I did our Thanksgiving grocery purchases including a very expensive butterball turkey for 2.99 per pound. I also went to Walmart for toilet paper and paper towels. I had to go back later for a shower curtain and progresso soup, things I had forgotten. Libbie is under the weather today with chills and a headache.
I modeled the optoisolator and found that I can detect the relay activation -12V signal. I'll package this up and mount it inside the heater. I'm going to have a 6 conductor cable going to the controller box. The 2 relays and opto will be inside the heater. Dinner tonight was the cauliflower curry from last night with a squash substituted for the Yam. It was different but good. We had this with cabernet sauvignon. Once again, before dinner we had cheddar cheese with triscuits and wine.
Today I ripped the stack of CDs that Libbie brought back from Sakonnet.

Up early. I have a lot of stuff to do today. Put my clothes from yesterday into the dryer after breakfast and was able to pull them out before I went to pick up Libbie. Her plane was on time as i picked her up at 10:30. I resumed on the heater, fixturing it with some wires to see how it operated. Great to see that it does cycle down when the thermostat and power are off. The fan does it's one minute timeout before turning off. This means i can remotely activate the power switch when heat is needed and turn it off when done. The surprise was the turn on relay signal is -12 VDC. An optoisolator can still detect that. I'll model that and hook it up. We did a grocery run for dinner tonight. We made the Cooking Light curry fall veggies which has tomato, sweet potato, cauliflower and curry in a veggie broth. Wow, yummy. We had this with Cabernet. We also had cheese and triscuits with wine before dinner. The Kroger cheese guy told us this cheddar was well aged. We bought it for 7.99 for a small brick. It really was good. I did some research about SSL certificates responding to a query from Richard via a members concerns. I can get a website from namecheap for under $10 including an SSL and xxx.website name. I'll choose glembocki.website.

I studied the heater and discovered the thermostat wire which carries 240 VAC was pinched to ground which caused the flash bang explosion. i cut the bad part of the wire away and hooked it up so I could remotely activate the heater. First time I powered the unit up it displayed a "P" and the fan ran without heat. Closing the leads with a jumper turned the heater on. I pressed the power to off. The "P" went away and the fan stopped running. I then jumpered the thermostat leads and nothing or so i thought. While doing a few other things in the greenhouse i noticed the overheat light came on. It looks like the fan doesn't turn on but the heating elements do. This is wrong. I took the heater down and started tracing out the controller board so i could add some enhancements to make this perform like a conventional furnace.
Dinner tonight was two mini pizzas that i made using Kroger crusts and some tomato, pizza cheese, frozen onions and tomato mushroom sauce. I did not taste the mushrooms.

Ran the thermostat cable along the upper conduit in the greenhouse and wired it into the hanging unit. I did not install a thermostat yet but i picked one up in home Depot. I flipped the breaker and nothing so i climbed the ladder and pressed the power on switch and there was a huge flame with a bang that blackened the siding in the greenhouse. I decided to let this go for the day. Obviously some more debug is needed. Dinner tonight was some St Louis ribs precooked in BBQ sauce that I heated and ate. I treated myself to some Cabernet with the wine. I did not drink the good wine I picked up in Costco, saving that for hopefully when Sue and Bruce visit after Thanksgiving.

Inside the garage I Fastened down the armored cable from the panel to where it goes into the duct leading to the upstairs workshop. I need to cut a piece of plywood for under the panel but have not done that yet. I had 2 clarinet practice sessions today since it's been a while since I've seen Justin and I want to be in top shape. In the afternoon I mounted the heater inside the greenhouse. This involved moving the ladder inside the greenhouse then locating a stud and drilling 2 holes for the bolts. I decided to use the wall mount since it seemed simple. I had to run out to Lowes to get 2 4 inch galvanized lag bolts which I screwed into the wall stud. The bracket seems sturdy. Mounting was easy and consisted of lifting the heater onto the bracket then placing the bolts in to hold it in place. While in Lowes I picked up some fittings to fasten the BX cable to the unit. Also in Lowes I found a woman who was doing similar, hooking up BX cable with #8 conductors to a new oven. For dinner I went to Chipotle and got a Chipotle bowl with carnitas and all the fixings such as rice, beans, lettuce, salsa, etc. Yum.

I spent the whole day working on the sheathed 8/2 going to the greenhouse. I almost had a disaster when I drilled into the sheathing for a live cable. I nicked the neutral with the drill. It could have been worse. I had to take apart the entire plywood where the cables go into the electrical box. I'll have to cut a new one to replace it. I did a lot of running around up and down the stairs pulling the cable a few inches ata time. Eventually I got it where i could hook it up but discovered the circuit breaker was too wide. I exchanged it at Lowes for a thin 50 amp breaker. Dinner was loaded potato soup which was a freebie a while back. it wasn't too bad. I got the new breaker installed. Now I need to nail down the cable before drilling the greenhouse wall. The heater came in so I went to Northern Tool to pick it up. I also bought an LED shop light to work on projects. This was badly needed.

