Author: Mark Vogt

Monday

I am up and she’s made coffee for me this morning. N4JQQ called twice on the HF radio this morning, and no one answered, that’s unusual! I checked into the net and listened out.

I am trying to adjust the cameras so that we get a better picture of these passing cars. The noise is pretty high on the camera sensor, it will take a little more adjusting. In the past I would limit the gain of the sensor, that cut the noise out of the video.

We’ve been struggling with her documenting things in the right place in the large shared Daytimer. She gets very confused as to what goes where. Schedule is for things that we have to do at a specific time and Diary & Work record is things we’ve done. She just stares at it in bewilderment and cannot figure out what to put her task.

Daytimer Schedule page, this is great place for appointments and tasks completed.

The bottom of the page is for tasks that don’t have a specific time to do them.
We don’t use the expense list for anything.

I have a smaller version for my documentation.

Drumsticks, Sweet potatoes and Veggies for Lunch today. Mariel sent us a letter today. One egg and breakfast sausages for breakfast this morning along with Dominican Coffee. Melvin is headed to Kenya on Wednesday. My phone is at 27% charge, and I need a nap.

Received a new battery for one of the three Dell laptops, it fit so I bought another one. (Amazon didn’t have genuine DELL batteries anymore.)

We got our “Whole Foods” order, I didn’t like the auto $5 tip though

Dinner turned out pretty terrific. Steamed veggies, two sweet potatoes cooked in the microwave and 5 oven baked chicken legs that we served in the new Crock Pot.

Pacific Tax service called me today, we’re moving forward!

Tuesday

Got up early and adjusted the camera video settings to best capture a moving vehicle.
(I had to turn off the Digital noise reduction as it created unwanted shadows.)

Color camera is much more difficult to capture a fast-moving car.
(Two adjustments were needed, turn off DNR and reduce the “Sharpening” to 0.)

Back home from getting groceries at Wally World, it was pretty cheap today. They were out of Egland’s Best eggs, so we’ll get them next week. Took a good long nap and then I worked on the estate taxes for quite a while.

Checked the cameras tonight, they look terrific!

I tried to watch the debate, it was horrible to watch. Kamala wasn’t answering the questions, she was just provoking Trump into speeches and then laughing about it.

Time to watch Harry Potter! Ok, maybe bedtime?

Wednesday

It’s 3AM and we both had a bowl of cereal with a bit of coffee while reading up on the debate. I tried to go back to sleep and waiting on the estate taxes is bothering me. The amazing moment was when I learned that the final tax return was actually for all three heirs! I still do not know if we’re talking about any money owed.

We drove to storage to look for 2021 Estate taxes and they were not there. We also looked for Fender Conference amplifiers, which we found 3 more. There are no scripts on Express Scripts that can be filled. Sent an E-Mail to the heirs to have them call the tax service in Nevada. We have a reading for tonight’s service, I need to get on that.

Pill timer caps came in today, we now have eight of them.

This is the church’s storage; These huge tubs have got to go!

Watched the bible project videos with the wife until we needed a nap. Soup for dinner then zoom church services.

I have shingles outbreak AGAIN! (Stress triggered.)

All three heirs have put their names in the hat for the final tax return. Hopefully we’ll get that behind us without much fanfare.

Thursday

I did not document much about today. I did not get onto my HF radio with the guys this morning. I did call Gwinnett Clinic and there were no appointments available. They did write me in for 3PM and that turned out to be a godsend. I spent most of the day getting ready for the Air Conditioning repairman to arrive. There was a lot of stuff on the floors and tables that needed to be spruced up. He got here around 10AM and everything checked out ok. We spent a little time working on a locking mechanism for his truck and then we ate lunch. I spent the afternoon running shotgun for getting ready for the Women’s Retreat. We went to Gwinnett clinic about 3 and they confirmed that I had shingles. A prescription was sent to the drugstore, and we picked that up an hour later. I broke my pill bottle timer by trying to remove the safety ring and got Liquid Crystal on my bottles! It took another half hour to clean up the mess. (I am hoping that none of it got onto my pills.)

Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.

Friday

The bands were horrible this morning, so I didn’t check in with the HF guys today either. I put the garbage can out for pickup and then walked out when he came by.

I usually meet him and say good morning!

I worked on the Women’s retreat for a while. I also spent a little time working this Blog while eating a few breakfast sausages.

I dug up my old “Time Matrix” and modified it for myself. The hard part in this blog is that the time matrix is a “Picture” that is stored as “Media” and it keeps every copy.

Dinner was a sheet pan dinner with chicken legs, apples and brussels sprouts.

When I was a newbie Christian we were told that we are only caretakers of what we have because at the end of the day everything belongs to God. I believe that we have a modest home.

1Jn 3:17  If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 

Mat 6:19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 3:10-11 – “What should we do, then?” the crowd asked. John (the Baptist) answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Proverbs 11:24-25 – One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

Matthew 6:2-4 – So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. If you’ve not done it, you could try paying for the meal/toll for the car behind you. You might find it very entertaining for the entire family. It’s pretty easy to give a card or to palm a gift to someone in silence that cannot be easily seen by others.

It’s a little more difficult to know how to meet the needs of the people holding their signs on the roadways. Jesus taught us in “Luke 6:30 – Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.” I’ve given cash gifts and had discussions with others about is that helping them or just enabling their self-destructive behavior.  We’re also taught not to judge others in Mat 7:1  “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. Mat 7:2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. I’ve bought many things if the request was specific.

Saturday

It’s been a difficult morning. Our meals are up in the air and her knee is hurting. She is not following the meal schedule for her Invisalign braces.

We’re at Eastside Hospital Xray her knee, it has been getting painful to move after sitting for a while. Degenerative arthritis in her knee, they gave her crutches. That is one more chink in her driving ability.

I am getting very hungry, I’ve not eaten today. We went to Longhorn for dinner, it’s been three weeks since we went there. JJ did a good job, the steak was cooked correctly, and the chicken was tender. They didn’t have Modelo Especial beer though. I am seriously considering boycotting Longhorn and my shot of whisky until they bring it back.

Back home, we both needed a good long nap and to relax watching Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.

Sunday

Woke up at 7:30 in time to check in with the guys on my HF radio. Spent a good part of the morning digging up details for the Women’s retreat. I made some drawings and purchased some equipment that will be needed for the training session on Saturday. I picked up one K10 floor monitor, I looked up the monitor on Guitar Center and they no longer sell them. Truth is that they are not very good speakers, but they work. Fidelity is something that has a diminishing return and we use them very infrequently. We do not know how many microphones we have for the Women’s retreat, and I’ve asked.

We drove to CVS and picked up her prescription this afternoon. I spent two hours talk to L about Women’s Retreat, I didn’t get very far. I didn’t much left after that so we watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.

Monday 37/42 KWH

Shingles and body aches are really keeping me up this morning. Normally I can sit up in the recliner which takes the pressure off my torso and sleep soundly. Not so today with the added discomfort of the shingles. About 2AM I decided to take a hot bath to sooth my irritated skin. Sure enough, about a half hour later I managed to get to sleep. I woke about 5 and went back to bed.

Woke again at 9:30 which is 2Hrs later than I should have taken my Shingles pill.

But alas, I am a little uncomfortable but not in any real pain. I didn’t get onto the Waterway Net with the HAM guys this morning. I did eat a bowl of non-GMO bran flakes this morning about 3AM. It as just as good as the Kellogg’s Bran Flakes with Sun Maid raisins. I finished off the Blueberry Mini Wheats, we have one box of strawberry mini wheats left. *All three of these cereals are so expensive!

She made a good grocery list this morning without my help.

Salmon for din din, 14Oz, $18 each. (We only ate one of them.)

Veggies and quinoa round out our dinner today.

Went over the meals for tomorrow and Wednesday. She had burrito’s for tomorrow and spaghetti for Wednesday. We probably should eat the leftover salmon tomorrow instead. Our coffee basket in the coffee machine was falling apart and we had one spare. I ordered a replacement today from Amazon.

Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.

Tuesday

We’re up at 3AM having a bowl of cereal and coffee. Getting ready to go to Wally World and get our weekly groceries. It’s windy and overcast, but very nice temperatures. Shopping went quite well, and we got home in record time. I baked two sweet potatoes in the microwave for lunch and then our conversation got lost. There’s Salmon in refrigerator along with vegetables, the sweet potatoes are just the starch for our lunch. She hasn’t started making lunch even though she’s hungry and the sweet potatoes are getting cold.

It was a NICE day today to work on the garage door. The roller for the lift springs was worn out and needed to be replaced. I bought a new one a couple days ago and the weather was too warm to stand in the sun. Replacing it was just one bolt and I could use a step stool to get up there. What I found out later was that the bolt holding up the door at the front of the garage had fallen off. With the additional stress of the spring, it had bent the support brace until it almost fell off. (There was nothing holding up the garage door on that side!) An hour later I had straightened the brace and reattached the garage door. A small adjustment to the spring was necessary and I was done. If the door had gotten stuck closed, there was no access to the garage from the inside to repair the door.

Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.

Wednesday

Slept in until 8AM, checked in with the HAMs on Waterway Net and got ready to take her to the dentist for a cleaning. We went to Braces Now to pay our payment and found out that the braces contract only had a small amount left to be paid. That’s a $6K contract behind us, Yea!

Lunch was a spaghetti Mediterranean dish, tasty but it wasn’t very filling.

Took a LONG nap, it was so long that my CPAP ran out of water. Read the scriptures for tonight and I am headed for a shower. It warmed up more than I expected, and I left the dashcam in the car. Oops. No letters from our sponsored children.

Church services went well, and we got home in a reasonable amount of time.

The neighbor put a very bright porch light on the front door today.

Bedtime after putting on my breath right strip and filling my CPAP.

Thursday

Woke up this morning about 7AM and had to make another pot of coffee. She made one very early this morning and the coffee pot had turned itself off by 6AM. Talked to the HAM guys, I was the first one on their log this morning. Spent the next two hours taking care of my Perineum rash.

When things get crazy at my age pills are hard to keep track of. Especially when they are not at specific times. (Like Once a day.) Pills that are every 8 hours are just difficult to take on time.

My son sent me these pill timers long ago and they are perfect for the old people like me. They used to be available on Amazon, the only place I found them was on Patient Sleep Supplies. TimerCap for $6 each and $10 shipping. They come in their own bottles (Left/Red) and they also fit on a standard pill bottle (Right/Green). They start counting time when they are closed so you know the last time you took a pill. Amazon has a similar product for $50 that sounds an alarm to take the pill. (BUT $50!! for something that might cost $1`.00 to make)

Don’t tell anyone, but with all the increases on our bills I have to make a budget! (The house taxes went up $1300 this year alone.)

Our storage for the church’s equipment has doubled since I got it 2 years ago.

The $3,500 tax bill kinda threw a wrench in our budget, it’s due in Oct.

Dinner was difficult, the vegetable was peas and rice was the starch. She forgot to wipe down the kitchen table and the placemats before putting the flatware on it. The chicken was overcooked and cold since the thin slices were put on a large serving platter. The peas were a little warm, but they were in an uninsulated bowl. We have two insulated bowls that she always forgets to use. (Like every time) Dinner was with two disgruntled adults that cannot come to a mutual agreement. We eventually cooled down and took a good long nap.

She’s been super hungry ALL day today. She ate soup two hours early and drank several boost drinks today. *That probably goes along with her being irritable.

