This morning I continued researching cars looking for a Prius V. I looked at the Carmax offerings as well as cars in the Raleigh area. I found two promising offerings - a Carmax in Columbus, GA and one in Naples, FL. i skipped lunch except for a banana then left for the Opera at noon. We found parking on Palm a short distance from Main St further from the Opera House. We picked up our tickets then sat in the courtyard chatting with a couple from Michigan. He's a retired fireman living in Bradenton. They do season tickets in the balcony each time. We were in the second row of the balcony. Not as great as being up front in the orchestra section but the performance was outstanding, the music fantastic and overall a very enjoyable experience. I heard Opera i a whole new way. During a duet I noticed on Clarinet followed the Soprano while another clarinet followed the tenor then both Clarinets played the duet. Very, very good.
We ordered a Dominoes pizza online for dinner - extra cheese and extra mushroom on a large Brooklyn crust for 7.99 using online coupons. Our pizza wasn't ready even though online tracking said it went into the oven as we were leaving the condo. they apologized and said they got behind and gave us free Parmesan bread twists which were delicious. The bread came with Marinara dipping sauce. Very good.

We left at 8:15 for Selby Members Day. The parking lot was full when we got there but we squeezed between an SUV and a tree in the upper corner of the lot. Check in was at the Payne mansion where we selected our plants and turned in the slip with our plants on it. Then over to the meeting room where we were wrist banded. They ad coffee in the room. We watched the status of Selby from their CEO. Everything is going really great. Chagall brought in 100,000 visitors last year and membership was up 9%. They had a very good year. Next the plans for Selby's future were presented with a parking garage and rooftop restaurant. We then went into the tent on the great lawn and went to the members plant sale. I picked up our free plants while Libbie went plant shopping. We got quite a few members plants, mostly foliage types. We brought one batch of plants out to the car then returned to tour the mansion and the tropical house before buying some more plants. Libbie got a large philodendron and an annual type plant with pretty foliage. We then had lunch under the Banyan trees. It was a turkey wrap that we split along with a bag of chips and a cup of water. We then left pulling a cart of plants. Rather than pull the cart all the way to the car, Libbie waited in front while I fetched the car and loaded it in front of the entrance. We put the plants in the condo for now on the Lanai and collapsed on the bed. At sunset we had wine and cheese then went over to the Italian Grill where I had a glass of Pinot with eggplant Parmesan. It was delicious but our waiter really needed more training. In addition there was a birthday party going on with some rude behaving people.

It was an easy morning. I unpacked my suitcase and spent some time online. We decided to take a walk to the club house for lunch which was nice. For lunch we had the waitress Tommie. I ordered the provolone and tomato flatbread and a Yuengling. It came with a side of lettuce, tomato and cucumber with Zinfandel Vinaigrette dressing. We then did a Walmart trip. I needed a contact lens case since I threw my old one out at home but did not pack a new one. I needed a backup wetting solution anyway, A new case comes with the Optima brand wetting solution. We then went over to Sunset Dodge where they had a used Prius V Model 5 with 52,000 miles. The car was beautiful and I really liked the test drive. It was the deluxe model with lots of stuff I do not want. Heated seats, leather and a moon roof are the things I do not want at all. The other issues were they valued my Corolla at $4050 and they wanted $800 dealer fees. The car price was good at 17k but mileage was high at 52k. The RI condo closed today. Everybody got their notarized papers overnighted on time and the closing proceeded. I am estimating each sibling will be getting $40k+. I studied some preferreds yielding a minimum of 5%. The issue is that $40k is not much money so %5 is only $2,000 a year.
For dinner we had wine and cheese on the Lanai during sunset then went over to Evie's Spanish Point for dinner because there wa music there again. I had fish tacos which came with nachos and chili head salsa which I really like. A Yuengling complemented the meal. The singer was really good with an amazing guitar. We danced a Rumba for our last song before leaving.