I left at 8:15 and took the Cary Pkwy to drop Libbie off for her 10:10 flight to PVD. Once back home I got the equipment out and took down a Sourwood tree in the front yard. The Poplar is next, it's a much bigger tree. I'm clearing a spot for the tomato garden in a cage. Inside the house I cleared the path in my workshop for the cable to run inside the closet for the greenhouse heater. This involved moving a lot of stuff. I'll start the wiring tomorrow. Dinner tonight was BBQ chicken from Kroger along with a Lemon Meringue pie. I wwent to bed early watching youtube videos. A new Sonos speaker arrived. To my delight it was a Sonos One which has Alexa built in. It's still pretty buggy.

Today Libbie checked into Southwest for her flight. i went out for groceries then came back and installed the piece of metal under the stair wooden footer to stop moisture from wicking from the ground into the wood. I also installed the bottom two steps but not the top one. I need to find what to do about the riser before installing the last one. i came inside and studied some pages of BP and wrote a fake review for TER to get access. I also did some more genealogy research using the newspaper.com I created. Dinner tonight was a side of spaghetti wth Cooking Light style chicken Parmesan. We had the leftover Cabernet from yesterday which was half a glass each.

I went to the DMV in Cary around 10 and they would not title the car because the Bill of Sale showed I financed the car which i did for 3 days but paid it off. I drove to Carmax on Glenwood to see what i could do and they said to have the bill reprinted by Naples with a zero balance. I called Naples an got a person who said they couldn't do that and instead sent me a pretty stupidly worded piece of paper that said i was going to pay the loan off someday. I already did! I called back and got a person named Haley who helped me by doing what the first one should have done which was print me a new bill of sale showing no balance. They finally sent it and after lunch Libbie and i went to the holly Springs DMV and got the car titled and registered. Hooray! We had a very nice looking young lady who took care of us including not charging sales tax for $500 a second time after we already paid Florida $589. Next we went hunting for Lemon fruit for the fruit cake. We tried both Lowes foods and Kroger as well as Foodlion on Old Raleigh Rd on the way back home. No luck. I got out my electric drill and remmoved the cardboard temp Florida license and installed my own plate. Dinner was sweet potato, steak and Fetzer Cabernet. A successful day.

We had breakfast at 8. I had a Western Omelet which had peppers, onions and cheese in an engg mixture. I had bacon and hash browns with it and then a donut later. We waited around until everyone had gathered around 10. We saw Sasha and Michael and a lot of the rest of the wedding party. We said goodbye and left around 11. Sue and Bruce were staying another day. The drive back was pretty easy. I used the new Costco card in VA to get gas. We had a McDonalds stop at Exit 4 just before NC for lunch then got home around 2 PM which was good. I was a little tired and did not play the Clarinet when we got home. Libbie made her outstanding pizza once again from a crust she had in the freezer. it was quite good. Tomorrow I will deal with titling the car.

Watched the sunrise on the ocean today from our 8th floor balcony. This is a beautiful hotel. It's brand new and has the Hyatt quality. I ordered a Southwest omelet for breakfast which was yummy except it had too much salsa for breakfast. Mary and John joined us. We made plans for going over to the Back Bay Wildlife refuge which was 18 miles south of here. Mary and John came with us in our new Prius. The center was great with boardwalks in the marsh and sea grasses that were over 8 feet tall. It was cold but the brush sheltered us from the wind a little. We saw the first of the migrating Swans. there were about 70 of them. The ranger lady said that the peak is 1000 swans that migrate from Canada and spend the winter on the VA and NC coast. We saw a nice variety of other birds including Herons and some small warblers in the grasses. The swans were Tundra Swans which i found on iBird. We had a nice lunch at Panera bread on the way back. i had a half sandwich which was a turkey cranberry that was yummy. The others got soup and half a sandwich, I skipped the soup. We got back in time to get ready for the wedding. First shuttle was at 3:20 to the art museum. The wedding ceremony of Michael and Sasha was lovely. We had some Family photos afterward then on to the reception. A little Pinot Noir with the hand passed hors d'oeuvres hit the spot. She crab soup in little glass vials was outstanding. The band was a rock band with 3 guitars and drums but they were very good. We did quite a bit of dancing with much swing, some rumba and a foxtrot and Texas two step. Dinner was filet mignon with rice and asparagus. The wedding cake was dessert with blackberries, blueberries and strawberries. A perfect cake. We did quite a bit of dancing including hold and sway then left on the shuttle at 9:30. What a nice wedding.

The garbage man came today but not the recycling guy so we'll leave it out while we're gone this weekend. FedEx overnight delivered the check from Carmax as well as my old license plate from the Corolla. I took this to the Credit Union and put it in checking to pay the real estate taxes. A quick trip to Lowes while at the CU yielded some glue on cable clips for the Sirius wiring in the Prius where it's exposed. Next was a trip to Kroger to top off my gas tank for the trip. I used the new Citi card. We got going a little before noon with a planned lunch stop on 58 in Emporia once we got off I-95. The trip was easy as we arrived at the Hyatt lobby simultaneously with the Benzigers. We hung out in Mary and Johns room a little bit and had some wine Mary had with her. At 7:30 we went down to the bar for some hand munchies and wine. While there we also ordered a "Sammy" which was grilled chicken on a bun with bacon and Fries. The bar was incredibly loud with young people making lots of noise having drinks and just hanging out. We left around 10:30 and went to bed.