Time for supper, a warm bowl of soup and crackers while watching TV. We spent some time working on preparation of our dinner every day. (Trying to remember to use the insulated bowls for one thing.) I found out when asking about the meal for tomorrow that none of the meat made it to the refrigerator after getting groceries. I looked down at the floor and sure enough the grocery bag with all the meat had never been put away on Tuesday. I tossed the meat we bought on Tuesday in the trash can and washed the insulated grocery bag.

We watched TV for a little while and headed to bed.

Friday

Cereal and a cup of coffee at 2AM this morning.

Our neighbor that installed this A/C unit asked to do a service call. It’s not been seen since it was installed in 2020, we’ve been very happy with it.

Off to the gym this morning. I’m driving cuz she hurt her ankle last week and we need to replace all the meat we left on the floor on Tuesday. I went to THD and looked for filters, they had them on sale for 7 dollars each. But I had a washable filter that cost $80, why would I go out and buy four disposable filters. I abandoned that idea and decided to go to Publix to get the replacements for Tuesday’s debacle. I put all the meat in two insulated bags to keep them cold until we got home. Yes, we put these in the refrigerator this time!

I decided to put the reusable filter back into the air handler even though it is more restrictive. The idea is that the system is a closed loop, it will automatically compensate for the filter. I should not need the 10% cooling that I may lose with the new filter since it’s September.

Turkey chili for dinner, it was pretty good actually. Nap Time.

I woke up to an open sore on my hand and a rash.

I’ve been dealing with an infection of my perineum which has happened a couple of times in my past. (My dad could not wear underwear.) I nicked my hand on the garage door on Monday, it appears that it is infected by the large red area on my hand. We drove to a doc-in-a-box, and they gave me an antibiotic prescription for the hand. They also gave me Clotrimazole and Betamethasone cream that I can apply directly to the Perineum. The doctor thinks it is NOT a Yeast type of infection, which is what the previous medicine targeted. I forgot to take my pills last night, my first indication was my BP was 139/80. The second indication was the upset stomach without the Nexium relief yesterday. I’ll have to start reading my own writing! (I darted out the door this morning to take her to the gym and to replace the meat that was spoiled.)

We had a good day today even with the trips to the gym, groceries and doctor.

Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.

Saturday

Watched Starliner return safely to earth on NASA feeds. Had some sweet pickle chips and now headed back to bed, well almost! We had another shooting last night a little after 1AM.

These shootings are continuing on the hill three houses down from us.

I was up at 1AM when this shooting happened, it’s hard to sleep with these idiots shooting on our street. We looked all over for the brass after they arrived. It was actually just in back of the car on the right just outside this picture. (When I looked at the video this morning, the shooting happened just before our neighbor’s garbage cans.) I need to setup a VPN on a Tablet so that we can look at the videos on the DVR with a little bit larger screen.

Gwinnett’s finest arrived and his partner too.

It took two hours to pull the videos off the cameras and upload them to Gwinnett County evidence website. The officer was surprised at the large number of Gwinnett County police business cards from these shootings. I need to take a trip to Gwinnett County police station and get these police reports.

I was still exhausted at 7 this morning when she woke me up complaining about chest pain. That’s happened about three times over the last three weeks. I will chase her to make sure she writes down when these events are happening. (They used to be very infrequent.) A/C camera is down

Paul’s travels to Vancouver on Monday, boat leaves to HI on Tuesday, sails for 6 days, Stays in HI 5 days, sails back for 6 days. Flies to Portland, Chicago then home.

I moved the wires from the side of the home to reduce the number of wires the squirrel can grab to get onto the roof. He/She’s been jumping from the fence onto the roof which yielded a nest of eggs a while back. But there’s nothing to eat on the roof and I could not find an entry into the attic. I may end up putting a camera on that corner of the house so I can get to the bottom of this. The squirrel is damaging the camera wires and moving the IR illuminator.

Our serving pot arrived today, we’ll put the dinner into the pot to keep it warm.

Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until her back started hurting. She ended up being awake most of the night until she took a Benadryl. I did manage to get some rest in, but I forgot to put water in my CPAP machine. (I woke up with a rapid heartbeat and my ears were ringing like I was low oxygen.)

Sunday

We’re up after a restless night, our CPAP machines were a bit distracting. I let mine run out of water and her mask started to whistle at 4 in the morning. That almost worked out since I had a pill to take at 5AM. We cured the whistle by drawing a fingernail across the vent hole on her mask.

I did manage to check-in with the guys on my HF radio this morning and drink one cup of coffee. Church service was virtual today. Got a call from Steve today about someone needing a car. We’ve got three cars, and we cannot afford to keep all of them. Blue has a problem with the antilock brakes, and we’ve had them completely fail while driving it. But it has a brand-new battery and four good tires. Silver is our everyday vehicle. It gets great gas mileage and is economical to maintain. The van has none of the good things about the silver Focus but, it’s a great vehicle to take on trips. *We can (and have) pull over and take a nap on a mattress in the van. Giving the van away is easiest, but it’s the most expensive vehicle for someone to take over. (It’s also the newest vehicle we have if we decide to drop down to one vehicle.)

Current plan is to repair Blue and shed both Ford Focus vehicles before our insurance renews. Step one is to make sure she can drive the van!

Time wise, we have a LOT of issues that are coming to a head in 4 weeks and our house is in disarray.

The crock pot (Serving Pot) worked great today. It draws a measly 46W on “Keep Warm”, 105W on “Low” and 133W on “High”. The “Lunch Pot” draws about 50W.
The temperature is a perfect 132 degrees on the “Low” setting,

Mowed the lawn today, well 2/3rds of it.

Monday 36/41 KWH

Checked in with the HAM guys and took a shower. We’re working on our list of things to get at the farmer’s market this morning. She got hungry and was asking for something to eat, all I could think of was a “Boost” drink. We want to stop eating M+Ms when she’s hungry! We used to eat Baby Ruth bars, they’ve been sitting in our cupboard for weeks now that she’s got braces.

We made a short list and headed down to the Farmers Market. We brought home some salmon and vegetables among other things. They did have some unique cooking accessories. We bought a 3Qt saucepan to steam potatoes and a colander drain the water out of the noodles. It was interesting that the paper towel rolls were smaller at the Farmer’s Market than at Wally World?

We got a notification of a prescription was ready for pickup at CVS so we stopped by there after getting a gallon of milk at Kroger. It wasn’t the prescription we needed for the MRI so we headed down to our family doctor’s office. (They hadn’t returned our call.) When we got there, we found out that they had gone home early on Friday because someone ran into the building! We got a script for the medicine and picked it up a little later. Calling Emory, they scheduled an appointment for OCTOBER!

She got a notification from OPM that her SSN has appeared on a public website database along with information normally used to verify her identity. The funny part is that when I checked if MY data was also compromised on the public website it WAS! (OPM did not inform me because I listed my home address.)

Urgent: We found a match to your Social Security Number on the dark web. Breached Site:  nationalpublicdata.com While this information doesn’t necessarily mean you are a victim of identity theft, you may be ARE at risk of malicious use of this data.

Leftover Pork tenderloin was for our evening meal. My piece was a little pink so I gave it a couple minutes in the microwave. (We used a thermometer to verify the temperature when we cooked it on Saturday. We did overcook the thinner pieces by the time the thicker piece was up to temperature.)

Gwinnett Amateur Radio club has a Net on 2M at 19:30 that I’ll join, then it’s an evening with my lovely. We’ll have to figure out what’s for din-din tomorrow at some point. Wally World is first thing in the morning tho.

1. Pick up amplifier from the school!
2. Repair the brakes on Blue.
3. Repair radiator on Blue.
4. Put the Wife’s name on the home
5. Put the Wife’s name on the van.
6. Apply for Sr discount on garbage collection.
7. Apply for school discount on my taxes which have almost doubled.
8. Update my will and publish.
   Make a list of items on our Wills.
9. Chair power supply for mom.
10. Outside Service Power
11. Put water in UPS batteries.
12. Get with Paul about supplementing power.
13. Tell brain doctor about weight drug
14. Next Appt for Emory
15. Our Taxes due Oct 15th.
16. Nevada Taxes overdue.
17. Reply to IRS letter.
18. Page for changing hoses and tanks
19. County tax form
20. Southeastern Lung care
21. Recycle electronics
22. Offering Prayer
23. Change Oil in the van.
24. Rebuild Dual Heater Automation.
25. Buy a plot for the wife.
26. Find van keys.
27. Write will for the Wife.
28. Pull two power wires into the attic.
29. Advance Medical Directive
30. Health Care durable power of attorney.
31. Financial Durable power of attorney.
32. Buy an outside driveway light.
33. Buy spare tire for VAN
34. Relocate back yard camera
35. NERO license for K computer
36. Pay for Air Filters, talked to Jim on Thursday.
37. Pick up air filter at Lowes.
38. Put $75 out for the mowing service.
39. TurboTax 2024 due on Oct 15th.
40. Dispose of disassembled generator
41. Mount US Flag
42. repair the gate on the van, it’s the pulldown motor.
43. Dispose of garage shelves one at a time.
44. Wait for Pacific Tax Service to call me.
45. USB Microphone for Echolink.
46. Electronic recycling.
47. Move refrigerator batteries from hot garage.
48. Solid Waste discount
49. Make EYE Appointment
50. Find a cigarette lighter plug to use to charge the car batteries.
51. Social Security (Survivor plans)
52. Mark’s retirement (Survivor plans)
53. Baxter retirement (Survivor plans)
54. Research new smoke/fire/CO detectors.
    Draw fire detector wiring diagram.
55. Insurance rebate check
56. Solar attic fan box.
57. Termite inspection date.
58. Remove Heat2 Temp and Humidity.
59. Replace dryer vent with one that closes off the outside air
60. Add relay to refrigerator UPS to charge from Solar.
61. Fix Jacoby account
62. Buy more solar panels in case of NATO WAR.
63. Change owner of church Public Storage locker.
64. rebuild Attic fan power switchbox.
65. Wells Fargo Advisors
66. Good Will
67. Hand truck
68. Fertilize the lawn
69. Repair the eves on our home
70. Replace back door of garage
71. Repair window in garage
72. Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
73. Put tape over door seals on Blue.
74. Research Lawyer for Arizona

Tuesday 27/33/41 KWH

Well, I’m up at 7AM got my shower in and eating scrambled eggs and ham. Wally World went fine cept she didn’t write down the berries that she wanted. (So, we didn’t get them.) The $13 slim fast power we bought at the Farmer’s Market did not have a seal. (I am certain you cannot just buy a powder like this without some kind of product seal.) Wally World doesn’t carry Strawberries and Creme, so we’ll have to go back to the Farmer’s Market OR order it on Amazon. We’re not going to Longhorn’s today for the first time in months. (We always go after we get groceries.) Our car insurance and our county taxes has gotten Ridiculously expensive. She still does not have a good eating routine with her braces. It’s pretty common for her to have a sour taste in her mouth and be irritatingly hungry by 10:30. She cannot chew with her braces in, so she’s been eating M+Ms for weeks. The problem is that I think she has Insulin rebound and low sugar again about two hours after eating lunch. (Because of the sugar)

She met with the girls for their prayer time and then we ate Chili for dinner. It wasn’t a lot of chili and we didn’t have any sides. I really didn’t want to just jump into the car and go to Longhorn’s either. We took a good long nap afterwards. My heartrate was a little high, I need to start wearing my O2 sensors for a while.

We managed to reschedule her MRI appointment in September which is three weeks sooner! They cannot do the scan at the Decatur Hospital Imaging Center because of the type of scan requested.

Finished our evening planning tomorrow and watching Hallmark movies.

