Status: We are Sheltering in place and we have plenty of supplies. Kathy’s birthday is tomorrow.
Plans: Work four hours today and then work on the homestead.
Narrative: Started really early this morning at 05:00, which is insane for someone about the retire. I finished up around 11AM and looking forward to a bit of lunch before I take a nap.
Had a nice turkey sandwich and a 2 Hr nap. We took a walk down the street and back before the rain cut our walk short. It rained pretty good for 15 minutes or so.
Had a difficult conversation with my mom about staying home and an equally difficult conversation with my coworkers.
Watched the “Andromeda Strain” with the wife before heading to bed.
Feelings: I am ready to quit my consulting job over having employees that are disrespectful of their job. They have no regrets about spinning their wheels all day and getting nothing accomplished. When they are called on their progress they respond emotionally with the attitude that we are being harsh with them.
Tomorrow: Wednesday work in the morning and church in the evening.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: We are sheltering in place, we have plenty of food and supplies. (Even freeze dried foods for a week.)
Plans: We’re going grocery shopping first thing this morning.
Narrative: Went to Kroger at 07:00 and got our week’s worth of groceries. Our portable freezer is now full. We’ve been buying 1 weeks worth of meals and then stretching the meals as far as we can.
This freezer is now backed up with 24 hours of direct battery power.
The end result is that we were gaining 2-3 meals every week in the freezers. We’ve also been careful not to take several packages of the same item or the last one off the shelf. We’ve been planning on the virus in Gwinnett getting bad enough the trips to the store will become too risky. Then we’ll eat what we have instead of driving to the store.
I downloaded the latest version of Pi-Aware and loaded it onto a Raspberry Pi-3B with wireless. I am hesitant to use a Pi-4 because of the heat dissipation will be an issue being outside on the roof. The Raspi 3B I just built has really good heat sinks on it to help keep it cool.
Feelings:
Tomorrow: Work in the mornings and tinker in the evening.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place, we have plenty of supplies.
Plans: Make grocery lists for tomorrow morning. Continue working on the house and take long naps.
Narrative: Church this morning was very good, we talked about being still for a change and listen. We also walked around the block to get some exercise.
I am still working out the engineering of my IOT using “Home Assistant”, I already have a lot of stand alone devices that will be incorporated into the H.A. platform.
Three NodeMCU’s and the wireless access point box.
The next problem is to solve how to interconnect the power wires. I want the NodeMCU’s to be airtight and running wire in and out of these boxes is inherently not.
Portable Freezer
I connected a pair of batteries to our portable freezer and measured the power consumption. To my pleasant surprise it drew a little over 50 watts with a peak load around 60 watts. (I was expecting a much larger surge on compressor startup.) We can easily run this unit on the two solar panels that are on the roof. I am making arrangements to double the panels up there, then they can power our CPAPs and the portable refrigerator without using a generator. Which was the whole idea of buying one!
Feelings:
Tomorrow: Go grocery shopping in the morning at 07:00, we have about three weeks of meals less produce. We buy produce week to week.
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes Did I DMBT be happy? Yes *Did My Best To
Status: Sheltering in place with plenty of supplies.
Plans: Dart out early and get some stuff at Lowes. Then stay home.
Narrative: Left the house just after 06:00 and drove to Lowes. Dawned a couple cloth gloves and picked up a shovel plus some other small stuff in a Lowes Bucket. I gave the bucket to the cashier and stood back while she rung it up. Grabbed my bucket and left. When I got to the car I pulled one glove off, loaded the car with the other then tossed that glove into the car’s trunk.
Went to the bank where it was much more difficult to use gloves. Although handling the debit card was ok and entering my pin was also pretty easy. The option screen had to be touched with my hand, the gloves didn’t select the items.
The cloth gloves will stay in the car until I can don another pair of gloves to gather them up and wash them.
We bought some cloth masks from a friend yesterday, the ear pieces are a bit tight for me. We’ve not worn them in public yet.
Dinner was a Port Tenderloin, smashed sweet potatoes and mixed vegetables. There is enough left for tomorrow.
Feelings: It helps to take a long nap with the wife.
It’s amazing what a margarita does to your emotions.