I went through the entire night without a single cramp. I can easily proclaim that the Hyland pills work, either that or it's a placebo effect.
We left this morning at 8:20 according to the time stamp on our outdoor driveway camera. We saw on TV this morning that I-95 was closed at Lumberton due to an accident so we took Rt 1 South to 501 in Aberdeen then to I-95 just before Pedros. It was a mostly easy drive but it was long. We had a Mcdonalds bathroom and biscuit stop in Florence then a lunch stop at McDonalds in Savannah. I got gas at both stops. We took 301 down to just before Ocala and then I-75. Our later start successfully got us past rush hour in Tampa although we got in later than desirable because it was dark. The time was 8 PM. We unloaded the suitcases then went out to dinner at Evie's Spanish Point. There was an old guy playing guitar to some older 60s music. Lib and I danced 2 Rumbas to his music. I ordered Fish and Chips with a Yuengling draft which was delicious. Libbie had coconut shrimp. On the way home I picked up a tank of gas at Murphy in front of Walmart because they are across the street from Evie's.

I had horrible cramps in my legs last night, the most pain I have ever been in. Ii need to hydrate more. The pain continued into the morning but cleared up when I started working on the steps. I got all the ones installed that I had after going to Lowe and picking up some material for the risers. I am short 3 treads to complete the job. We heard from Mary Benziger this afternoon. Libbie is going to get the closing papers for her parents condo via email. They need to be notarized and then Fed Ex'd to the lawyer in RI but my printer doesn't work. I reinstalled the printer driver and printed the pdF directly from the Server. We then drove to the credit union and got the notary work done with me as witness. We then drove to FedEx on Maynard and overnighted the 23 pages along with a copy of Libbie's license. I chose this FedEx because it was near Lowes where I bought the missing 3 steps for the fence project. On the way home we gassed up the car at Krogers and got some wine for dinner. Tonight we will have hamburger with mushrooms, beaked beans and cabernet sauvignon. This afternoon I stopped into Walgreens and bought some Hyland Leg cramp pills. Lets see if that works.

This morning Libbie came with me as we returned the 6 step stringers. While in Lowes I got new HVAC filters for upstairs and down. We then bought $185 worth of groceries in Kroger on seniors day. Most of it was the fruit cake ingredients. IT's the season! I absolutely ran myself into the ground when I dug out the landing for the steps, poured the 2 bags of gravel and set the stringers in place. This stuff is heavy. The new Clarinet does sound better than the old one. The high notes seem easier to play as well.
We left for Greg and Jocelyn's Halloween Party in Sanford at 5:40. Libbie made her ham delights for the party and we brought a bottle of Chateau Michelle. We arrived at 6:10. Their old restored house is a few blocks from downtown so there were quite a few trick or treaters. They were cute, some of their parents came with them up on the porch and they were costumed as well. I wore the purple and green wig and Libbie was a flower. It was fun. We had lots of wine and then the meal of pasta and meat sauce with sides that people brought. For dessert i had a slice of Key Lime Pie. We left the party at 9:01 after a wonderful night. The temperature was perfect so we sat on the front porch which is up high. It gave us a nice overview of the trick or treaters.

While Libbie borrowed my car I went outside and cut the 12 foot boards into stair stringers. I ended up with 9 steps cut out. I'm 3 treads short since I only purchased 6. These boards were heavy and that concluded my activities for today. I brought them around and tried them out but just placed them there without nails to see how far they extend. We signed up for an Aetna PPO today which was a long process on the phone with the representative. My Clarinet arrived late in the day after I returned from a Lowes trip to get 2 bags of gravel. Dinner tonight was Salmon with broccoli and Mondavi Cabernet.

I bought the 2 2x12s today in Lowes for the stringers. They were heavy and hung out the back of my trunk. I kept them in the garage since we had a little bit of rain during the evening. Libbie made her pizza from scratch, she didn't have any saved dough. We had this with the leftover Yuengling Black and Tan that Joe bought on Thursday.

It was hard getting up this morning. I did a short warmup on the Clarinet at 8:15 then left for my lesson with Justin. He taught me a Pentatonic blues scale which I need to memorize and then improvise.