I practiced Clarinet a little before Nancy came then while she was here I did financial stuff. Payed the bill for Stoneybrook the Visa card and figured out how to pay everything we owe this month. When Nancy left at noon we had lunch then drove to Scottrade in Durham where Libbie deposited the proceeds from the condo sale almost 46k$. It was an easy drive up 751. We found that when the merger with Ameritrade is complete there will be a Cary office out by the old Sams club on Harrison. When we got back I started working on the Sirius XM. The receiver fits nicely in the corner of the windshield mounted to a side triangular piece of glass. I spent the afternoon hiding the various wires then backed the car out and tested the Sirius Radio. It worked fine. I had some trouble figuring out how I was supposed to select the Aux audio source but soon found the correct menu. This is pretty nice.
Dinner tonight was the leftover Chicken Parmesan breasts with a side of spaghetti. We had another bottle of Cabernet with the Chicken Parmesan. I need to stop eating like this.

This was a busy run around day with little accomplished. I started with a trip to the Credit Union to get a Bank Draft for 15, 757,91 for the Carmax payoff. After this I went to Lowes an dbought 50 feet of 8/2 wire but they did not have 50 feet of metal sheatthing only 25 feet. I then went to Investment Blvd looking for the NAPA store that is supposed to be there but had no luck. I brought the wire home then left for the Carmax store on 70 in Raleigh. Hannah in the finance department was proficient and handled the transfer of the title to Carmax including the notary and payoff of the temporary loan I had to take out in Naples to bring the car home. She is mailing the title, the check and the Corolla keys to Naples via Fedex overnight. There was a Lowes next to Carmax on 70 so I went inside and found the cable in a 50 foot roll. They also had 8 packs of LED light bulbs 60 watt equivalent for $10. That's 1.25 each which is great for 2017. I came home had soup for lunch then went out again to the NAPA store on the traffic circle where Chatham St meets Old Apex Rd. They actually had the Prius 12V battery in stock. The guy said there is a person who rebuilds hybrid batteries in Apex and buys a lot of the 12 volt batteries so they stock them. I brought it home, installed it in Libbie's hatchback without any problems. Watching the YouTube installation video a few days ago was helpful. I then took the old battery back to NAPA for an $18 core rebate. The whole thing was a good deal, less than $200 for the battery bottom line. The previous cheap one i found was for $202 on Amazon. For dinner we made Chicken Parmesan from cooking light. Libbie made a side of spaghetti which we accompanied by a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. I did some diagnosis on the Sirius XM power cable and verified with my meter that 12 volts is not coming out the cable.

We did last minute packing this morning and got on the road at 8:20 PM. Traffic was not bad. Our first stop was for Libbie at a truck stop just before Gainesville. A crummy place to stop. While she went to the bathroom I topped off the gas. Next stop was for lunch at exit 36, Brunswick GA. It was a very nice McDonalds, either new or remodeled. I had a Big MAc and shared a small fries. We got gas across the street at Raceway and were on our way again. We topped off at the exit 170 Pilot for 2.12 per gallon. The Prius V is very comfortable but has a noticeable tire vibration at 70 MPH. The tires may need rebalancing. We arrived home at 7:45 PM. It was a dry and event free drive. Dinner was tomato soup and cheese and tomato sauce on a toasted bread round.

This morning I decided to chase down the Prius in Naples. Google said it was a 104 mile drive. I setup an online appointment for noon and left at 10 AM. We got there without issue at 11:45 AM. We met our sales guy Joe who was an incompetent moron. He didn't know how to start a Prius and told us he would never buy one. Every step of the way he seemed to be frustrated and took us to task when we asked Carmax managers for help with some things. We didn't have money with us and did not have the Corolla title but worked things out. They financed it 100% and arranged to buy our car with the closing of the Corolla title transfer occurring in Raleigh. We have 3 days to payoff the loan without penalty It took 3 hours to do this, mainly because of the incompetence of our sales guy. The Prius starter battery was dead but they gave us a new one from NAPA. At delivery the key FOB was dead. The service department handled it nicely and replaced the button battery but the sales moron was having a hard time dealing with it. It was great to get out of there! We stopped in a Ft Meyers McDonalds for lunch on the way home. Later we went out to Evie's Spanish Point and had a nice seat next to the bulkhead next to the water. It was our own private table. I ordered the nachos to get Chili Head Fries then ordered the special which was a Salmmon BLT. We had this with a Yuengling. I picked up a 12v adapter at Walmart across the street and soldered it to the Sirius Radio but it didn't do any good because next morning it did not work. We have a nice new used Prius V for our trip home tomorrow.

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.