprise. The
bartender was also from the Alaskan boat, Daniel.

We got boarded by a fantastic Canal Pilot. Each boat is required to
have a pilot. our guy has 44 years experience and can captain large
cargo ships or Nuclear submarines.

We had a buffet dinner on the deck with plenty of wine. I had a
slider with salad and veggies. Later I got a second Bean burger
slider. Dessert was an ice cream bar where I had chocolate ice
cream topped with berry sauce and some coconut and fruit. Wow.

The canal transit was very cool. What fun to see the
locomotives attached via cable on each side to keep us centered.
I did movies and pictures through all three locks on the
Atlantic side. I fell asleep but woke at 2 AM to see the last
of the lock transit. I made it through the first 2 but fell
asleep for the third. It was 3:30 AM.

We started the day by going to the 5th floor lounge restaurant for breakfast.. Wow, a beautiful buffet of delicious foods. I had the bacon, sausage, eggs and ham and a pancake. Delicious. For dessert the fruit was perfection. It's all included with the room, a nice surprise.
We got an English speaking Uber driver to take us to the Main Square in Casco Viejo for the historic part of the city.. Met an old (81 years old) Panamanian who wanted to be our tour guide. He kept following us around.

We did quite a bit of walking admiring the architecture of Casco
Viejo. We did a walk around the Panamanian Minister of Culture
building. The sea wall around the building had a Bougainvillea
vine covering the walk way under which panamanian artisans were
selling their wares. Libbie stopped at most of them and admired
the stitch work. On the way back from the end we stopped at a
gentleman who said all the Mollas were sewn by his mother. The
stitch work was fine with tiny little stitches and i liked the
non traditional Pink Hummingbird. After a while we were really
tired and started looking for a restaurant that was air
conditioned where we could have a beer. On the way back to
Independancia Square we found an awning that said Heineken and a
chalk board that advertised beer.

We had lunch in this little pub a few hundred feet from
Independencia Square. Balboa Beer was $2 a bottle, we had 4
bottles. The place was air conditioned and it felt great to sit
down and also do a pit stop. We ordered a Margerhita Pizza. I
wasn't expecting much and was quite surprised it was oven hot
with a risen dough crust that clearly was baked. The pizza was
very tasty. Lunch for 2 with 4 beers including tip was $25.

i wanted to see the Fish market so we started walking back that
way. WE encountered an artist selling watercolors who didn't
speak English. After quite a bit of trying to figure each other
out we found his painting was only $15 for an original
watercolor. We bought one and went to the Fish market. I never
was able to find the place that had the raw fish for sale. i
wanted some pictures of all the fish varieties. We left there
and made our way to a bus stop and tried to call Uber. Two
different drivers didn't show up when they were supposed to. I
canceled the first, the second never showed. Uber charged us a
$4 cancellation fee. We walked quite a bit in the heat up to
the Metro line and ordered another Uber. We got a very pretty
young Panamanian woman named Diayana. She was great and
patiently took us in her cold little car to our hotel in the
heavy traffic. It was a great end to the day.

In the evening I found a nearby restaurant offering traditional
Panamanian folk dance at 9 PM. We went to the hotel desk and
had them make us a reservation for 8:30. The restaurant was
Tinajas. I ordered the Corvina which came with rice and beans.
We had a bottle of Chilean Cabernet with dinner. We split a
carrot cake. Libbe liked it, I wasn't keen on it. There was a
$10 cover charge for the show which I didn't mind. The dancing
to a live band was outstanding and made it a very memorable and
happy night. After the show the girls came down to get audience
members. I was chosen and gladly went up with the girl to dance.
I did or tried to do Salsa. I followed along clapping with her.
It was a lot of fun. I spoke with a young lady at the next
table who was talking English. I asked where she was from and
she said north Carolina. Shockingly asked her where and she
replied Durham. They were a group of college girl exchange
students based in Costa Rica. Small world. We walked back on
the dimly lit street with incredibly poor or nonexistent
sidewalks.