Status: Sheltering in place for about the second week, we have plenty of supplies.
Ok, maybe more than a week.
Plans: Work for half a day, and mow the lawn.
Narrative: I know four people that have the right symptoms and cannot get a COVID-19 test. That means (To Me) that this page on the Georgia website is seriously underestimating the number of cases out there.
These are people 1. Have been tested + 2. Test came back Positive!
I was wondering why the numbers in Georgia are Linear. (Not Logarithmic) It didn’t follow that the rest of the USA is on a sharp incline, but the numbers in Georgia are much flatter. I believe that they represent the number of tests given rather than the number of patients that are ill.
As you can see, we went out today and replenished our spirit supplies. Now that I’ve reassessed our risk I wiped down all the bottles to make sure I haven’t brought the virus home with them. We’ve gotten to where we stage everything coming into the house one day to let any virus have a chance to dissipate.
It’s hard to look outside and feel like there is a virus killing a thousand people a day.
The view from our front door.
As you can see, I mowed the lawn today with our battery powered mower. (One battery did the entire front yard.)
We did go to the bank for the first time in months. They control the lobby entrance, so I called them first. The directions were to go to the first drive-thru and it had a drawer for my dollar coins that’s pretty heavy. We had filled out a check before hand and it was a pretty easy task in the end. I haven’t decided whether I should dis-infect the coins since they haven’t been touched in a long time. (They are rolled and boxed.)
Feelings:Found this chart online a while back. I am going to try to use it to represent MY feelings for the day. (I had originally tried to use a list of feeling words, but that was too time consuming for me to do it every day.)
Found out today that the virus is MUCH closer to home
We had a good sized salad and stir fry for dinner. Watched a good movie about living in Antarctica for a year and went to bed.
Tomorrow: Saturday, should be another bright sunny day.
Status: We are sheltering place with plenty of food at home, we have enough produce until the next planned trip to the store on Monday. I am teleworking in the mornings.
Plans: Make a cup of coffee and figure it out…. LOL
Narrative: It’s 04:00 and I’m up, so I made a Belgian waffle with a glass of milk. The coffee pot is ready, but I’m not quite there yet.
We’ve had a hard time getting Multicast packets across two routers, I need to find out why as soon as I can this morning. The keyword “Multicast” also broke the IPV4 route statement in the routers.
Highest priority was to get the data running between two 1921 routers, we managed to do that today. Secondary is to research the “Multicast” keyword on the IP Route statement. (It shouldn’t have broken the IPV4 route statement.)
We received freeze dried meals today from various sources as a emergency contingency if we are desperate. We’ll add rice to stretch one packet into a day’s calories.
It’s a beautiful, bright sunny day so I let the 2x 100W solar panels run the refrigerator today. They can support the fridge from about 9AM to 5PM. (With sufficient battery and inverter.)
We made some sweet potatoes and took a meal to our friends that have the virus today. We were super careful to wear gloves and to not touch anything. They stayed inside until we left.
I had to bag all of the recyclables so that the driver can pick them up without them blowing out of the container and making a mess. The one caveat is that our mail will tell them who’s stuff is in the bag if we tried to recycle something not on the list.
Adding wires for the Relays, lights mostly… BTW, that pair of strippers/crimpers is probably 40 yrs old
Worked on one of my NodeMCU boxes tonight. I added wires onto the relay outputs that will be run to a separate box that provides power and distribution for the controlled items. Since they can be either 12 or 24 volts the power was not run into this box for that purpose. I am half tempted to use a metal box for all the connections to keep the moisture out of the three other boxes. (Wireless access point, NodeMCU, FlightAware Raspi that are all plastic.)
Prayers: This is my list of prayers for Today.
Thank you lord for the gifts you have bestowed on our family, we are all in great shape during this trying time.
Lord I thank you for the Mueller’s, they are great servants for our church family. I pray for the that they may not succumb to the disease that is rapidly approaching our community.
Lord I pray for my daughter that you would protect her as she works diligently taking care of those assigned to her and her coworkers. I pray that she does not carry this disease home to her brother’s children that are sheltering in place at home.
