I finished the garage door install this morning by installing the control panel by the house door and also by programming the phone app to monitor and activate the door. It works really well. The door mechanism is amazingly quiet.
Next I opened the can of red paint and put two coats of paint on the risers. I was feeling stressed today because I had a lot to do. In the morning I practiced Clarinet and also finished the Sept update for First Class. I also returned Dave Kesler's phone call. All this was stuff I was fretting about. I made another pizza for dinner which I enjoyed with another Shiner Bock. This time it came out a lot better. Talked to Lib this morning. There is a glitch with the condo sale. There is no deed because the LLC for the partnership ran out 12 years ago. I didn't even know there was an LLC. Mary will have to deal with this when she gets back from Europe.

During the morning shows I spread a couple of sheets out in the Family Room and assembled the new garage door opener. I spent most of the afternoon installing it in the garage. When I was done I ran to Lowes and picked up another 1x8 board for making two more risers on the attic stairs. I cut both risers and nailed them in. Now I'm ready for paint but I was too tired and went to sleep exhausted. For dinner tonight I thought I would make a pizza using a Kroger premade crust. This was a disaster. The watery pasta souce went thorugh the crust and glued it to the pan which made a mess trying to get a slice of pizza. It tasted OK but was a mess. I had this with a Shiner Bock.

I had a good clarinet lesson today as usual. We concentrated on getting the notes to come out sounding better. Justin played a note on the scale and I tried to match him. I was not having any luck at home with the tuning meter.
I got hooked on James Bond using the Plex app. I watched View to a Kill after finishing watching the old On her Majestys Secret Service which featured Piz Gloria in the Swiss Alps.
Today I started on the risers for the attic stairs by cutting up the leftover plywood from the floor. This is a good use for this piece of wood. I ended up returning to Lowes for more riser materials. I had lots of trouble make-ing the door go down. It kept reversing itself. Eventually the door self destructed going down and bent the drive mechanism. After dinner which was pasta lasagnas in tomato sauce I went out to Home Depot at 8 PM and bought a new opener with a 10% off coupon. I alos picked up a couple of 100 Watt LED bulbs for the opener since it was all on the 10% off coupon.

Today I spent the whole day in the office closet putting down flooring. This was a harder job than I first thought because of close quarters and getting the pieces to mesh properly. Dinner tonight was Southern Fried chicken from Kroger along with a couple bottles of Shiner Bock.

Went to Lowes this morning and bought the trim for the office as well as a stack of stair treads and some 1x4. I'll paint all this before installing. i put down the underlayment in both the attic entrance and the closet. I cut both door jambs for both doors and then laid the floor down in the attic entry. This completed my activities for the day. While at Lowes I also got two 100 watt LED bulbs for the attic because the old incadescent bulbs finally burned out. They may have been the originals from when the house was built. There is one incadescent bulb left. Should have bought a third LED but they come in 2 packs. Not sure where I would use the extra 100 watt bulb. I also bought a 3 outlet outdoor cube tap for my extension cord. This really works well since I can plug all my power tools in while working outdoors. This includes the jigsaw, the Skil saw and the miter saw. I used all three while putting down the attic entryway. Lunch today was the leftover Lloyds BBQ in a pita. For dinner I had Southern Fried chicken from Kroger along with a Shiner Bock Beer. We have one more excellent tomato leftover on the window sill. I need to figure out what to use it for. I may make a chicken and tomato sandwich tomorrow. The tuner came today. It seems to be all over the place trying to play a note. i was hoping it would be able to allow me to tune notes better with my emboruchere. So far no deal.

Up at 5:45 AM left at 6:15 to take Libbie to the airport for her 7:55 flight. I got back and continued working on the floor reaching the opposite wall and the attic door before quitting. The job went well. I picked up the carpet scraps in the attic entryway and removed the lower step which is insect eaten. I used a flashlight and did not see any termite tunnels so it may have been a carpenter bee or similar. I didn't see any other damage so I don't think we have a problem. I'm thinking I can use the one sheet of plywood I have left to make risers for the stairs. I'll have to buy stair treads from either Home Depot or Lowes. Since Home Depot sent me a 10% off coupon i'll try them first. For lunch today I heated the Hormel freebie i got from Kroger. It had some kind of meat product, mashed potatoes and gravy. It was adequate but not great. Dinner was Lloyds BBQ chopped pork stuffed into Pita pockets. I like the Lloyds in a tub since the sauce is very flavorful.
I did my normal Clarinet practice today then I tried to play along with the Bacarole by Offenbach on a German Clarinet site that i discovered. My Clarinet does not sound as good as the one in the recording. I think it's embrouchere.