I had lunch on the back porch with Libbie, it was soup today. After lunch i did some measurements of the side deck height for stairs. It's about 50 to 55 inches high. I went to Lowes and bought a pair of 6 step stringers and 6 stair treads. Unfortunately when I got them home I measured them against the deck and they seem to be 2 or 3 steps short. I will have to purchase some 2x12 planks and make my own stringers this long.
We did a trip to Kroger for dinner fixings and bought a package of steaks on a WooHoo special for half price. They expire tomorrow. Dinner was the NY Strip steak, broccoli, baked white potato with sour cream and a bottle of Rodney Strong.

Up at 5 AM this morning. I set up the coffee the night before then went downstairs at 5 to turn it on. We left at 5:30 for the airport with Joe and Paige. They have a 7:30 AM Delta flight. We parked in the Premier parking which used to be called short term parking. It costs $3 per hour, we stayed less than an hour. We accompanied Joe and Paige to the check in then left them at the TSA entrance. We got home tired but happy with the 2 week visit of Paige. She is a delight but certainly has her own way.
I got a new printer installed in place of my old one which quit. I needed to print the IRA distribution request then carried it to the Scottrade office in Durham. They were helpful. I made some errors in the form and the person at the desk was helpful in the corrections. I need to transfer 17,555 to my individual account. I really don't want to withdraw anything but IRS rules force me to do a withdrawal.
We left for Esquires at 5:50 and had an easy drive to North Ridge Country Club. The band was the Continentals which had 4 Sax players across the front of the orchestra. The buffet dinner was excellent as usual. I had the top round and a piece of the seared Salmon. I really like their salad. We each had a glass of wine with dinner. We sat with Jocelyn and Greg and also Bob and Phyllis. Bob is one run on sentence but his wife Phyllis is pretty nice. She is taking jazz piano lessons which is interesting. She's also a singer and uses the singing to help her piano playing.
We left shortly after the announcements during the break. Others were leaving as well but not because there was anything wrong. We were incredibly tired.

Today I turned the ceiling power off downstairs and hooked up the relay to the ceiling fan and then packaged the Huzzah into another electrical box and tucked them both into the ceiling space. I put the cover on the ceiling cutout and put the fan back together then tested it. Surprisingly the Huzzah is able to attach to WiFi while inside the electrical box in the ceiling. This was my biggest worry. I did all this while Libbie took Paige to the library for another costumed story time and then Crowder Park. Joe arrived at 3 PM after his drive from Clinton, TN. He took the Northern route from Virginia and said it was better. Paige was almost in tears of happiness when she saw her Daddy in our kitchen. We took a walk in the back to the little play area in Seagroves. On the way there we stopped at the pond and fed the turtles some crackers. Joe, Paige and I drove to Smithfield BBQ on Davis to pick up dinner. We picked up a BBQ pack which was 1 pint of BBQ, 1 pint of slaw and 12 hush puppies. We added a pint of potato salad and a pint of beans to the mix. On the way home we stopped at Foodlion and picked up a 12 pack of Yuengling bottles. I only wanted 6 but Joe said he would take some home. The meal was great, it has been a while since we had BBQ.

This morning I used the Adafruit perma proto board for the first time and really liked it. It makes wiring so much easier because rows of pads are tied together. This means each pin of the Huzzah is brought out to multiple pad holes. At first it didn't work when I plugged the relay into the proto board. Eventually I found that the relay input had 4.5 volts floating on it when not attached. The huzzah max is 3.3 volts. I put a 2N2484 NPN on the input with a 1K resistor driving the base from the Huzzah GPIO 15. This did the trick and it all worked perfectly. This is now ready to go into the ceiling. I installed misterhouse on the Node Red Raspberry Pi. I'm going to use this to experiment with voice recognition by Alexa and voice feedback from IBM Watson.
Dinner tonight was Spaghetti with Cheese and 14 Hands Red blend wine which was great.