Up at 3:45 this morning and left the house at 4:15. Used the Park and Relax and then over to Terminal 2 where our 6:15 flight was late because the pilot was late. He had to go back home to get his credentials for security. We had a Brueggers bagel with cream cheese for breakfast at the airport. The changeover in Miami was quick but Libbie had to go back a few gates to our incoming plane to retrieve her Nook she left behind.
We went through customs, got photographed and fingerprinted before being met by our ride. He was a pleasant guy who spoke English. At the Hotel we were greeted by the doorman who took our bags up to our room and showed us the room. We went out to walk the neighborhood, found some lunch in a cafeteria type place where we had fish, rice and plantain. Walked next door to a market and bought a $2 Sim card and a $5 data plan. What a great deal. Called an Uber o go to the Mira Flores locks and lucked out. We had an excellent English speaking guy who told us a lot about the city. He was worth his weight in gold.
I enjoyed the locks and actually saw a few ships going through. We watched the movie then could not get an Uber back. Instead we took a cab for $20 after some negotiation. It took over an hour to get back to the Bristol.
We decided to have dinner at the hotel. We each had the Sea Bass with potatoes. Presentation was over the top. A bottle of Pinot complemented the meal. Cost with tip was $116. We shared a key lime pie dessert which came with a delicious meringue topping. Yumm!!!

Worked in the morning and finally got the update loaded for First Class for Android. What a pain.
We had our Tango lesson with Robert which was quite fun and very good. I learned a lot about Tango. When we got back I packed my suitcase for the trip tomorrow. Our flight to Panama leaves at 6:15 AM, Dinner otnight was a trip to La Cocina. I was expecting a Mariachi band but it was not to be. Too bad, I had 2 beers and a Quesadilla La Cocina along with too many chips and Salsa.

This was a slow day. Libbie had some pics she wanted put on the dB, it took a while for her to get passwords straightened out so I could get the pics. There's a lot to do before we leave. Because we already did the groceries at Walmart yesterday I didn't need anything in Kroger today. I made a trip to Best buy and picked up a bracket set for the Sonos Play Bar under the TV. I hung it but do not like the way it hangs crooked. I need to mount the screws higher up on the vertical bracket which iwll require drilling a hole. I really like the sonos system other than that. For dinner we had a simple salad with egg, cucumber and some pepper rings. I put too much pickled pepper in mine. it had a lot of vinegar taste. Next time I'll know better. Spent some time researching Panama and printing out a few maps and guides, specifically for the bus and Metro and the name of the bus from Albrook Mall to Mira Flores locks. Uber looks inexpensive for a trip to Casco Viejo. I learned about Smashwords and purchased an armchair guide which was pretty disappointing. There was some grammatical errors and the woman is an ugly American - she knows nothing about travel except from her cruise ship.

I had a hearing test this morning at Costco. I was impressed with how complete it was. The bottom line is that my hearing is quite good surprisingly. I learned a few things as well such as the fact that we can bypass the ear canal and hear through bone conduction. She placed a transducer against my skull and I could hear the tones! I also was treated to an onscreen view of my inner ear. My hearing is above the normal line. She nicely drew the various levels of hearing impairment on my chart. After lunch Libbie and I went to Walmart and got the CU recommended suntan lotion and also picked up paper towels, toilet paper and soup which was 1.36 per can. this is excellent compared to 2.19 per can in Kroger. I nicely got a seemingly accurate calculation of dewpoint by using the floating point temp and humidity instead of integer. It worked nicely and puts out dewpoints within a few tenths of the numbers reported by the console to Wunderground. I may have to get a second moteino or maybe an anarduino. One would feed Cuulus web software and the second would feed an ESP8266 to create MQTT packets for crawl space control. Dinner was spaghetti with cheese sprinkled over the top.

After the morning programs I worked a little on the Davis reception program, trying to get the Dew Point calculations working. I next went outside and raked up the piles of pine straw that Libbie created when she raked the Mondo Grass and the driveway. I then tackled the electric fence which is in bad shape. It was probably taken down by an animal running through. I patched it up and also filled the hole developing under the charger which was under the big dogwood tree. I need to find more pole insulators since I'm out. Came back inside and practiced rhythms on the Clarinet. Later i found a good youtube video to improve rhythm that i need to try. I may be bringing this on my tablet somehow. Libbie made her excellent pizza for dinner. After dinner I worked on listing the newest Library DVD which is the lecture of Debbie McInnis and Ben Haning. I did this while Traviata played from the Met's Sunday program, Met on Record.