I continued the flooring job today and got about half way cross the room before finishing for the day. Cooking Light sent an Enchilada casserole recipe which we made for dinner tonight. Basically they put some flour tortillas in a pie dish and layered it with ground beef in onion, garlic and taco seasoning. The whole thing is then covered with Monterrey Jack Cheese. I chose the mild Taco mix by McCormick instead of the Hot which had red peppers in it. I added red pepper flakes to my serving. It was good although I could tell Libbie was not keen on it.

I put down the underlayment pad in the office then started working around the door to undercut the door jamb and put the flooring in. Next was to actually start laying the courses of hardwood flooring. I got quite bit of it going today before tiring out. We heard from Joe today. He wants to come to TN and bring Paige with him then leave Paige while he works in TN.
Dinner was the other half of the rack of ribs from Saturday. We had it with Butternut Squash and Shiraz. This half of the rack was quite meaty.

After the Sunday Morning TV shows we got out the paint tools and painted the office. Once done I finished the accessories putting back the door handles, the AC duct louvers and a few outlet covers. The last item was to snake the ethernet wire under the floor to where it goes upstairs to the attic. The paint really looks nice, it was a good choice of color. I'll use the same curtains on the windows that previously were there. I studied some stocks on Scottrade and was concerned about the financial health of Frontier Cable. I own 10 bonds with 1,000 face value. Current quote is $790. I may bail out before their finances get worse. I can't see it getting better, so I'll cut my losses now. Meanwhile I spent a lot of time looking for the group shot I took at AVSA but could not find it. That directory seems to be missing. Libbie made her excellent pizza once again for dinner.

Justin had some cancellations today so he wanted to start my lesson at 10 instead of 9. It was fine with me. I tried changing embouchure to get my notes in tune with his tuning meter. I need a tuning meter to practice at home. On the way home I stopped at Lowes to get more spiral flooring nails. This was the Lowes out on 54. On the way from there I stopped in Costco and bought wine and blueberries then got a package of ribs which I ended up smoking in the smoker all afternoon. They came out quite good. I was happy. We had the ribs for dinner along with a butternut squash and a bottle of Rodney Strong Cabernet. Before dinner I put the rest of the nails in the last piece of plywood then changed the light switch and the outlet that was still one of the old ones. The room is now ready for painting.

I spent the morning removing the additional piece of particle board that was a little higher than the adjacent plywood. The plywood I bought yesterday had questionable layers so we hooked up the trailer and brought it back to Home Depot where it was exchanged without any problems. That was good because I did not have the register slip anymore. It turns out I didn't need it, the nice lady at the service desk called a guy over from the lumber department. I drove the trailer from the front door to the lumber door and unloaded the bad plywood and loaded up a better sheet. Libbie and i carried the sheet straight from the trailer to the office floor. I worked on getting it mounted although i had to shim up a corner by the room door. The sheet matches almost perfectly. I only nailed it around the edge because I ran out of nails. We had a dinner of egg salad sandwiches in Pita bread then went out to the studio for the Friday party. I finally mastered FoxTrot!!!! Thanks to Robert's lesson on Wednesday I learned the turning boxes and the zig zag twinkle. We went out to McGregor Tavern after the party. I really enjoyed being outdoors in the patio area. I sat with Terri, Kimber and Jennifer and Nancy and Art. We just met Kimber, a beautiful tall black haired woman who said she has been coming to the studio for a year. We ordered Red Oak beers along with a Quesadilla. The Quesadilla with salasa on it was outstanding. It came with cheese, chicken and jalapenos inside and sides of sour cream and salsa. Loved it. It was a fun night we haven't done in a while.

While Libbie painted the baseboards in the Office I went outside and mowed the entire back lawn, both the front part and the part by the creek until the mower gas ran out. I previously went to Home Depot and bought a gallon of gray paint for the Office and some pans for the kitchen range to replace the dirty ones. The pans didn't fit so we went after lunch to exchange them and also to pick up a sheet of Plywood to replace one more on the Office flooring. There is an uneven spot between the new plywood and the particle board so this sheet should be able to fix that. For dinner we had Salmon with butternut squash and a bottle of Red Blend wine. I found the Prosper wine in Kroger that Libbie had found last month in the Portland Safeway. The two remaining books from our order of Tulipmania books recommended by Road Scholar came today. They are used books, one of them is a former library book.