After breakfast we headed out to the 10:30 AM story hour at the Natural Science Museum in downtown Raleigh. This is really a nice museum. Paige of course had 10 seconds of attention span at each exhibit. We spent the most time playing with the stuffed toys in the Discovery Room. We luckily found metered parking in front of the museum for $1 per hour. After the museum we went to McDonald's in Crossroads. This is a really nice McDonald's with a 2 story play area and it wasn't busy. I had a big Mac. Paige had a Happy Meal with nuggets and Ranch dressing with chocolate milk. After lunch I walked over to Lowes for wire while Libbie watched Paige in the Play area. When I got back I put the ceiling fan back on the ceiling and did all the wiring. This ran me down. The music chair arrived when we got back from the museum. I really like it as a proper chair to practice Clarinet. Dinner tonight was pork chops with rice and squash and a bottle of Mondavi Cabernet. Hoffman was live from the Met tonight. Very nice.

I had an early morning, 8:30 am, dentist appointment. I learned that Dr Paul is going to retire at the end of June. We need to get placed with a new dentist.
We had some of the leftover pizza for lunch then Libbie went to the craft store for paint for Paige and then Kelly Road Park. I stayed home and cut the opening for the timer access panel to the fan. Unfortunately I ran into the joist blocking that I had to chisel out with the oscillating saw and the chisel. This really tired me out. I didn't do much for the rest of the day. It was a cloudy and misty day and then finally later in the evening around 10 PM it started raining. This is our first real rain in 2 months. For dinner tonight Paige had some pasta bowties with tomato sauce that Libbie cooked while I went over to Chipotle Grill and ordered 2 Chipotle Bowls to go with Carni Asada, rice beans, cheese, salsa, Sour cream, corn and peppers and onions.

Up early with Paige this morning. She is quite a handful. We still were able to watch our CBS Sunday morning program. This was a good one with a story on the Cloud. I took the ceiling fan down in the back bedroom. I decided I am going to provide an access hole with a white cover next to the fan. This hopefully won't look too terrible. I can put the timer and power supply up in the ceiling through this hole. We walked back to Seagrove Park and had a delightful walk as well some play time before Paige decided we weren't going back the short way we both wanted to. Melt down time but she settled down after a while. I think it's a phase, sort of like the terrible twos but at three. Libbie made 4 pizza crusts for our guests tonight. Cole and Emily came for dinner to meet Paige. They brought a Wolfpack tee shirt and hair bows for Paige which she modeled for me. I posted the pic on Facebook and Cole forwarded a pic to Joe. Josh commented that it was nice. Cole said best tee shirt ever. Funny. We had a delightful evening with Cole and Emilie. Cole brought Pepperoni and mushrooms as well as some shallots to top the pizzas. They came out pretty good. Paige was delightful throughout the evening. Accompanying the pizza tonight was some Killian Red Beer. Tonight I made the decision to buy the Yamaha intermediate Clarinet YLC255 which lists for $1270 but is listed on Amazon for $589 plus shipping. Bottom line was $597. which I thought was a good price. It's coming from New Hampshire.