Lord I pray for Deb, she has been a good servant for a great many years to our fellow parishioners. Please protect her home and provide her husband the wisdom to make good choices during this trying time.
Lord I pray for my Aunt in Florida that she be wise when she is out in the community. I pray that she protect herself as best she can from bringing the virus home to my mother who would surely succumb to the disease.
I pray for my mom in Pahrump Nevada, I pray that her friends take her under their care and to help her as much as they are able.
Thank you lord for these technical solutions that have allowed us to communicate with our church leadership and receive their guidance in these disturbing times.
Lord I pray for wisdom on how best to prepare ourselves and to assist others who have fallen ill during this virus outbreak.
Thank you lord for the friends that provided us the reassurance and counseling when we lose our way.
Help me not to get over involved emotionally with all the news about this virus being brought into our homes. Let our faith in your word provide us the strength to have a positive outlook when we communicate with our families.
Help us by putting those in our congregation who need help in our path so that we might provide some assistance.
Thank you lord for my wife, our home and all the other things you’ve provided us. We will do our best to show our gratitude by sharing these gifts you’ve bestowed onto our doorstep.
Tomorrow: Friday, I haven’t figured out Thursday yet….
Status: Sheltering in place as ordered by the county. We are good with about 30 days of meals and 7-10 days of produce.
Plans: Work this morning remotely for four hours. Take a walk around the block with the wife. Work on my NodeMCU herd and refine connection types.
Narrative: Woke up really early this morning at 05:30 and worked on the company training that was due. I started a pot of coffee and finished the training around 08:00.
Kathy and I took a walk around the block, it was a little cool today. The breeze was much stronger than it was on Monday. Bright sun today offset the temperature when we got to the last 1/3 of the block.
The cover came in for the portable freezer, the freezer sits IN the cover. The freezer is full of food and is several pounds heaver than if we’d had done this before filling it. Well, then there’s Kathy who’s been working out for weeks just lifts it into the bag without straining! WOW (My back felt it and she’s good… LOL)
Put the fridge in a bag, the added insulation saved more than 100WH/Day. The big fridge is 2400WH/Day and this one is 900WH/Day.
The temp of the fridge’s surface was about 3 degrees less than the room temp which is pretty good for a portable unit. I covered the unit with a blanket and the surface dropped about eight degrees. I have similar results with the bag around the unit except now it is on all six sides. I have a wattmeter on the cord to capture the power consumption which I am projecting will be about 10% less with the cover on. (Increasing the insulation.)
With the 600KVA Lifan generator at 300W for 4 hours I can run this fridge for about .4 gallons of gasoline/day. I’d have to run the generator twice that and at 500W (Max for the Lifan) for the big fridge.
We’ve been ordering stuff every other day for the last two weeks as shown by the pile of boxes waiting to be recycled.
Boxes waiting to be recycled.
Tomorrow: Thursday, another day of sheltering in place. We’ve signed up to bring a friend a meal tomorrow. All three family members have the virus, so we have to be very careful.
Status: We’re sheltering in place as ordered by the County and getting settled for the long term. The number of cases in Gwinnett Co. have tripled in the last five days to over 180.
Plans: Prescriptions are the task of the day for the wife. (Get enough for the next 90 days.) I’m digging around in my cave for a 10 year old router to see if I can get it on the Internet again.
Narrative: Slept ok, didn’t get to sleep until after midnight and woke up at 04:00 for an hour or so. Checked in with my coworkers and sipp’n a cup of coffee.
Finished work around 11:30 and started working on our “Virtual Doctor” visits. We get an invite on our Cell Phones in an E-Mail message. That starts a browser session to include a video chat. It’s incompatible with the Android browser so I had to change the default browser to Chrome for the session.
Both sessions we were unable to talk to the doctor over the service. We ended up calling on a second device and using the phone for a video feed only. (I could hear the doctor, he couldn’t hear me.) In the end we got our prescriptions without having to expose ourselves to the Doctor’s office!
Took a pretty long nap and did a quick check my company E-Mail before working on my NodeMCU’s for today.