Wednesday 24/42/42 KWH

Slept a hard 7 hours last night, we both slept in until 9:30 ish. Checked in with my fellow HAMS on my Radio. I had two hard boiled eggs for breakfast and breakfast sausages with Cran Grape juice. Coffee was good. We took some time and planned dinner, chicken breast with curry sauce over rice. The biggest change was to use corn starch to thicken the watery sauce. It was really good. We did need to steam some vegetables for a balanced meal. (The chicken breasts were HUGE, over three pounds in one package.) I got my retirement check, so I paid some on our CC bill. Paul should be on his way to the Hamfest tomorrow. Shelby Hamfest 2024 – 2024 Shelby Hamfest

Her daily routine with Invisalign braces.

• Wake Up
• Take Medicine
• Wait 30 minutes
• Remove Braces
• ~ 07:30 Eat Breakfast
• Wait 30 minutes
• Brush, Floss and put braces in
• Drink 1/2 Boost
• Make Dinner
• Remove braces
• ~ 12:00 Eat Dinner
• Wait 30 minutes
• Brush, Floss and put braces in
• Take a nap
• Drink 1/2 Boost
• Make a sandwich
• Take braces out
• ~ 17:00 Eat Sandwich
• Wait 30 minutes
• Brush, Floss and put braces in
• Take braces out
• ~21:00 Eat cheese or yogurt
• Wait 30 minutes
• Brush, Floss and put braces in
• Go to bed
• Take braces out
• ~ 03:00 Eat bowl of cereal
• Wait 15 minutes
• Brush, Floss and put braces in

It gets to be difficult with all these things to work around every day. Not to mention all the other things that seniors do like Doctor appointments and stuff.

Thursday 24/48/42 KWH

We both didn’t have a great night’s sleep, but it wasn’t terrible. We always struggle on church nights anyway. I made a new daily schedule page for my Daytimer.

I printed this sheet and put it into a pocket Daytimer this morning.

Waterway HAMs are saying the “Skip” is long, meaning we cannot talk between stations close to each other. I cannot hear N4JQQ and normally he’s booming in at 300W. If I am going to be productive today, I’ll have to take a nap first.

Up from my nap, she has drunk two bottles of boost and it’s 10 in the morning? The plan was to eat a large enough breakfast to coast until lunch and drink a boost about 10AM. Dinner was left over chicken and veggies; it was really good. We are needing to discuss these Boost drinks, they are kinda expensive to drink four of them a day.

I am working on a presentation for “generosity”, it’s going very slowly. I need to have a final draft by 7th of September. (8 Days) The good thing is that I am retired and I have time. I closed my Linked-In account today, I should not need that anymore!

I got some medicine for my yeast infection. We’ll have to wait three days to see if it’s working. She left a small glass of Margarita in the fridge that I am going to finish off this morning. Tried my radio and no one answered, it happens… I know that the skip is long, meaning that there is a minimum distance that they can hear me, and that distance is 2,000 miles tonight.

Friday 22/43/40 KWH

We got a recommendation from my monitoring agency. They recommend we take the following proactive steps because of the national public data breach. (The news said that they are an aggregate for data found on the internet that is resold for profit.)
Place a fraud alert on your credit file as soon as possible at Experian.com/fraud or by calling 1-888-397-3742.
Place a freeze on your credit file at all three credit bureaus–Experian®, TransUnion® & Equifax®.
Review your credit report from all three bureaus and report any activity you don’t recognize. Request a copy of your latest credit reports by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com.
Review resources available at the Social Security Administration online by visiting SSA.Gov/Fraud.
Monitor your credit cards and bank accounts and notify your financial institution of any suspicious transactions.
Be on the lookout for phishing texts and phone calls attempting to get sensitive information from you. Avoid clicking links from unknown senders and avoid giving our personal info to someone you do not know.

Up and sipp’n my coffee this morning while I listen to the HAM radio. The new medicine for my yeast infection is a bust, it was really uncomfortable this morning. I’ve gone back to what I had been using and keeping the skin dry as possible.

She planned to have beef stroganoff today, but there’s a Dutch oven with coconut chicken in the fridge that will spoil. It took an hour to decide on eating the coconut chicken today and the beef stroganoff tomorrow. A third meal involves burritos that we’ve been looking for burrito seasoning mix. The recipe she read out to me today says “TACO” seasoning! We waste so much time not having thought through these meals.

Insulated bowl for heating vegetables or leftovers

Lunch as it turns out is Coconut chicken with steamed broccoli and fresh Rice made in our rice maker.

It turns out that I have shingles AGAIN! I went to a “Doc in a box” today for a rash that showed up on the sides of my face. She looked at it and said it was shingles. I had my doubts, and she wasn’t sure. We both knew that this is a holiday weekend so she wrote a script for the shingles medication. CVS sent me a text before I got home that the medication was ready to be picked up. After we got home I realized that there was rash on the side of my back that was starting to bother me. That’s the same place the rash was on the last shingles outbreak. I’m not in any pain since I got the medication early (Just like last time…). My back is warm and my face itches a little, that’s about it. (At least for today.)

Our two cases of “Boost” arrived today. We’ve got over 48 bottles for her to drink when she gets that sour mouth with her braces in. It sure beats her eating M+M’s.

Saturday 26/41/39 KWH

My uncle was unable to drive to the Shelby HAM fest and sell his wares because of his shattered elbow.

Our toilet valve is leaking, they do not last any longer. Why make these valves that last 20 years and only have to purchase once. It makes more money for everyone cep the homeowner if we replace the valve every year. It turns out that I had bought an extra one and it was in the garage waiting for me. Took maybe 5 minutes to pop off the valve and replace it. The bolt holding the tank on was loosened and started leaking, that too was a 5-minute fix.

Day 2 of shingles

The rash is behind my bellybutton on the right side of my back. They are getting more disruptive than yesterday. I am tired, but I am also too uncomfortable to get a good night’s sleep. I have a general “itchiness” but very little pain as of yet. I do have the nerve pain medication from last time if it does start hurting.

I have a new plan to reduce the emotional turmoil of her handicap. The plan is not to question anything she did/does and let her deal with the natural consequences. Where it falls off the chalk board is when she comes asking for help dealing with the consequences. (Which is how I ended up being proactive when I started sniffing a problem was about to rear its ugly head.)

Flypaper still does a great job with the fruit flies/grain moths. Seems like we’re bringing them home every week from Wally World. We’ve not had an infestation since putting one strip in the dining room and another strip in the cupboard.

Neighbors brought dinner tonight, we ate about a third of it.

Watched Hudson & Rex on Faith & Family until we retired.

Sunday 36/41 KWH

We’ve both slightly crippled this morning, I had to take the pain medication last night to get to sleep. I checked in with the HAM radio guys this morning and we went back to bed for an hour. I had 4 eggs and breakfast sausage and then we joined the Zoom church service.

Some while back we noticed that the raisins that were in her oatmeal were MUCH tastier than the raisins in Frosted Raisin Bran boxes. We started just buying Frosted Bran flakes instead and adding Sun Maid raisins to our bowls. After the Kennedy speech, I looked online for an alternative and came up with a Whole Foods product.

We’re taking Senator Kennedy’s advice and trying to eat albeit a little healthier food. Whole Foods had products that are NOT manufactured to make us addicted to eating it. (Companies are using sugar and other ingredients to trigger hunger in our bodies so that they sell more product.) https://www.youtube.com/live/n15oCfLdmXI?feature=shared&t=2074

We had leftovers and steamed veggies for dinner. It started raining so I’m going back down for a nap. Stopped raining but it is still pretty cloudy. My head is also cloudy, I have to work on my Power Point today!

Monday 39/41 KWH

We’ve not heard from Emory about her MRI. We called last week, and the technicians did not have the order from the doctor yet.

It’s been a struggle today, we’re both up at 3AM and I’ve maybe gotten 2 hours sleep. Went back to bed and managed to get 5 hours sleep last night. Poured a cup of coffee and checked in with my HAM friends on the Waterway net. I need to give my uncle a call sometime today and drive to Lowes and pick up my filter after they find out where my filter is. Our sponsored child in Kenya sent us a letter today. It’s a bit cooler today, like 68 degrees this morning. (Attic was 65!)

Got her car ready for the trip to the gym this morning. We put a container of boost in an insulated glass with ice so that she has some calories on her way home. I also put the dashcam in the windshield so we can walk back her trip if we need to.

Started dinner (AKA Lunch for us), sweet potatoes and mixed vegetables.

A little frosty, I am guessing the defrost cycle pulled some moisture out.

I am not seeing the electric bill change very much from $180 last month. I thought that changing the garage dehumidifier would have helped, but it hasn’t thus far. The waiter at Longhorn yesterday said that she keeps her home at 68 degrees during the summer. Gee Wiz, that’s a bit cool! I can maybe see that at night, but that’s a huge burden on the air conditioner in the daytime. Hmmm, I wonder what our A/C would do if I locked it in at 72 today.

1:30PM, I added the temp sensor for the bedroom vent back on to Home Assistant. The air was arriving in the bedroom about 55 degrees. (Nice and cold.) It’s also the temp of the air arriving in the master bath though. Down for a nap, I need a brain boost.

Drove to Lowes and picked up the MERV11 washable air filter for the air conditioner. It’s the one that sits underneath my air handler, takes 3 minutes to exchange it. I may get one more so that it’s dry when installing it. (That’s the problem with the other two coarse filters that sit underneath the fine filter, they take a long time to dry.)

I’ll check the performance of the new filter against this baseline I recorded today to check for airflow. I was actually surprised that the temp didn’t fall very much after 12PM running @ 100% capacity. (2Ton, 1200SQ 85 Deg outside.) The worry is that the filter slows down the air and lowers the BTU available.

Tuesday 35/41KWH

Slept in until 8AM, cranked up the radio and did manage to check-in to my friends. Coffee finished brewing and I got the first cup out of the pot. My body pain was distracting enough that I took a hot bath about midnight. (A nice warm bath relieves my body pain better than any pain killer.) I may try to fast today after lunch and see how well I do at bedtime. My current weight is 215 which is 25 LBS over my weight in the Navy. It hasn’t changed more than a couple LBS in many years. I have four cups of coffee in the morning. (I think my dad drank coffee all day long, he had three large thermoses.) Too much caffeine can make me quite irritable. I used to have a problem with a racing heartbeat in my thirties and I had to cut caffeine out altogether.

My myriad of problems that only seem to show up at bedtime. The assumption at the moment is that I am pretty sedentary after about 5PM. My evening meal that I eat between 5PM and 8PM is typically a bowl of soup with crackers. In the short past I used to snack while watching evening TV until I started having pretty severe symptoms. My feet still occasionally have lymph fluid around my toes (like this morning) to where I feel like I have socks on, but I’m actually bare footed. I don’t know yet if that’s caused by the antifungal toe gel that I put on them twice a day.

Read the news for a bit, it was a waste of my time. None of this chaos is going to change by any effort from an elderly couple in Georgia. She is a news junkie. She can watch the news on TV 12 hours a day. It’s strange though, we used to listen to the news on the radio which allowed us to be somewhat productive? Hmmm.

Our little house is full of clutter, it’s been this way since we got back from Vegas.

11:30 We started discussing Lunch which was supposed to be frozen fish. She ate breakfast before 8AM and if she doesn’t eat every four hours or so, she’ll have to snack on something. Between her getting anxious about having something to eat right away and having her braces in for 22 hours a day is impossible. She had not read the recipe nor checked the cupboards to see if we had all the ingredients. The fish needs at least 30 minutes to thaw under cold running water and 15 minutes prep with another 30 minutes to cook. She spent most of the day yesterday watching the news with the DNC in Chicago. We went out to Longhorn for lunch and then slept until 4PM taking a nap. Paul called, there was something wrong with his phone.