I went to my music lesson at 9 this morning. I was using the new 3.0 reed but was still having some trouble. Justin tried my Clarinet with his mouthpiece and determined that it may be time for me to move up to a Yamaha Student Clarinet. He wrote some models down in my music book. I had a little bit of a shock upon waking. Where was no hot water for my morning shower. I tried a little bit of a cold shower but not too much. My most sensitive area for cold is from the waist to my neck. My lower body and my face are not sensitive to cold water. When I came back I worked on the heater. I found an online forum that discussed the 4 flashes that my controller was putting out. Sediment in the tank causes the sensor to cause the controller to go into an over temp lockout state, the fix is to perform a reset protocol using the gas control. I posted the protocol on Google Keep for the future. After I got the heater going again I retrieved the hot tub drain hose and hooked it to the bottom of the heater and flushed it. There was a lot of sediment, rusty water and a gelatin like substance in the tank that I flushed out into the laundry tub. I kept flushing the drain until it ran clear. Libbie raked the driveway with Paige and I picked it up with the cart. Paige got a ride back in the cart after I emptied it. In the afternoon i read the WSJ on the back porch while Paige took a nap. I then took down the fan in the back bedroom. This is going to be an issue trying to fit the Huzzah chip and the relay into the ceiling. I may end up putting a false junction box cover in the ceiling for access to the electronics.
For dinner we had Chinese with Paige. She ate some rice and an egg roll. We had an egg roll, 3 meat Szechuan with rice and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Another busy day with Paige. While Libbie went to story hour I continued working on the timer. I stripped down the interrupt function eliminating a few MQTT status calls. Before reading hour I ran over to Kroger for supplies and the Friday freebie which was Idahoan loaded potato soup. I finally got the Timer functioning correctly. After lunch we went over to Seagrove Park and played on the slides and climbing wall. I actually climbed the tree ladder and then the climbing wall and went down the slide with Paige several times. There are two side by side slides. The 3.0 reeds came today so I fired one up and tried it with my tuning meter. It seems to work a little better than the 2.5 reed. Most of the notes are coming in on the green of the tuning meter.
Dinner tonight was the awful seasoned hamburgers along with baked Honey Chipotle beans and Columbia Crest Cabernet Sauvignon. We were so tired we collapsed in bed at 8:30 PM. Paige is a beautiful little girl but she is a bundle of energy which far exceeds our level of energy

This morning I rewrote the ESP8266 program which was working in order to use the ESPEasy library. After i got it all compiled and loaded it did not work at all! Next step is to strip back all the options on the one that is working so I can get it to do timings better. I have not been having much luck with this thing. Libbie packed a lunch and we went to Pullen Park with Paige. After the playground and walking through the Caboose we had lunch on the bandstand stage then went over to the Carousel. Paige and Libbie rode before we went to the train. While waiting for the train Paige rode the boats which used one of our tickets so I walked to the ticket booth and bought one more ticket. Tickets are only $1 each. We all rode the train around the park which was not very comfortable since Paige decided she wanted to sit on the bench instead of Libbie's lap. She can be stubborn, going through the terrible threes. We drove home in the afternoon after a tiring day at Pullen. Dinner was waldorf chicken salad once again. Libbie spilled her wine which was the last of the 2 buck chuck Shiraz so we opened the bottle of Rodney Strong and had Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner. Clarinet is getting better. I'm doing scales using the tuner and am now managing to stay in the green mostly by putting more pressure on my lower lip. Today's practice session was the best so far. Earlier this week I couldn't play anything after doing the scales with the tuner.

Libbie went with Paige to the library for story time while I redid the timer program with debugging enabled over the serial port. I had to get rid of ESPhelper to do this since I have not been able to get ESPhelper to work with the serial port. I found a few errors in the program this way that I am going to fix. After our lunch of BLT sandwiches we went to Crowder Park for play on the gym equipment and turtle watching from the zigzag bridge. After the park I was really tired but we kept on going. Dinner was hamburgers with butternut Squash and a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. My Logitech hub arrived. I can control the TV with Alexa but am having trouble with the DVR. I have yet to get it to come on. During the night we had an issue with the light over Paige's bed. She wanted it on but the 60 Watt bulb gets really hot so we wanted to turn it off. Paige wanted it on. I ended up taking a 60 Watt LED and putting it in this fixture. I need to buy a case of 60 Watt LED bulbs.