I put down the new sheets of plywood today and also replaced the baseboard I had previously removed. I also patched all the nail holes in the baseboard. Hopefully this completes the prep work before painting. In the afternoon we had a very good Foxtrot lesson with Robert. It was back to basics time. I was having trouble performing the turning box as well as the zig zag twinkles. Robert straightened us out on this It involved lots of focus on frame and leading with my belt buckle instead of pushing. Dinner tonight was the Taco Salad, a Cooking Light recipe that has beef with Salsa over lettuce topped with Cheddar Cheese and Tortilla chips.

I did the groceries today then later in the morning I set up the saw horses and began cutting the plywood to fit the floor where the particle board was removed. i did not finish this job. The plywood needs to be nailed down. Dinner tonight was egg salad in a pita bread sandwich. I bought eggs today on the Tuesday seniors day at Kroger which were the eggs for the salad

i ripped up the flooring plywood sheets where i want to level the floor in the Office. This was a hard job - Ii couldn't get the particle board up under the baseboard so i carefully removed the base and the finished removing the sheets. After lunch Libbie helped me take the trailer to home Depot and pick up new sheets of plywood. I have a concern that the new sheets are 1/32 less thick than the sheets they replace. Hopefully this is not much of a difference. The plywood was of pretty good quality. After reading the reviews online of plywood missing ply in the layers I was concerned that if a ply layer is missing then the floor would be squishy in that area. We examined the 4 ply sheets that the Apex Home Depot had on the stack and they looked great. We didn't see any missing layers in any of the sheets. The plywood rode home nicely on the trailer using the leveling boards I made a few years ago. The plywood lays horizontally using the leveling gizmos and doesn't appear to have any issues with lifting or shifting in the wind at 55 MPH. Dinner tonight was spaghetti with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on.

After the morning shows and clarinet practice I didn't do much else today. Libbie wanted to paint in the office so I cleaned up the one sheet of particle board that i removed yesterday and then worked on removing a second sheet. I decided to go right to the baseboard with the sheet removal instead of just doing a 32 inch strip one joist or 16 inches from the wall. I worked on freeing up the windows so that Libbie could paint them with the white trim paint. They were painted shut from the house painting a few years ago. The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and viewing some of the live "models" on porn hub. that channel is amazing, so many pretty women vying for dollars from so many apparent viewers. I guess this has been going on forever. I would never pay for a video chat! Along the lines of videos and images, I'm really liking the Plex server for our media. For dinner Libbie made her pizza from scratch. She used fresh basil and leftover tomato slices. The Emmys were on tonight but 'i played on the computer.

Ii had a pretty good lesson with Justin this morning. I learned a new scale, F flat. He had an 8:30 before me and an 9:30 after me Nice to see that his schedule is filling out. When i got home Libbie was not here. She went to walk with Anita at 8:30 and still was out. I changed clothes and got to work on putting a second coat of paint on the ceiling. I had to do this early since we are leaving for a dance this afternoon. While i was still dirty i brought the Skill saw upstairs and cut out a section of the particle board where i need to raise the floor to compensate for the dip in the joist below. I still don't know if I want to do a single patch or more of the sheet going under the trim board. We left for the tea dance at 2:10. Google said it should take 40 minutes to get to Angier. We took a weird path over hill and dale in the country side to get there. We found the place OK in downtown Angier. Grace Ballroom is a pretty nice ballroom with hardwood floor in a beautiful facility. We had a 5 piece live band, snacks and finger sandwiches and tea. it was a perfect afternoon. When we came back I was really tired and lay down and fell asleep. When I woke i was pretty groggy. For dinner we ordered our Chinese dinner of eggrolls and 3 meat Szechuan which we had with Kirkwood Rutherford Meritage, a very nice blended wine from Costco. We did a trip to Brewsters after dinner for ice cream cones. My favorite High School girl was working the weekend. She previously worked the summer but went back to school but now works Saturdays.

I started painting the ceiling today but ran out of paint before finishing the job. I made a Home Depot trip and picked up another can. The job does not seem to be even so I'll probably go for a second coat tomorrow which will be a problem because we have an Esquires Tea Dance in the PM. Dinner tonight was egg salad in Pita pockets. At the last minute we decided against going to the studio for the Friday night dance. We heard attendance was way down. Not sure what is going on with the studio but it is really going down hill fast.

Thursday was a do nothing day. I was going to start painting but the only thing i did today was to do a little light sanding and move a few items out of the room in prep for paint. After lunch we went to Home Depot and bought our bulbs for the Fall. On the way home we stopped in Costco and bought blueberries, salmon and wine as well as pickles For dinner we had the Salmon along with a Squash from the produce stand and a Pinot, A to Z Winery of Oregon.