We called Emory Imaging, and they did not have the order to be able to schedule an MRI. We were not given an order to hand to our primary care physician either.

Her new braces have a sharp edge on them, we called yesterday about 4 with no answer. We didn’t think to call them today until 4, so that’s something we’ll have to deal with tomorrow. I have a dental appt tomorrow at 9AM.

Wednesday 36/41 KWH

Woke up around 7 this morning and cranked up my radio. Coffee was waiting for me by the time I got back to the kitchen. I checked in with the guys on the Waterway Net before getting ready for the dentist appointment this morning at 9AM. Dental cleaning went well, and I decided I desperately needed a nap. Lunch was frozen flounder. She did a good job baking the flounder and steaming frozen vegetables in the Insta-Pot while I was napping. Went to the bank to get some small bills for the senior home Bingo night tomorrow. Went to get a haircut, but they’re closed on Wednesdays. The 50′ VGA cable for Sunday was waiting on the doorstep for me when I got back home.

Worked on my PowerPoint slides and took a couple naps before we joined the zoom meeting. We watched Leap Year until we got too sleepy to stay up.

Thursday 45/42 KWH

Got up around 7:45 and checked into the Waterway Net with Uncle Paul. She said that she didn’t feel very good emotionally. I recommended that she write in her journal, which she didn’t do. We decided on chicken legs with veggies and a potato for lunch. We’re not going grocery shopping since we’re good on supplies and she needs to nurse her knee. I’ve done three loads of laundry this morning, Whites and two loads of towels. Wrote a survey for Longhorn’s lunch on Tuesday using their website. I am going to try a dry spray in my shoes after I dry them on the boot dryer. That might keep my itchy feet at bay. It’s getting much cooler in the morning which enables work on the outside of the home.

Lunch is chicken legs, veggies and sweet potatoes. The chicken legs were frozen so I tried thawing them in the refrigerator overnight last night. (Still Froze this morning) I cut them out of the package and tossed them in the microwave on a defrost setting. They were still frozen when it finished. So, I set it in one more time and then they ended up just a little frosty. I tossed them onto a baking pan and into the oven.

Lunch was pretty good, we had one piece that needed to be cooked just a little more. The cauliflower was a little tough, the broccoli gets done first, then carrots and finally the Cauliflower.

Bingo with the senior home went well, Kathy stayed home. When we started discussing the dinner for today, I found leftovers from Saturday that will have to be tossed. It bothers me greatly that we just cannot keep track of our food.

Friday 37/42 KWH

Turned on my radio and sipping my coffee. I am beginning to understand how my dad’s estate ended up in such a mess. Pat had RA that gradually disrupted their life in Pahrump with all the trips to the doctors. Pat also had an issue with her back and she almost died. My dad drove to the hospital in Vegas every day. He ended up buying the van during that time with all that driving he was doing. Then he got sick and still made a trip out to see us in 2018. He was a ghost in 2019 when we shot out there because he didn’t sound well. I am guessing that he (Like myself) was spending loads of time taking care of his wife while his home was falling into disarray. The amount of time spent taking care of things gradually creeps up on you until your list is very long. (That’s where I am now.)

I may never be able to claim their federal tax refund for 2019 without reopening the estate. (Depends how the check is written.) The IRS sent us a letter saying the 1310 wasn’t filled out. (I sent them a question about the 1310 that they didn’t answer) Pat didn’t file for their joint return while she was still alive, and I am sure COVID had a lot to do with it.

We’re back from the gym, she is to put cold compresses on the knee as she has a bone bruse. The owner of the gym said that Kathy has a bone bruise where one of the tendons attach from the knee.  He recommended we get a wrap brace to support her knee and to take walks.  He told her NOT to use certain machines at the gym that would exacerbate the inflation of the bone.

We burnt the vegetables this morning, she didn’t put very much water under the steaming tray today and it went dry. *I actually thought the Insta-Pot would have sensed that the water was gone and stopped heating?

We cleaned the pot and started another batch of frozen vegetables then warmed up a ham steak for lunch. I wanted to have potatoes with it but there was yet another miscommunication about having the potatoes. (She never looked in the box.) After lunch we both took a nap, she was hungry so we warmed up a can of soup. We’re still removing the braces 6-8 times every day between all these meals/snacks. 7AM, 11AM, 2PM, 4PM, 6PM, 8-9PM. And she is still eating ice cream bars and M+M candies witch trigger insulin and probably shorten her spans between meals. I just realized that the issue with her brain is the part we need working to regulate these meals. ARG.

Speaking of which, time to call Emory Imaging and get an appointment. They came up with a requirement that she get a sedative medication BEFORE they would schedule and appointment. She does get anxious inside the closed frame in a MRI machine that’s used for head imaging.

Had soup while we watched some TV and then headed to bed.

Saturday 40/41 KWH

Got up around 8AM and cranked up my radio to meet the guys on the Amateur Radio Waterway net. She brought me a cup of coffee while I get organized. Took a shower and opened the garage door to cool off the garage a little bit. It didn’t really help. Dinner is pork tenderloin, I laid out a timeline for us to follow so we don’t have a disaster like we did yesterday.

Tenderloin tasted pretty good, it was a bit overcooked though.

I did a bit of cleaning around the kitchen table today. Our kitchen table is the center of our home, everything seems to arrive at or be taken from that table. Hence all of our tablets are charged on that wide flat surface. The kitchen counters are too valuable for cooking and all of the large furniture has plants on them.

I have never liked plugging five or six 5W chargers into a power strip. Some multi output chargers are not fast charge compatible or don’t have the power to charge fast charge devices. Some of the older devices charge very slowly on a fast charger. The method I chose is DC-DC converters that have considerably more power to charge the device and only one wall connected device. It provides power for all the converters which then provide the USB power. It also allows for fast charging devices that can be charged with a higher power. The USB cables are short, so very little power is lost between the charger and the device. They are not perfect; I have had several of them fail over the 10 years of using them. (They are super handy for hotel rooms where you really don’t want to plug your $800 cell phone into their charger.)

The problem is that the wires can get to be a mess, LOL.

Sunday 35/41 KWH

Got up a bit late, we have a crowded morning. Make chili, drive to house church and setup the equipment. Service was at 11AM. She said that she was going to make scrambled eggs, so I hadn’t eaten until after 1PM. We were asked to bring a dish, but the chili failed so we’re going there without food. The laptop case had a CPAP power supply in it, so I had to run back home to get one. The audio from the computer had a significant buzz that I just could not get rid of. (The host was too busy to test everything out before Sunday service and the service had a distracting hum.) He also moved the location of the computer to the other side of the room that wasn’t tested either. We also ended up using a 30-year-old power strip that had bad outlets in it, I went home early.

We slept for an hour and a half and found ourselves looking at 4 PM. It’s too hot outside to work on the house and I am really emotional about messing up the worship service today. I didn’t get much accomplished before going to bed. (I did test the audio on Wednesday, it’s not my equipment or cables.)

Monday 43/42KWH

Propagation is a strange thing this morning on my HF radio. I can reach medium distant stations like Virgina on FT8 with almost no power. But, I cannot hear Steve N4JQQ and he’s usually booming in from central Georgia with 500 Watts.

Salmon is dinner today, I can make the rice and steam the veggies. But I need to wait until she leaves from the gym or they will be overcooked. Updated my two Home Assistant Raspberry Pi computers to the latest version.

Started steaming broccoli in the Insta-Pot and started the rice in our rice cooker for lunch about 11:10. She should be home in about 30 minutes, say 10:40. Both rice and broccoli were done about the time she got home, I put them in insulated bowls. Oven is set to 375 and the dish for the salmon is in the oven warming up.

The bottle of boost with a couple ice cubes is working out great!
(She drinks it when she gets out of the gym and before driving home.)

Salmon, broccoli and rice turned out to be a delicious lunch. That and most of a 12oz bottle of coke and I’ve gotten very sleepy. She spent about 30 minutes cleaning up the kitchen and met me in the horizontal surface of our bed. She managed to hurt her knee on the equipment and later in the day it’s really bothering her.

Took a good long nap and we cleaned four of her CPAP masks that have to be changed out every other day. We discussed options for improving our cognitive ability and we have to plan tomorrow’s activities. She hurt her knee so we’re going to nurse that a little while we work on tomorrow’s plan. I need to NOT eat again today unless I am really hungry, and then NO sugar tonight! My toes have lymph fluid around them, it’s not around my instep so much or my ankle. I also don’t know if the medicine I am using for my toenail fungus is the cause either. (Which could account for the fluid only being around my toes.)

We made plans for tomorrow’s trip to EMORY Brain Health. The entire plan is about 4 hours. (Snack, Put braces in, Drive, Appt, Drive, Leftovers for din-din, and then a NAP.) We also pulled words out of one her crossword books to see how many each of us could remember. She got two words of five and I got maybe 5 words out of six. Google Foo says we should train our minds to remember to keep them sharp.

We also talked about our glucose levels and there are meters for cheap on Amazon, but we may get one for free from our doctor. She complains about a sour taste in her mouth more often than last year. But then again, she’s used to snacking all day long and now with the braces we’re on an eating schedule. The original plan was to eat starches at our meals so that her body can produce a more “Paced” energy that she needs. That has been much more difficult than I had anticipated. She is supposed to have the braces in her mouth 22 hours out of 24. With the additional 30 minutes required to flush her mouth after each meal we’re down to 21 hours. Add to that when she gets low sugar and has that sour taste in her mouth. We seem to be doubling the number of times we’re pulling her braces out for an hour. (Like 5-6 times a day.)

Our electric bill was 1291 for July, that’s 322KWH/Week. Raised our house temperature by one-degree last week. Our consumption dropped to 273KWH last 7 days, 324KWH 14 Days, 314KWH 21 Days, 293KWH 28 Days, 294KWH 35 Days. It seems to have knocked off 50KWH/Week off our bill which should be about $20 / month. This month’s bill was $179.00 which is about the same as last month. I’ve also taken aim at the garage Dehumidifier which has been running all night for some reason. It doesn’t seem to have run at all in the last three days since I raised the target humidity to 60%. The thought is that the garage was warm enough for the bucket water to evaporate and skew the humidity sensor in the unit causing it to run.

I may put a vent in the garage wall so I can pull cool air if conditions are good.
(Dad’s garage had them along the wall, you couldn’t see them from the outside.)

Took my medications when her alarm went off to take her medications. I’ve missed mine at least three times in the last two weeks. Put lotion on my feet then small garbage bags to keep the lotion from being absorbed by my socks.

We had a good day today, we’ll get there…. Bed Time.

Tuesday 41/42KWH

We ended up watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson until we were sleepy enough to go to bed. The timer on the Dehumidifier in the garage is working properly, the humidity is below the set point, and it doesn’t run.

Slept horribly last night and all I had was 4 small pieces of raisin toast. I drank water, no coke or sugar either. *Ok I did have a 5 Oz glass of juice and some crackers.

I didn’t fight with my CPAP machine either, 0 events.
(The low score is usage hours. My machine says 5.3 hours 1.2 Events Per Hour.)

The garage dehumidifier never ran, the new door seal and raising the set point worked. (It also appears that opening the door yesterday lowered the humidity too.)

I managed to check-in with the Waterway Net, the propagation seems worse today. (I didn’t hear anyone clearly.) She brought me a nice cup of coffee while I write in this blog. We both took showers and headed to the mattress for a quick nap. Her knee is still painful today, we’ll need to nurse that a little. (Emory is not a small walk.)