Project box for NodeMCU
I’ve ordered about eight of these boxes. They are water resistant (They call dust resistant) and are of a good size to house the NodeMCU and the I/O boards I need. This one node can measure five voltages, the temp and humidity inside the box and control four high power peripherals over a WiFi connection. I had previously researched metal boxes, but the NodeMCU is a WiFi device. (RF transparent box needed.)
We watched “Hidden Figures” together, we had to buy it since it wasn’t on Amazon Prime or Netflix. Good movie for an evening with the wife.
Status: We went grocery shopping this morning and we have about 30 days of food on hand thanks to having the portable freezer I bought a couple weeks ago. We’ve run it continually with several loaves of bread and bags of ice cubes before we moved any real food into it yesterday. It is set to -8 F degrees, the thermostat will rise to about -2 before the compressor kicks in. (Still a safe frozen temp.) I don’t ever remember having this much food in the refrigerator/freezer, like ever. It is a little scary to have a new appliance responsible for two weeks worth of food. But, i have to admit that it has been solid since plugging it in. The only anomaly with this refrigerator is the power factor .65 is HORRIBLE. I probably can improve that by running a better power supply. I need to power it on DC and capture the surge current, then i’ll know. Testing this while I am dependent on it may not be a good plan though!
Plans: Work about 4 hours and do some long term planning. The virus is still getting worse and closer to us. According to the news the infections should peak about Easter (2 weeks).
Narrative: The trip to the store was made a day early since it is supposed to rain tomorrow. Everything went well, the produce section was stocked. The meat section was ok, but the frozen vegetables were very scarce. Dairy was in good shape, plenty of eggs and milk. We even got a nice package of toilet paper today! The bill was a little over $300.00, but we were buying two weeks worth. (Eat One/Freeze One)
We called the doctor’s office and cancelled our two appointments for tomorrow. (We’ve got enough medicine to last another 30 days, hopefully this will cool down a little and the office will not be as much of a risk.)
Stir Fry and a large salad for dinner. It used up a half a package of chicken and a frozen package of stir fry vegetables.
Amazon has delivered something to our door almost every day since I got back home. We are still shelving boxes and mail for one day to allow any contamination by the shipper to dissipate a little. The inside of the packages should be fairly safe and the inside of the product package is assumed safe.
Tomorrow: Tuesday, another working day, supposed to rain.
Status: We’re “sheltering in place” as directed by the County. We have more than two weeks of food and supplies with us. *Even a few rolls of toilet paper.
Plans: Celebrate the Lord’s day with our family group and listen to our pastures message for today.
Narrative: I’ve been struggling all morning trying to figure out a balance of work and home since I am now working for a company as a “Consultant”. I ran across a picture yesterday that showed an Elle Fanning listening to what Francis Ford Coppola was telling her. I can’t imagine her asking him to show her what he wanted (She wasn’t qualified for her job.), or asking him twice because she allowed herself to be distracted and missed something he said.
The other notable thing in the Super 8 movie was a young boy that “in the moment” had to focus on saving the girl he loved from a large alien by standing up to it in the face of certain death. We all have had moments when there wasn’t enough time or resources to maintain several options like in a chess game. At some point a choice (Good or Bad) has to be made on just ONE PATH and be willing to accept the consequences as a man. When I was sliding towards a freight train on black ice in my car was one of those times when a single path had to be chosen. (There was no time and a certain risk of death was upon me.)
The above scene caused me to choke up and almost cry just posting it in my blog this morning. We all have been given a gift of life on Earth and as I get older I realize just how precious that gift really is.
www.fearlessmotivation.com
Having workers that can watch videos, listen to news while at work and have nothing to show for an entire week’s (40 Hrs.) pay really bothers me. They will never get that time back to repay their employer or their coworkers.
My wife and I searched the Internet for toilet paper today. (We’re down to four rolls so if it has to be delivered that time has to be taken into account.) I found those huge rolls that businesses use for 27 dollars for a package of eight.
As soon as I clicked on it the rolls disappeared. Someone bought all eight cases, each with eight 1,000ft rolls at one time. Probably to resell them as individual rolls to make a profit. There are so many unemployed looking for an extra dollar, they are gobbling up all this scarce merchandise only to resell it at a higher price.) The problem of course it takes it away from those who need it the most in the regular stores.