I gave Lib our traditional anniversary 8x10 photo before going out to my 9 AM Clarinet lesson with Justin. I'm still having big time issues with hitting the note exactly on the metronome mark. One of the issues is the metronome is not loud enough. The Clarinet drowns out the sound from the smartphone. Justin recommended finding a louder one. Vicki called at 10, we talked quite a while about her looking for a new home and also about music. Ryan plays Clarinet and Rob plays guitar.
I fired up the smoker at 11 AM and put the ribs in along with Hickory chips that I kept refilling for the first 3 hours.
I got the Moteino correctly receiving iSS transmissions and also reading the onboard sensors I got the pressure to be correct by correcting for altitude. Now i need to get it all into a packet for response by the weather program Cumulus. The original purpose was to create MQTT packets of the dew point for the crawl space ventilation controller now I can see this as a feed for Cumulus.
I pulled the ribs at 6:30 then we had them for dinner along with Broccoli and Rodney Strong Cabernet. After dinner we drove to Brewsters at 8 PM and had a chocolate Raspberry truffle in a waffle cone. I found that all of Brewsters ice cream is made in the store. This is hard to believe.

The Moteino came this afternoon. It was supposed to come yesterday. I fired it up and was able to get some transmissions from the Davis ISS but could not fully pursue it do to dinner and then dance.
For dinner we had a salad with cucumber, tuna and red pepper. I dressed it with Creamy Italian. We went to the studio at 8 for the Friday night party. We did quite a bit of dancing and got to do our Tango routines a few times. I'm getting the hang of it. After dancing we went down Tryon Rd to Walnut St where there is a brewery named "Craft". I ordered an Oak Amber craft beer and we split a chicken Quesadilla. I liked the Quesadilla but the beer tasted a little weak.

Nancy was here in the morning so I didn't get to practice until afternoon. That wa sit for today since later we had to go to downtown Apex for CBC at wine and vine. i'm not sure how a wine bar is supposed to make it here but there seemed to be a lot of young pretty women sitting at tables in the front of the venue. Melanie did a nice job of leading group lessons during the evening. I had a glass of wine and a beer. The wine is pricey at $13 per glass. We split a cheese Panini for dinner which came with chips. The Panini had goat cheese, american cheese and Pepperoncini between 2 slices of bread. During the afternoon I made a trip to Costco and picked up a bottle of wine and bag of coffee. The prime purpose of the trip was to get a hearing appointment. I'm signed up for 2:30 on Monday afternoon.

I did some more reading about the Davis ISS and also took a walk in the back along the fence line. There are numerous trees that need cleaning up in the back. In addition, the pond maintenance crews trimmed all their trees and threw the cuttings over the fence onto our property. I threw it back. We continued our tango lessons with Robert. We practiced the right side fan some more and got some tips then did a run move to cover ground. It was a great lesson as usual. i came home for a short while then went out again at 5:25 for my 6 PM music Clarinet lesson. We spent the lesson on rhythm. Apparently i was missing metronome beats either starting early or coming in late, especially towards the end of a line of music. We also tried the bottom scale which involves all 10 fingers on keys. This clearly needs practice. i paid for 3 lessons. The lesson for today, next Sat at 9 and then Wed at 3:30 which is a mistake because we have dance lessons at 3:30. We picked up broccoli in Kroger on our way home from dance. Dinner was chicken, broccoli, rice and Curry sauce accompanied by the leftover Trader Joe Shiraz. The Playbar arrived while i was at my Clarinet lesson. It was bigger and heavier than I thought. I have to rethink the mounting since I originally was thinking of hanging it off the TV mount. I feel this would be too much weight so i'll probably bolt it to the wood board. I unpacked it after dinner and went through the setup. I'm very impressed with Sonos and how they thought of everything in the design including programming it to work with my existing remote.

Getting back into the swing of things again. I took a trip to do the groceries at Kroger. Picked up some fixings for dinner tonight. I studied intercepting Davis ISS transmissions for use in the crawl space venting system. I need to get some old clothes on and crawl under the house to inspect the moisture issues to see if regrading the front porch worked. Dinner tonight was a salad with tuna, cucumber, raisins and Creamy italian dressing. Tracking is showing my Sonos Playbar will be here tomorrow. The Weber grease pan came from the Honey Roaster today. The old one rusted out and was probably destroyed by an animal. The new one was an exact fit although a little pricey at $25. It's good to see that Weber parts are readily available. I have rebuilt various parts of that grill many times over the past 15 or more years.

The Sonos soundbar I ordered last night was shipped from Nashville this evening. I thought long and hard about spending so much on a TV surround system but in the end I thought it was for the better since we don't really use the existing sound system. FedEx delivered Libbie's passport from RushMyPassport.com. We mailed her passport on xx/yy. I continued to practice Clarinet - twice today. Justin texted that he has a cancellation for Wed at 6 PM so I took it. Dinner was spaghetti with cheese. We had Sonos playing a 1958 Trovatore from the Met on 3 of the speakers - Family Room, Master bedroom and Office all streaming from Sirius. Sirius streaming may be a keeper. It's on a 30 day free trial, I'll have to call in early April when we get back from Costa Rica to cancel the trial and add streaming to my existing subscription.