I don’t know if we’re going to Longhorn today or not, with her knee bothering her and we have a meal ready to go in the fridge we may just come home. (We’re not even getting groceries today.)

I found my passport!

I had it at the beginning of COVID to get our shots and I hadn’t seen it since. It was hiding in the back pouch of one of my man purses that I carried my “Puppies” in. I am needing a larger device than my phone and I was digging through all my bags when I found it.

So far, so good. We got here at Emory on time and arrived in the waiting room 15 minutes early. We’re waiting on the Doctor, I am pretty anxious and a little impatient.

The doctor was very thorough and had very good communication skills. The next diagnostic is getting a non-contrast MRI. We’ve been enrolled with a social worker to help with the difficulties facing us. The largest pothole we were discussing was driving, he is thinking we are at the edge of her NOT driving anymore. (He’s worried that she’ll be so distracted trying to figure out how to get home.) That’s HUGE news. He highly recommended we take a brisk walk EVERY DAY. (That will have to be in the mornings when it’s cool.) We are also discussing ending the weekly trips to Loganville for her Gym sessions. (Too far and therefore Too risky.)

The doctor will be communicating with us through Emory “My Chart” which is an online documentation system of medical procedures. I need to take a look and see if that correlates with our doctor’s charting system.

We’re getting close to her being “Dependent” on a caregiver, we need to think about what processes she’ll need help with. Who is going to help a day or two, a couple weeks or long term. The social worker will probably have a lot of suggestions for us.

We also have to take a serious look at her medications, they can affect her brain health. I was shocked that he was totally against her taking Benadryl if she can’t sleep. He also mentioned that we need to closely monitor her CPAP performance.

Mowed 1/3 of the back yard, it’s probably been a week since that section was mowed. Opened the garage door to cool the garage until the humidity level rises enough to close it again. The two small attic fans are running well past 9PM because the humidity is so low, they only draw 36 watts. (0.4 Cents/Hour) I run the 14V fans in the evening when the solar panels are not providing power at only 9Volts.

Wednesday 39/42KWH

We both got up around 2AM and had a bowl of cereal. Got back to bed around 3 and slept until 8. I checked-in with the guys on my HF radio and updated my home automation computer to the latest version. It broke the routine that is supposed to turn off the attic fans. They ran until almost midnight last night. We got three letters from one of our sponsored children. Heh, she’s 20… (Maybe she’s a sponsored adult-child, they cannot get married until they are 21 in Philippines.) We send CF about $455/Month for the four sponsored children. ($39 Sponsorship, $40 Child, ~$33 Family.) Had two hard boiled eggs and some breakfast sausages for breakfast.

We’re in good spirits even though we’ve got a long road laid out for us. Gee whiz it’s Sleeping, Diet, Exercise and medications. ResMed keeps track of our sleep for us.

An “Event” is an obstruction that lasts 10 seconds or longer. (~43 Events)

I am a little concerned about the 8 events / hour on the 2nd. (~64 events) I looked back over last year since she got her new CPAP machine, and her scores were a little better right after she got the new machine. One problem that’s been consistent for a while is her lips are blown apart by the high pressure. I think she puts lip gloss on her lips at night, we may adjust that. There may also be an opportunity to reduce the pressure if we change her sleeping position to require less pressure. Her mask type is not optimal for sleeping on her side as her cheek closes off the hoses.

I could not find why her mask was discontinued, or a replacement.

As far as Exercise, the doc had a bent ear about her driving to Loganville to the gym. He recommended walking (Albeit Brisk Walk) every day. At the moment we’re thinking of walking in the evenings after 6. She’s working cleaning the home this morning and the humidity is over 80%. It’s been low humidity about 6PM and under 80 degrees in the evenings. That was quite comfortable when I was mowing the lawn yesterday. It also allowed me to open the garage door and let that cool down a bit yesterday.

Hello 17Meter Band, my radio tuned up on it today!

Thursday 38/42KWH

I didn’t sleep too bad last night, ResMed only said that the mask leaked a little too much. That also means that the hotdog and Chili I ate last night wasn’t good for my therapy. Coffee arrived and we’re partaking in the brew. The garage dehumidifier hasn’t run in three days. It turns out that the garage was so warm the water was evaporating from the storage bucket under the unit. (I wondered why it was short cycling.) We’re now 4 weeks without a shooting, hopefully that’s behind us. (I think the high power IR lights changed their tune!) The last two shootings (4 weeks ago) were only 1`0 days apart. We’re both in good spirits today, need to get groceries and schedule an MRI today.

Grocery shopping went well, $230 at Wally World with no meat. Cereal boxes are a hoot, same height just a LOT thinner. (The Oz number keeps dropping.) We buy orange juice and didn’t recognize the container. It’s about 2/3 the size of the previous 52 Oz containers at 46 Oz, the price per Oz today was the same. (Any bets it won’t stay that way.) Off to lunch with a couple of friends.

Lunch was terrific, we had a good time and discussed some important things that are brewing. Need to buckle down and work on this power point, as he wrote on his slides it’s been 10 months since he got this assignment and asked me to help. I have been looking at this as something I have knowledge and putting a couple slides together didn’t seem that difficult.

We are having another great day together…

Friday 48/42KWH

Didn’t sleep much last night, I am in enough pain to keep me from falling asleep. I took two Tylenol when I took my medicine at 9PM and it hasn’t helped enough to get some rest. I’ve tried a small glass of alcohol, a bowl of cereal, a tall glass of water, a cup of coffee to no avail. It’s 4AM and I finally remembered that when I have an overall pain that is mostly just under my skin to take a nice hot bath. A shower has not been an effective remedy for this pain. I managed to get several hours of sleep after my quick soak. I still have some overall pain, but I’ll have to deal with it.

It is a little light on the usage hours, but the events per hour is great.

Checked-in with the Waterway Net, I heard of them clearly and others not so much. I took a quick nap and started making lunch. The beef stew meat had two morsels that was severely brown. But the rest didn’t smell or have any unusual properties. I made the stew, and it turned out pretty well EXCEPT, the meat didn’t taste normal. So, we both decided to toss the entire meal for safety. (Neither one is sick at 8PM.)

Took another good nap and thawed our battery powered refrigerator in the living room. Then I mowed 1/3 of the back yard and cleaned the undercarriage of the mower. I reached into a pile of grass to remove a stake that was holding my antenna. My arm didn’t like the grass touching it and show an allergic reaction.

We were given a charge to change our diet to a Mediterrian diet by Emory Brain Health. We are both a little rounder than we should be which lends us to Diabetes II. I am thinking Farmer’s Market?

We had another good day today.

Saturday 50/42KWH

It’s 7:30, I’ve turned on the coffee pot and my HF radio. I cannot hear the Net Control station, but I can hear both the North and South relay stations. I did manage to get checked in on the Waterway Net this morning. I need to stay focused and not let the news distract me today. (Although that’s going to be tough with the DNC next week.)

Cooling a batch of boiled eggs

Had two boiled eggs and sausage for breakfast this morning. We have a TON of things we should be doing, but what we’re attracted to is the drama with the election. Talked with Mom, she doesn’t have the UPS units I sent there being used at all. They’re going to put the UPS units on the TV and the Dish network Hopper. They are also putting power switching boxes between her UPS units and the wall for the solar converter.

Emotionally, I am angry about Amazon being able to sell all these fake/counterfeit products without any way to protect the seniors that are purchasing them. (We’ve enjoyed companies like Sears and their Sears Roebuck and catalog that had reliable products.)

Dinner is grandma’s chili with sweet potatoes, I’m going back down for another nap. Dinner was pretty good, we added brown sugar and cinnamon to the sweet potatoes. Worked on the church website for a bit after the administrator gave me a link to a training video. Looks easy, we’ll see when I actually link one of the sermons.

Storms are headed our way, maybe by 8PM, some of them look pretty heavy but when the sun goes down, they fizzle out pretty quickly.

Rained really hard for 15 minutes or so, then let up completely.

Turned on the air conditioner, it has some catching up to do.

Watched Good Witch on the Hallmark Mystery Channel, bedtime.

We had a good day today.

Sunday 39/42KWH (Day/Average Desire = 35)

We both got up around 3AM and had a bowl of cereal with a cup of coffee before going back to bed. Got back up around 7:30 and cranked up my HF radio. She provided my morning cup of coffee while I checked in with the guys on Waterway Net. N4JQQ wanted a south relay, but I just cannot hear 80% of the stations checking in on the net with all the electrical noise of our home. (My biggest noise maker is the Variable Speed Air Conditioner.) Then All of the home automation takes a toll on my receive. Eventually I’ll put some filters on the unit, I have other priorities for now.

Church service went well, we were a little late after having gone back to get her sweater. (It was awfully warm there, she didn’t end up needing it.) We went to Longhorn’s for lunch and skipped the big international dinner at church.

3 shots were fired from what appears to be somewhere behind the house at 6PM today. They were not really far away, but they didn’t sound like they were in our back yard either. I had turned off the camera recordings during the day since we’d never had a shooting during the day except in 2019. I turned the recording of audio back on for 24/7, I had just turned it off last week thinking this was all behind us. I checked all three of the high-resolution cameras, but without audio I couldn’t really associate a car with the sound. The DVR is also really good at keeping all the audio/video synched to the event. (There’s no getting rid of it now.) Walked the street, no brass on the ground.

9PM, done with the cameras, but I’ve been working it for three hours. Worked on the church website for an hour linking sermons to the WordPress.

My box on top “LIFETIME”, is missing. This is a picture from Lowes dock.

Monday 46 KWH

Mom had a few flickers, but otherwise no outage.

Windy is a good website for wind directions.

No letters from our sponsored children. She’s off to the gym stopping by Kroger and getting a bag of M+Ms for the sour taste in her mouth.

Hurricane Debby, made landfall in north Florida as CAT1.

I pulled the sensor on the blue attic fan out and wrapped the wires around the connector pins to give it a good solid connection. (That sensor has been erratic since I installed it weeks ago.) The purpose of the sensor was to log the air temperature either entering or leaving the attic.

It seems to be working all day today, but I’ll keep an eye on it..

Got a frantic call from the wife, she said that the keys are locked in the trunk. She was in the car so access to the trunk is pretty easy through the back seat. It took 20 minutes and two pictures for her to unlock the seat. The keys were not in the trunk or her purse that was in the trunk. I finally asked her to look on the top of the car and that’s where she had laid them. I totally forgot to put the clothes in the dryer because I got a phone call from a frantic wife just after the washer finished.

I did manage to pull a power wire from the garage into the attic. There are four possibilities for that wire, and I could really use one more. I also put the temp sensor back underneath the large vent that pulls outside air into the attic. That gives me the temperature of the air from the roof. I do have an issue where the air arriving is warmer and more humid because of the location of that vent.

I guess we’re back to Longhorn today. We desperately need to have meals that I can prepare on hand for these crazy days which are becoming more numerous. (And costly) I need a Margarita and we’ve been to Longhorn’s almost every other day since we got groceries last Tuesday.

Another almost disaster, we could not find my wallet anywhere. In desperation we called Longhorn to see if they had it. The manager said the cleaning crew found my wallet on the floor under the bar stools this morning. (18 hours after we left on Sunday.) The $100 was taken out of it, but everything else seems to be ok including my military ID. I checked the credit cards when I got home, and they didn’t have any extra charges on them. (I’ll keep an eye on it for a few days since the have all the key information on the card and my D License.)