I did a little light plastering touch up in the office. We had a pretty good review lesson with robert today. We concentrated on foxtrot with a little bit of rhumba thrown in. We did groceries in Kroger today on the way home from dance. Dinner tonight was egg salad in a bowl.My new Samsung 9.7 inch tablet came today. This thing is amazing. The display is the heart of this thing - bright and clear. Plex photos are really showing up well.

I finaally got into the office with the shop vac and vacuumed all the plaster up. Dinner tonight was the Waldorf Chicken salad using some of the chicken from yesterday.

The hurricane was less intense than expected in Sarasota which was good news. Our camera still worked but the right-left control is not working. After the news I got to working on sanding the ceiling. This really tired me out and while sanding it was clear that this needs another coat of plaster in many spots, especially the corners. Once done I took a shower and rested, debating whether I should vacuum and plaster today or wait till tomorrow.
i took the shop vac into the woods and emptied it and banged the cartridge against the tree. It was full to the top and the filter was really junked up. Would love to pick up a new filter somewhere or maybe get a Home Depot Shop Vac. For dinner we made Barbara Shannon's Chinese chicken salad. The rice sticks got burned trying to flash fry them so I ran out to Kroger and picked up a can of Chow Mein noodles.

Got up at the usual East Coast time today even though it was the first time back home in this time zone. I tracked Irma quite a bit and then during breakfast the morning programs were devoted to Irma. Once the morning shows were done I drove to Home Depot and picked up a can of plaster as well as did a Kroger stop for fruit. Picked up bananas, pears and plums. Thy didn't have the containers of blueberries like in the past. The season is ending. Plastered all along the edge of the ceiling, will sand this tomorrow. Watched Irma on and off all day. It looks like good news for Sarasota, the storm may pass East with less intensity than originally predicted. Our power is still on and the Lanai Cam works. Did the unpacking today as well although I am a little weary. When i went by the High School today on the way to Home Depot i noticed the entire building is down. Libbie had a dough in the freezer which she used to make a delicious pizza for dinner with fresh basil from the garden. i wasn't tired at bed time so I stayed up till midnight reading. I also got all the pics off Libbie's cell phone and labeled the directories after using Jalbum to sort them by date into appropriate directories.

We had the hotel breakfast then drove to the airport and dropped off the car and checked into Southwest. We breezed through TSA then had a coffee at Stumptown Coffee Roasters listening to a musician playing a piano. It was quite pleasant even though we were in an airport. We walked the long corridor to our gate and there was another musician playing guitar and singing Jim Croce songs. PDX is quite an airport. We got on our Southwest flight and even though the flight was full we got an empty middle seat. The flight was bumpy for the first half but then smoothed out once we got out of the Rockies. We had a one hour layover in St Louis which was good because there was no services. We got the exit row on a brand new plane which was quite comfortable. The flight was very smooth most of the way which was good. After we got our bags I called an Uber. We got Matthew who was quite talkative and a pretty nice guy. Once we dropped off the bags we went to Kroger to get our milk and cereal for tomorrow and then to Chopotle to get dinner. We got Carne Asada in a Bowl with all the fixins. We only ate half at home and put the other half in the refrigerator. It was the only meal of the day besides breakfast.

It was foggy when we woke up this morning. I still can't believe how much room we have in our suite. It can be 2 separate rooms. We stayed around until 10:15 because we wanted to check in to Southwest. I got B40 on the PDX to STL flight and A39 on the STL to PDX. We had an easy drive to Portland. We went over to Salem then up I-5. It was a Friday afternoon and the highway was full. We chose to go up I-205 around Portland and to our Comfort suites at 1 PM. We inquired and as luck would have it we they gave us a room which we used to drop off our bags. We walked to McDonalds for lunch then hopped onto the MAX Red line and went out to the Rose Garden leaving our car at a park and ride one mile from the hotel. We met some character who seemed somewhat insecure and sat near us as we went to Washington Park. He had stories of his road trip across the country, none of which was believable. We enjoyed the Rose garden once again. So much had changed with the blooms. At one time Libbie thought we saw it at peak a few weeks ago. I doubt it. We did an hour of walking then decided to take Max back. It was slow going back since they reported a car on the tracks at 122nd st which slowed the system down. It was still OK. We met a cute Mexican girl who wanted some assistance with train routes. She didn't say where she was going but she stayed close to us. I thought she was pretty cute and hope she wasn't in trouble. When we got back we went out to dinner at Bistro 21 and also filled up the gas tank to return the car. Gas was 3.09 which was not great but we filled the tank as obligated. I had spare ribs for dinner with a very nice craft lager. Libbie had a cheese sandwich and cup of tomato basil soup. Wow, her bread was tasty. It was just the right amount of food for the both of us. At the hotel a large tour bus from MN had unloaded the passengers for the night at our hotel.