IT's a quiet day and not much activity. I did a lot of reading, then did a trip to Lowes to get a bird house and a ballast. Replaced the ballast in one shelf of the plant towers and also installed a new birdhouse in the turnaround to replace the one that fell apart due to weather. The new one was cheaper but made of cedar and also 1/2 inch smaller in all dimensions. Hopefully it will work. The peat cup will not fit inside. Libbie made her pizza which was excellent. It's been a long time since we had her pizza. It came out well.

Went out in the rain at 8:40 and drove to my Clarinet lesson on Chatham Street in Cary. The lesson was the first and was scheduled at 9 AM. I barely got there at 9. I'll try to leave at 8:30 next time. This time I actually had an instructor with a Clarinet!!!!! He was able to pick out some problems with my playing, specifically my tonguing technique. I am not starting the note with tonguing but am cutting it off with tonguing. He said I am humming the notes out which is incorrect. I'll need to focus on this. He had a little tuner that determined that I was using the wrong barrel with the mouthpiece. I switched barrels and lowered the pitch a little but still not a 440 C. I like his little electronic tuner. He gave me some pointers on reed placement and also mouth position on the mouthpiece as well. I need to practice this.
On the way home the rain let up a tiny bit. I stopped at Brueggers and picked up bagels then stopped at Kroger for cream cheese.
Before lunch Libbie and I went back to Kroger and picked up shrimp and snow peas for dinner.
I enjoyed listening to William Tell from the Met while reading Literotica on my computer. I had to go back to Kroger after the opera and pick up cocktail sauce. We had Shrimp, snow peas in soy sauce with bell peppers, and basmati rice. Accompanying this was the leftover Cupcake Cabernet and then a few glasses from two buck chuck Shiraz. After dinner I did some more reading and saving stories to Google Sheets.

I did some picture management this morning and also studied hardware for Home Automation some more. I can't get the Sonos app to read the Traviata file share. Not sure what's wrong there. It says error 900 when I click on it. This error is a server stack size error which involves editing the Win 7 registry on Traviata and then doing a reboot.
I did some reading on Literotica which seems to be higher quality than ASSTR and also older adults than the mostly teen types on ASSTR. I only got in one practice today in the morning on the Clarinet. I have a 9 AM appointment with Justin tomorrow in Cary at Leechford Studio on Chatham St.
We had a dinner of salad greens, cucumber, and egg which was topped with the leftover pork stir fry. We left for dance before 8 and got there around 8 PM which was surprising. I was so cold i was shivering. I need to do something to warm up. The studio attendance was surprisingly light tonight. I'm not sure why. Met a woman there, Laurie, who started dancing in October. I danced a Rumba with her. We tried our new Tango routine but failed pretty badly. After dance we went out with the Cains and Harry to BJs Brewery in Crossroads. Libbie and I split a flatbread appetizer covered with bacon, tomato, cheese and avocado. I had a Jeremiah Red with it which was a craft beer with 7.5% alcohol. Yikes! Pretty high but delicious.

Nancy came over this morning after I finished my first Clarinet practice of the day. She brought the Amazon bird books which I had delivered to her house because we weren't sure if we would be home. She said Coleman regularly finds Clarinets in the flea market and got one for Lisa and her brother Tom. Who knew all these people played Clarinet? I watched some YouTube videos about google voice control using Tasker and ended up buying Tasker for 2.99 in the Play store. I had a second practice after lunch and worked on my Mrs Robinson story some more before class.
I'm not very impressed with B2R. The instructor was late, had a sax instead of Clarinet and wasn't very familiar with the Clarinet. He forgot it had holes instead of keys, was clueless about reeds and wasn't very helpful about tonguing, key fingering and Clarinet reeds. To make matters worse the policy of B2R is monthly recurring payments on the first of each month. They had the gall to assess me $20 for materials for my first lesson. There were no materials received by me. The story when I talked to them Tuesday was supposed to be $28 per half hour lesson. This somehow tuned into $90 for this month and $140 for next. Bullshit! I sent emails to a music teacher in Cary and one in Raleigh.
Dinner was great. Libbie made pork chops, snow peas and bell pepper stir fry which we had with Cupcake Cabernet I sampled and then bought in Kroger.
The Sirius streaming over Sonos kept shutting off. I found in the logs that it was intentional because more than one device was streaming. I grouped the two Sonos devices in party mode and this seemed to help.