Mowed the lawn, well at least part of it. I mow about a third of the back yard at a time. It is a comfortable amount of work, and the lawn mower doesn’t get clogged up to where it won’t cut the grass.

I checked in on the GARS 2M repeater net at 19:30 tonight, I often miss this net on Mondays. We watched our evening movie on the Hallmark Channel and went to bed.

Tuesday 40/313KWH

Busy day today, need to get a shower in and then lay down plans for the day.

Longhorn for lunch, we left at 12:15 and arrived Emory about 10 minutes early. Check-in was all done online so we’re in the waiting room already. After like 8 months of waiting for this appointment all they did was a 40-minute interview, no diagnostic testing was done today.

Back home, our home is a perfect temperature!

We might have found a solution tonight for Sundays. We either have to make the meal on Saturday OR have it in a Crock Pot waiting on us when we get home from Church. The crock pot idea is not perfect either since 8AM to 12:30 is only a little over four hours. But what we have done in the past is to bring the dinner up to temperature in a stove top Dutch oven and then transfer it to the Crock Pot before we leave for church. I also thought we might try the Insta-Pot, but that’s a little riskier for a fire at 800Watts. The stove top is all glass and is covered by a nonflammable hood if something failed.

Monday, Tuesday and Friday we are busy and there’s no time to have a difficult meal preparation on those three days. There’s a little more time but she doesn’t get home from the gym until 11:40. She needs to spend 15 minutes in the shower and getting dressed afterwards. (Noon is when we’re supposed to be eating every day driven by her Invisalign braces and her low sugar.) We tried pushing the gym earlier/later but there are significant issues traveling or at the gym during those times. We know she will be low sugar during her drive home, so she carries M+Ms to snack on.

Well, we’re headed to Wally World tomorrow morning to get groceries since we didn’t do it today. We have house church tonight at 6:15PM until 9PM.

Wednesday 38/312KWH

Off to UPS to drop off some returns then Longhorn for lunch and finally Wally World for Groceries. We had a good heart to heart conversation this morning about shuffling the responsibilities and setting a time (now 13:00) to have a daily meeting to fill out the daytime together. ❤ NAP after we put the perishables away after we get home. We have a reading assignment for tonight’s lesson that will take a bit of time. We have to leave for house church at 5:30PM so we’re a bit crowded this afternoon.

We got a call from Emory while we were at Longhorn which left a message about getting her test results and next steps. Now we’re playing phone tag… (We have call screening trying to defend against all these calls about buying our home.) The number that called and the number they gave us to call back are both entered into her phone. (So it should ring.) Not taking any chances we’ve temporarily turned off call screening. We’re both pretty tired, shower and a nap are the plan of the hour.

Emory called back on the house phone. She agreed to meet in person next Tuesday to discuss the test and next steps at Emory. We’ll have to rearrange our day since the time conflicts with our meal schedule. We’ll turn the call screening back on her cell phone.

We got a call from Zach with Georgia Home Buyers and her phone rang just once even with call screening off! Sounds like the phone companies are taking our complaints and stopping the thousands of Robo/Telemarketing calls in real time. Zach’s call was labeled as a home buying SCAM. There was an article on Google Foo that said one company has to pay $40M for their robo calls.

Services tonight went well, we had Zaxby’s salads for dinner and then came home about 9PM. My cell phone went completely dead taking notes. Boo.

Made a TON of FT8 contacts on my HF radio tonight, they were calling me for the QSO.

Thursday 40/296KWH

Checked-In on the Waterway net, my throat got stuck and I couldn’t say my suffix very fast. The NCC dramatized my error by repeating it LOL. We both got dressed and headed out to Wally World for Groceries.

We went to Longhorn for lunch for the fourth time this week and we’ve been in good spirits since. Went to get groceries at Wally World after we left Longhorn’s and then unloaded the car at home to put them away.

We took a good long nap and we need to get a plan together for tomorrow. We need to do a meat inventory so we can choose the one that expires first. She started removing items we still had in the refrigerator without confirming the removal with me. She then said that we didn’t have any ham steaks which we had two of them. I had to abandon doing the inventory with her.

I did the inventory and finished posting the inventory on the cupboard.

We had to spend about 30 minutes juggling these Post-It Notes to determine our meal schedule. The gym on Friday and the Sunday service means those meals have to be simple to make. (It was considerably easier to move these notes around than keep erasing the meal off a calendar.)

Her 2nd Doctor is insisting that she complete a “Swab” saliva test, or he will not prescribe any more drugs. We’ve sent a message back that we’d like to have it done by a professional lab. (We’ve had to submit to drug tests most of our lives using these labs.) It also prevents the doctor from using the swab for DNA sample. (All the tests will be identified on the order to the lab.)

The plan for tomorrow is to include a bottle of “Boost” after her workout and before her drive home.

To keep the Boost cool, the plan is to put it in an insulated mug with a little bit of ice. It only has to last a couple hours.

Friday 47/293KWH

Slept in this morning, checked-in on the WW net after the position report section of the net. (There’s not much time left after 8:30.) Had to move the neighbor’s garbage cans, they have two of them and they cannot be side by side. She thought that she needed gas today and when we checked that decision, she had 84 miles of gas to go 18 miles to the gym. Lunch today is Pork Chops with carrots, celery and potatoes. All three of them need a little preparation in advance.

I cut up the vegetables for the pork chop meal today.

We’re getting a letter from the IRS. I checked the PO box, and it wasn’t there yet. It almost has to be from the Estate. I’ve been trying to collect their refund check for several years. Patricia filed “Their” income tax properly the year my dad passed in 2018. I don’t know why she didn’t get/cash the refund. (It likely would have required Fred’s signature.) She did not put the check in the 2018 tax folder, which I’ve misplaced somewhere. We got letters in 2020 from the IRS to my brother, but I had no authority to represent Fred even after I was named. Michael did not request the refund so it’s a mystery how they got his name. The instruction from the IRS says to file two forms to get their refund. (If they’ve both been deceased, Fred’s form was ambiguous, and I had to ask the IRS for advice.)

I am sort of waiting until she gets home before taking any action today. I have quite a pile of Electonics that need to be recycled. I’ve copied three Hard Drives to a flash drive, and I need to recycle those too.

Upgraded my Two Raspberry Pi desktops now that I’ve moved all the files from the hard drives. (I used them to prevent getting a virus from these old hard drives.)

She’s home, shower then make dinner. The IRS letter was not in the PO box when she picked up the mail this morning. It is odd that the image did not have the address label on it.

Our electric bill was 1291 for July, that’s 322KWH/Week. Raised our house temperature by one-degree last week. 9 Aug our consumption dropped to 251KWH last 7 days, 324KWH 14 Days, 314KWH 21 Days, 293KWH 28 Days. It seems to have knocked off 50KWH/Week off our bill which is about $20 / month. I’ve also taken aim at the garage Dehumidifier.

The garage Dehumidifier was set to 55% from 10PM to 8AM and ran every 10 minutes without making a major impact on the garage humidity after an hour or so. The self-contained water evaporates from the bucket at 80 degrees and causes it to run more often than necessary. I changed the timer to be three one-hour segments 10-11PM, 2-3 AM, 7-8AM and see how that goes.

The dehumidifier does not appear to have run at all after the changes. That will save a significant amount of money.

In Vegas we learned to embellish the house’s mass to be comfortable and save energy. The red arrows are the thermostat raising the temperature by ONE degree reducing the load on the grid. The blue arrows are lowering the temperature by one degree pulling the heat back out of the home after the heat of the day. The air conditioner can coast for about an hour with each degree increase, and it takes about 40 minutes to pull the heat out of the home for every one-degree change.

The cold air in the evenings, cool the rooms we’re occupying significantly.

We wrote two letters to our sponsored children today, time to take a break and watch a little TV. After I got dressed I mowed 1/3 of the back yard that hadn’t been mowed in weeks. (Impossible to mow it with an electric mower when it is wet.)

Saturday 39/42KWH

Tuned into the Water Way Net and I can’t hear anyone. Grabbed some clothes and headed to the post office to get the IRS letter. All it said was that they need time to process the previous request. I put the letter with all the others in the estate travel folder when I got home.

Had two hard boiled eggs and breakfast sausage for breakfast. No letters on Child Fund International from our sponsored children. Checked our bank statements, there’s no malfeasance on either of our accounts from the loss of my wallet.

We’ve both picked up a cough since I changed the air filter to a lower grade. I guess that there’s enough evidence to purchase good air filters from now on. Lowes had a washable MERV 10 filter, but it had to be ordered. (It’ll be here next Friday.)

Bidenomics 101, restaurants are making ends meet by raising their drink prices to the ceiling. A fountain drink at Longhorns is $3.39 for a 12 Oz glass full of ice, that’s maybe ok since they keep refilling it. But charging $10 for a shot of Burbon and then charge another $3.39 for a coke to go with it is a bit over the top.

We took a good long nap and then worked on my presentation for our midweek service most of the afternoon.

Hopefully we’ve seen the last of the nighttime shootings on our street. The last shooting fired only one shot, and the thought is that they may have seen the high-powered IR security lights on the front of our home for the first time.

The IR lights show up pretty good on a live video.

Even better if you take a still picture.

The current thought is that they were making a video of these shootings thinking that no one would see them. They may have seen the security lights and stopped shooting video. The investigators noticed the lights and said that they looked like high power lights. I told them opened them up and cut their power in half. I don’t think they believed me. They are correct if you compare them to the self-contained lights in the cameras that have maybe half a dozen LEDs.

This picture clearly shows the whole front lawn lit up at night like its daytime. Pointing the lights was counter intuitive, the left light faces right of center and the right light faces left of center.

Sunday 41/42KWH

I forgot to take my medicine yesterday, my stomach is unhappy.

Our next appointment at Emory Brain Health is Tuesday, we will learn the results of the interview/testing that was done last week. She was asked to put numbers on a clock face and that request could not be completed by herself. She cannot drive on highways, nor can she drive at night with her cataracts. We always drive to where she needs to go beforehand, or I drive her to new places even if they are close by. We’ve started sharing somewhat complicated decision making like groceries/meals etc.

Planning meals is much easier with Post-It Notes

Got onto Waterway this morning, I messed up but Steve was generous. Our car policy paid out at over $2000 premium every 6 months. I may have to look at that since we’re not driving to work anymore, and they are “Lesure” vehicles. Fixed the timer in the garage dehumidifier, apparently, I pushed the “Random” button.

I’ve figured out a way to show the set temperature and the actual temp.

Air conditioner runs a lot more than I thought it would.

We went to church service and that went well. We pulled out dinner out of the Crock Pot when we got home, it turned out pretty good. We took a huge nap and then my stomach got really upset. When I looked at the timer on the pill bottle it said 40 hours, which means I didn’t take them yesterday. The one pill that reminds me is the Omeprazole for my Gerd, the acid in my stomach starts getting intolerable in the afternoon if I forgot it. Looks like juice and crackers are the snack of the day until my stomach settles down.

It’s HOT outside today!

Washed eight CPAP hoses today, that will get us through the month.

I found out the waterproof outdoor lights I bought are NOT waterproof! The seals are missing from the fixture.

Monday

We’re up intermittently slept which has been usual since all the shootings during the early morning hours. It’s been 10 days since the last shooting so we’re about due for another one. The propagation sounds about normal on my HF radio. We got a couple of very sweet letters from our sponsored children in the Philippines. The three families are doing pretty well with our support. Life has been tough for a lot of them since COVID devastated their livelihoods. Inflation has also taken a toll on their ability to buy food for their families. It costs about $1.33/day/person for food at the poverty level which is MUCH cheaper than we’re paying at Wally World. They routinely have tropical weather providing heavy rain that floods their streets and destroys their crops.