We went to the library after a breakfast of pancakes. Paige had a melt down because the animals were not arranged the way she wanted them in the car. We fixed a picnic lunch then drove to the State Fair. We parked at the far end of Carter Finley in the first row. It was a long walk. We got some free hush puppies and Cheer Wine then went to the Kids Barnyard. Paige wanted to have lunch so we found the picnic area and had our sandwiches. She had an American Cheese on white bread with fruit punch juice while we had tuna sandwiches. After lunch we went over to the Sky Ride and bought $15 worth of tickets and rode across the midway. It was a great but expensive way to get back to the entrance and exit the fair. We found a pedicab and got a ride for $10 plus $5 tip back to our car. This was worth it because of having to carry Paige which neither of us could do for a long distance. Dinner was white spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese. We had a glass and a half of Shiraz since it was a very long day with Paige. I tried and failed to get the ceiling fan timer working with MQTT. I removed the interrupt without much luck. Next I will try to remove ESPeasy to see if I can make it to work. I'm quickly running out of ideas. Late in the evening we listened to Turandot live from the Met.
I had some interesting eMails with Joe regarding credit card rates. he calculated what the break even would have to be between a free card rewarding 1.5% and our $59 card paying 2%.

It's a rainy day. We tried walking to the park in Seagroves but it started raining on the way there so we turned around at the pond. Joe left around noon before lunch. We had lunch then drove over to Trader Joes for Apples. The weather was misty and cold but we drove over to Crowders Park and enjoyed the Park. This was a huge park with lots of play areas. After the park we came home and stopped at the library for a pile of books. Dinner was Waldorf Chicken salad in Pita pockets. Paige liked the chicken but didn't eat much. We had a glass of wine with dinner.

After the Sunday morning shows I went to work on the ceiling fan timer. Unfortunately I had many problems trying to get the serial port to work for debugging and status. I got MQTT working but not the serial port. In the meantime I put up the Rose Parade poster and the bulletin board in my office in a further effort to continue moving into my office. My Clarinet practice today was awful. I tried running the scales using the tuner and had many shrieks. When I switched to playing a song the shrieks continued. Worse, I couldn;t do the scale that crosses the break. I need to keep trying. We left at 5:45 PM for Joe's 6:20 flight. I chose to park in Premium parking which used to be called short term. It's $3 per hour. We ended up paying $3 after picking up Joe and Paige. It was dark when we got home but Paige seemed to settle right in to playing with Joe's old toys that Libbie dug out of the attic and washed this week. We had Libbie'a outstanding pizza with a Killian Red. She made 3 pizzas which were perfect. I had one beer which wiped me out.

Good lesson with Justin. My homework is to practice with the tuner running scales before I start playing songs. After the lesson I went to Lowes in Apex and picked up a stud sensor because the Stanley quit working. This tool worked well finding studs for me to hange the 2 shelves I bought for the Navajo art. Libbie went with me to get another shelf since I needed 3 instead of 2. I hung the last shelf and then installed the art. It looks great. I spent a lot of time looking for the Android TV box and finally found it in the Jtag container. I hooked it up and got the Sweet Adelines convention competition from Las Vegas streaming on our big TV. We both watched the finals including Sue's Harbor City chorus which ended up placing 6th. The show was enjoyable, next year they will be in St Louis. During the competition we had Chinese Szechuan 3 meat wit eggrolls and 14 Hand Red blend wine for dinner.

The garbage guy took our scrap wood. The can was super heavy but it's all gone now. I ripped all of the CDs Libbie had in a crate in the Plant Room. i finished up the Timer program for the ceiling fan this afternoon. Dinner was spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese. We went to dance at 8 and found from Robert he was going to end it at 9 PM. Not sure what's up for that. After dance we went out to McGregor Tavern. Libbie and I shared a plate of fully loaded Nachos which had Jalapenos, chicken, cheese, Olives, etc It wasn't too good. We had this with Red Oak beer.

I continued ripping CDs and working on the timer program throughout the day. In the afternoon I took the saw and chopped up the pile of scrap lumber from the flooring job and the attic stairs. It filled the garbage can to the top. I did a Costco trip today to get blueberries and wine. The blueberries unfortunately were from Argentina. I sampled a pretty good frozen Margerita pizza and a chicken wing. Both were good. I also found 14 hands wine for 7.99 which was $1 less than Trader Joes. While there I went next door to Academy Sports for the first time. Nice store but they didn't carry zip lines. Dinner was Salmon with rice and Shiraz.