We spent the latter part of the morning discussing her appointment with Emory next Tuesday. We could not agree on the phone number she dialed even though her phone had a record of the phone call.

The battery in the Blue Focus was down to 12V. I hooked it back up to the four small solar panels on the fence to give it a bit of a recharge. We’re all ready to get groceries tomorrow morning.

Tuesday (Grocery Day)

It’s overcast and about 71 degrees, heavy storms tonight. Radio is warmed up listening for Uncle Paul to chime in. We went to Wally World at 9:30 to get groceries, that went pretty fast as our grocery list has gotten smaller. The number of items has been greatly reduced by simplifying our meals down to Meat and Potatoes. We were home and ready to dart out to the bank at 10:20. We were well on our way to Longhorn by 10:30. We arrived 14 minutes early and sat in our car until they opened. Lunch was terrific, Hanna was very entertaining. They completely ran out of CO2 yesterday, so no soft drinks. I had to tell the manager to put a sign on the door! (It’s unfair that we are seated and then find out the most ordered drinks are unavailable.) We were VERY tired on our way home and we didn’t get back up from our nap until after 3:30. We filled out the online forms for her appointment next week and then watched some Hallmark films. She normally doesn’t like to watch movies again, but now she can’t remember watching them, so we enjoy watching them for the 2nd or third time. A HUGE storm blew over us about 8:30, the wind was truly remarkable. It didn’t amount to much rain or lightning, but boy you’d thought there was a tornado with all the wind.

Checked on the Focus battery, it was 12.4V which is more than 80% charged using the solar panels on the fence. I moved the modified IR circuit board from the black to the white casing to be used on my front lawn.

I’ll modify this circuit board sometime this week to cut the output power which significantly lengthens the life of the IR LEDs.

Slept reasonably well.

Wednesday

Got out of bed about 8AM and checked in with Waterway while sipping coffee. I had two hard boiled eggs for breakfast and part of a ham steak. The big project this morning is to make a dry run to Emory Brain Center. I asked her to bring the page I printed out that had the appointment and the address of the doctor we’re going to see next week. After we were both in the car, I realized that she had the green referral sheet from the doctor. (No address on it.) We went back into the house looking for the sheet. I searched all the rooms and when I resorted to looking in her purse I found it I found it in a folder UNDER her purse. (She had actually set her purse back onto the manilla folder with the page in it without realizing that’s what we were frantically looking for.) The trip to Emory was a bit long only because GMaps was routing us through the back roads back to I-85. We ended up on Briar-Cliff road and it was only two turns to get to the building we needed. We verified the check-in desk and decided to go to Longhorn for lunch because it had gotten so late.

Lunch went well, they got their shipment of CO2 and had soft drinks this morning. We were rather stuffed when we headed home for a nap. We tossed the tenderloin we were going to eat in the freezer to eat later. We got off a little early to our midweek church service to pick up three Cobb Salads at Zaxby’s. Church went well and we tuned in Hallmark when we got back home until we got sleepy.

Thursday

Up sipping coffee and listening to my HF radio this morning. She made a second pot of coffee since I drank most of the coffee in the thermos. Eggs and breakfast sausage again today with a glass of Orange Juice. I did manage to modify the InfraRed Illuminator to cut its power in half like I’ve done to all the others. (Half is Plenty with Starlight Cameras)

My head is getting cloudy, I need a nap to clear my head and get organized. We tossed the frozen turkey because the package was damaged and leaking. (We have no idea if bacteria got into the package.) I wanted to set an alarm for the cars coming out of Silvercreek. But the area is too small from the house cameras.

Had a good long nap but my body was hurting all over. My skin just didn’t feel very good and that makes me irritable. I ended up taking a bath and another nap before I felt better.

One thing we learned doing the Pahrump estate was to put all paperwork to be discarded into a box, not the garbage can. That way if we’re needing something we may have accidently discarded, we can still get to it. Eventually, (usually months later) we take our time and pick through the box to make sure everything is actually trash. (Most times there is something in that box that is either PII to be shredded or it’s something we simply should not have discarded.)

We watched Hallmark while I sorted through our discard box and then headed to bed about 10PM.

I need to replace the seal under the garage door, the dehumidifier can’t keep up.

Friday

Woke up a little early so I got onto 20M FT8 for a little while. I heard uncle Paul on the radio this morning! It was a blast, he said “Hello Mark” during his check-in, and I said “Hello Paul” LOL.

My Electric usage $160 doesn’t seem to change much with the outside temperature.

She’s off to the gym and I choked down three eggs and breakfast sausages. No letters from the sponsored children this morning. I need to buy a seal for my garage door today. Mom called, she knows about the Tropical Ridge headed her way. It shouldn’t get to be a bad hurricane unless it turns 180 in the Gulf back to Florida.

I steamed frozen vegetables and potatoes even though the potatoes had green skins. We store the potatoes on the floor in a cardboard box, she’s been opening the shades for much longer periods of time and they are going bad. We need to keep track of them and move them into a much darker area of the home. *Which is my cave.

When she got back from the gym she said she had some M+M’s on the way there. I mentioned that the M+M’s were for when she has the sour taste in her mouth. (Usually on her way back) She responded with she did have a sour taste on the way back. I waved off the conversation and she called me on it saying she wanted to hear what I had to say. I repeated that the M+M’s were for her sour taste which is low sugar. She repeated she didn’t eat them on the way back. Arg… We couldn’t agree on what we were talking about and now we’re at odds about these stupid M+M’s.

We went to THD and picked up the seal for the bottom of the garage door, but it was too hot to replace it tonight. We picked up two bottles of Margretta with alcohol and that made both of us happy. It was supposed to storm at 7PM, but that was a bust for the 2nd day in a row. Watched the original JAWS movie, it was very entertaining.

The tropical wave will become a tropical storm by tomorrow and run the west coast of Florida before turning East toward Savannah. It doesn’t sound like it will have much impact above Macon this weekend.

I had two 4oz glasses of Whiskey, so I am drinking plenty of water to flush my system tonight. No changes in Camera or lighting for the last couple days. The $800 Trane thermostat failed to wake up twice now, normally you touch the screen and it lights up. The thermostat is actually working and if you use a flashlight, you can barely see the screen. I turned off the screen saver so it will always be illuminated from now on.

Stock Market made a “Correction” on Friday

Saturday

I am up, a bit sleepy with sleep in my eyes this morning.

40M Band is horrible this morning

Mom is getting her first “Named” storm this weekend.

I just can’t get a good head of steam this morning, I laid down for a little while and felt much better. The seal under the garage door has been falling off the door for years, now it’s a problem because the dehumidifier can’t catch up. I also found out that the pully bearing is wore out and is about to fall off the bracket.

It still ran all night long keeping it at 60% and the humidity climbs up when it stops. That may change when the moisture gets pulled out of the garage contents. Funny story I saw a water bug (Big Roach) trying to get under the door for water, not any more buddy!

The wide piece is the new one, the rest is what was left of the old seal.

We had ham for dinner with veggies and leftover mashed potatoes. We took a good nap and then I took a bath to calm my skin. I worked on one of the sensors in the attic that is having issues for a little while until we sat down and watched Hallmark.

Sunday 307KWH/1228KWH

Tuned into the Waterway net while I checked on Tropical Storm that’s headed for mom. The storm is tracking further west than expected and gaining strength, she could get 50MPH winds by Monday. I checked into the net and stomped on someone else I couldn’t hear. I think I’ll cut my power back while announcing my call sign and then go back to full power when NCC calls on me. The propagation was much better today, and they will crank up the Hurricane Net by tomorrow.

Debby has GROWN considerably in the last two days.

We both took showers to get ready for church this morning. We’ve got about an hour before we have to leave. No letters from our sponsored children and the garage humidity seems to be better with the new door seal. (I should have replaced it long ago.) I staggered the interrogation of the four sensors from my cave in hopes of helping the struggling sensor. It seems likely that the issue is the long wire to that sensor. (It’s at the end of the cable.) Occasionally all three sensors will align and knock out each other’s readings, but that can’t be avoided.

We took the chicken legs out of the freezer Thursday or Friday, but we didn’t document when we did it. Nor did we put a post-it notes on the cupboard to enable us to plan meals. Yesterday she made Ham, but we really should have eaten the chicken yesterday and had ham today. (Sunday’s meals have to be simple and ham is a simple meal.) We’re also supposed to do an inventory EVERY day because we keep tossing food that has been around too long. She’s supposed to document things, but we’ve been totally unsuccessful on keeping up with it. For my part I’ll have to forgo the radio for a while and spend more time with her in the mornings.

We ended up going to Longhorn for lunch since there’s no time to figure out dinner. The clothes in the dryer were still damp after being “Air” dried, so we’ve set them to heated dry.

The Tropical Storm is gaining strength and mom is under it. My sister has sold the backup power system I had built for them. Now they have one solar generator that has 1/4th of the capacity of the golf cart batteries. We’ll have to see how this plays out. They have 600 watts of solar, but that’s only useful if the sun is shining. I have not heard what they did with the 5KW generator I gave mom.

Monday 81 Degrees

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night, I finally laid down about 3:30. My feet are being obnoxious and so is my bacterial infection. Sometime yesterday I had too many calories and not enough exercise. (Even though I went to storage and to church yesterday.) I did have fun on the radio last night, I talked to Hawaii and the West coast on my radio using only 2 Watts of electricity. (A flashlight’s worth.)

No eggs were ready, so I had to make them.

I tossed the eggs that our neighbor brought and left outside overnight. They were 75 degrees when I brought them in and outside on the porch for more than 12 hours.

I put them in a bowl of cold water to cool them.

I also cut up a couple of potatoes and I’ll start boiling them when she leaves the gym for home.

The potatoes got ready to be smashed a bit quicker than I had planned.

I put them in an insulated bowl for later.

Insta Pot is ready to steam the frozen vegetables, I don’t really know where we got that steamer insert. I turned it off after the water started boiling.

I finally put the groceries away that were in the middle of the living room. They’ve been there for two weeks.

We should not have purchased some things that we already had plenty of and now the pantry if overflowing.

She worked on her meals/grocery shopping list for a couple of hours.

I brought up why are was spending all this time on making a complicated meal. All we really need is a piece of meat, vegetable and some kind of starch. (Rice / Potato) We made a pork tenderloin on Friday that we ate on Saturday and today. We just added steamed veggies with a potato, and it was a great meal today. She bought this “Dump” meal recipe book and was all excited to use it today. The problem with us being seniors is that we don’t want to go back 30 years and use Campbell soups for a base and 5 other ingredients we don’t need. We ended up with she can test meals on Thursdays. All of the other days are complicated enough as it is with Gym and Church activities.

Tonight, she has two phone calls so we’re eating the last of the pork tenderloin as shredded pork on bread with a little BBQ sauce.

Tuesday

Coffee without sugar this morning, I have got to get serious about my sugar intake. My body is telling me that it is having trouble regulating my blood sugar levels. We had made plans yesterday to accommodate a Zoom meeting for the women at 11:30 by getting groceries earlier. We got up and were out the door by 8:30 on our way to Wally World. We had gotten so much extra over the last two trips that this one was pretty lightweight. We also greatly simplified our meals/shopping, so we didn’t need a lot of condiments. We were home with the groceries put away by 9:30 today!

I found out today there is an advertising Identifier on all Cell phones and it is used to invade our privacy. Originally the trackers used the permanent cellphone IMEI. Several years ago, they were forced to use a new “Ad identifier” that could be changed by the user. The ID on our Cell phones CAN be changed or deleted. How to Disable Ad ID Tracking on iOS and Android, and Why You Should Do It Now | Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org)

Had a great meal at Longhorn, I brought a bottle of coke and a couple glasses. I compared it to the fountain coke they brought me without ice. (Tried not to dilute it.)

I still think theirs (Left) is lighter than the coke from the bottle. When I tried diluting it until they were the same color, I over did it. (It had an obvious taste difference even though I thought they were the same color.)

I asked her what the plan was for dinner tomorrow and she said some kind of steak that we did not buy this morning. We have a turkey breast and two packages of chicken in the freezer. We do have two ham steaks, chicken thighs and a package of ground beef in the fridge to make dinner with tomorrow. The decision is to make turkey black bean chili tomorrow, that’s a large meal that will last two days.

Wednesday

Woke up and coffee was waiting for me. Got onto the radio and checked the weather first thing this morning. We got into a long discussion about closing my cave door that took hours. It evolved into a wider discussion about respectful communication that evolved into another discussion about the Daytimer documentation. In the end it was decided that she document her actions on a plain legal pad, and I’ll move it into the Daytimer.

Two inspectors came from Gwinnett County came by. They parked in our neighbor’s driveway and walked the long way around to our front door. Our new doorbell went off any we just looked at each other like, “who’s at our door?” I gave them a run down on all the shootings that have happened on our street since September. They asked for the report numbers which I provided the ones that I have.

We had Turkey Chili for Lunch and we’re going to a friend’s house for dinner before we attend our midweek service. I didn’t get a link from the two inspectors, so I won’t have to upload any video to them. We watched the president’s address to the nation about him pulling out of the race for 2024. I didn’t find anything more about Kamala Harris. It’s a little unsettling about Kamala Harris, she could ride the wave of having a president that is a woman of color for the first time.

I erased the recordings on the DVR and set the DVR to record from Midnight to 6AM so that I am not unnecessarily recording people’s voices during the day. The camera with a microphone for the front yard is on the front porch. The microphone for the camera on the VAN camera has died, I am not sure where the opening for the microphone actually is.

Thursday

The coffee was made already, she poured a cup while I checked the weather and got onto my HAM radio net. I moved her work record items into the Daytimer and filled out a few things in her Action List. She’s headed to Kroger to get today’s lunch which she forgot to add to the grocery list on Tuesday. She also got some items we’ll need for the potato bar on Sunday for House Church. She took out the garbage can when she got home. Need to get some vittles down my neck, but there’s no eggs made in the fridge. Well, that’s an easy fix.

Effortless Egg cooker

Cleaned off the kitchen table, it is the first thing to get messy.

We took about a half hour nap then started dinner.

I started the rice in the Panda Rice maker and she’s working on the stove making our lunch. The sirloin steak was overcooked and tough as leather and there was no sauce, just the oil that it was cooked in. She loaded my plate with the oil from the frying pan over my bed of rice, ewe! I give her first try at a dump dinner as awful.

Time for another nap, eventually I’ll be able to sleep at night again…

Salad time, we have to be on our way to the Sr Home by 5:30 for Bingo.

Friday

Up and sipping my coffee while getting organized. She has a dental appt which is in the air since Dr. Glass called her a while ago and said they didn’t have a hygienist. I personally don’t think she actually has an appointment today. But 2PM is also problematic on a Gym day that she arrives home at 11:30 and takes a shower right after. That makes it 12 Noon before she can take a nap or start dinner. She wants to make chicken thighs, but the Stir Fry dinner she made yesterday would have been a much better fit. It’ll take 20 minutes to warm the oven and another 20-30 to cook the chicken thighs. It’s also about 30 minutes for either the potatoes or frozen veggies.

Finally got ahold of the phone service, she does NOT have a dental appointment today. That opens the door to have dinner a little late, but we really should NOT be cooking in the OVEN on Gym days.

Ended up going to Longhorn for Lunch and we saw JJ who was my server with the coke debacle. She seemed pretty upset at my review when we first got there. I told her that it had nothing to do with her performance and that seemed to soften her just a little. She offered that the regular Coke was the same and asked if I wanted a different product this time around. I opted to diet coke this time and that was fine. Dinner was perfect as always, I left her a pretty large tip on $60 meal.

We came home and took a pretty hearty nap afterwards. I worked on cleaning up the den alongside my chair for about four hours. (With all the projects trying to get the new cameras up and running it was a bit of a mess.) I have five piles of tubs with the piece parts of my home automation in my cave. It will be a couple days putting the loose pieces back into the proper tub.

Saturday

I took a quick nap until Uncle called me and brought me up to speed on his arm.

Well, it’s 10AM and no one of the five people I’ve sent messages to about the Women’s retreat has responded. Found out that I miss read the text message and we’re not going across town today. We had one of those campaigns this morning with her where it takes an hour to figure out how we got here with our meals. We ate the ground Turkey on Wednesday because we forgot to buy BBQ sauce on Tuesday at Wally World. The planned meal for Thursday was strip steak that we also forgot to purchase. She went to the store to buy the steak and the BBQ sauce on Thursday. She overcooked the steak and it was tough as leather and there was no gravy just the oil it was cooked in.

Friday was another disaster with the chicken thighs that were expiring on Friday but there’s no time to cook a dinner and make an oven meal on Gym days. WE REALLY SHOULD HAVE COOKED THEM ON FRIDAY. We had grandma’s chili today leaving the chicken thighs to sit one more day past it’s eat/freeze date. Even Grandma’s chili was missing a can of tomato soup, it wasn’t much of a chili without chili powder or tomato sauce.

What we’ve come up with is to put color-coded Post-it notes on the cupboard door with the meat due dates on it.

Spent most of the evening preparing for the church service tomorrow, it’s going to be a crowd. We blew out the speaker last month and the new speaker is optical or USB which can’t be run 40′ to the television. There’s a CW contest that’s taking up all of the 40M FT4 frequencies.

Time to get caught up on the news and head to bed.

Sunday 320KWH/1280KWH

Busy day today, we have to be on our way by 9:30 AM to arrive before 10AM. We had coffee and both of us took a shower before getting dressed. I packed the car with all the stuff we’ll need, and we left on time. The equipment worked great, but I was dripping in sweat after the service was over. We got back home, and I took a quick shower then a nap.

We had leftover turkey chili for supper and then debated for two hours about her possible appointment with Emory. In the end, the doctor gave her a sheet of paper with Emory contact information. (Nothing about an appointment is on the sheet.) I am assuming a follow-up appointment for the 6th of August was made with the doctor, which she remembers as THE appointment with Emory. (But we don’t have a time or a place, just a date.) I was shocked that we’ve gone this long without chasing this down. (And I cannot do it.)

I got another IR Illuminator today; I need to modify its power before mounting it.

Speaking about long drawn out productions, my parents tax return for 2018 is still not resolved. The issue is that it was during COVID19 and she didn’t get the return since she was in the hospital.

Monday

I am up sipping coffee and trying to get organized.

Melania has always been there for her husband, and do it with class I might add.

There are now six temp sensors in the attic to figure out the flow of the air.

What I really need to build is an anemometer that I can measure the air flowing past it, even better would be to know which direction the air is flowing. A typical fan motor has too much drag to measure a gentle flow of air.

Added the third Illuminator, I am trying to not have one source IR.
(There are five of them if you count the one on the bumper.)

I moved the West illuminator into the trees to provide more coverage.

Worked on the weeds/vines on my fence again today. I left the bush in the middle until the weed killer has a chance to prevent it from growing back.

Replaced the hard drive in the Reolink DVR, but it’s not compatible with the firmware as far as the S.M.A.R.T. feature. I kept the old hard drive and will seek to find a compatible replacement in the coming days. With four cameras that need the DVR I have to keep it around for a little while.

This is what happens when the attic fans fail to run. (136 Degrees)

The three fans made a significant change to the attic temperature.

This is what the normal temperatures look like.

Checked all the illuminators before heading to bed.

Tuesday

I am up and on my HF radio, the band propagation is better today than yesterday. Coffee is really tasty this morning. The temperature is only going to get up to 93 today. We went over the grocery list and headed to Wally World around 9AM.

I tried using three tubs again today, need to work on it.

Longhorn for lunch today, it was perfect. I had parmesan chicken and she had shrimp with a lunch strawberry salad. Someone paid for our drinks today!

We took an hour nap after we got home, and I started working on improving my attic monitoring. The heart of sensing the temperatures are these inexpensive digital temp sensors.

These are DHT22 temp sensors (Actually an AM2302 sensor with a pullup resistor.), they have a real problem with mass slowing down their response time. Inside the white AM2302 enclosure is a small circuit board with the sensor on the underside. I decided to try and attach foil (large surface area & Low Mass) to the enclosure to improve the response time. (So far, So good) I can fold the foil to improve the conductivity. I also don’t have a clue about the size of the foil.

Time to move the car into place for the evening.

Here’s the light that allows me to see into the intersection at night.

It does a good job with only 2W of light.

Wednesday

I decided to abandon the NODEMCU in the attic, it’s too remote to administer.

I am up with my cup of coffee, and I did manage to check-in with my HF guys this morning. Talked to my Uncle, he’s still recovering from seriously injuring his arm.

Bright sunny day today, probably need to mow the back yard.

It stormed before we went to church so there was no opportunity to mow the lawn. We went to house church at 5:30PM and didn’t get home until after 9PM. Van dropped off food for us, but we didn’t see the message she sent last night at 8PM. We often miss messages to her phone. She might be screening them and then forget them. (It happens a lot that we’re back tracking something and she had the answer on her phone.)

Thursday

I got up around 8:15AM and made my way to the radio about 8:30. I did manage to check-in on the waterway net this morning. She didn’t know the way to the hair stylist, so I showed her on Google Maps. (It’s right next to the emissions station we’ve used for 40 years.) She needed me to straighten the car in the driveway, so I did that before she left. She returned very quickly and said that the hair stylist wasn’t there? I grabbed a pair of pants, and we drive to the stylist together. As soon as I made the left onto Hillcrest, she acknowledged she went the wrong way. When I dropped her off, she said that she forgot her phone at home. I had to make two more trips, one to drop off her phone and the last one to pick her up. Sheesh, that was an hour and three round trips to the stylist.

Her hair does look nice though.

Meat inventory is also an issue this morning. We ate canned Salmon yesterday because she didn’t have enough BBQ sauce to make the chicken legs that expired yesterday. We didn’t discuss the chicken and she just made the salmon melts. Today I find out that the chicken expired yesterday; and she has to run to the store to buy the BBQ sauce. The key to all this is writing a schedule for tomorrow in the Daytimer. The schedule triggers performing an inventory of condiments for the meal with enough time to navigate alternatives if needed.

We went to Longhorn for lunch to settle our emotions. It was expensive, but I really needed to lower the temperature of our conversations. I couldn’t sleep flat having a full belly, so I slept in the Chase. I didn’t get much done for the next three hours. I had soup for supper and put the light on the Focus for tonight. I looked at the recordings and did find when they delivered the food last night. (The eggs were room temperature after being out all night.) I put them in the fridge until we decide what to do with them.

Friday

Back in the attic today. I am abandoning putting a NODEMCU in the attic, any maintenance requires access to the attic. The current plan is to put the temp sensors on long wires and run the wires into the home where there is easy access to the NODEMCU. I currently have two long wires with three temp sensors on each wire. One wire originates in the air handler closet and the other wire originates in my cave.

Last night I had another shooter, but it was really hard to tell where the arm was.

Yard does look pretty lit up huh?

Well, it’s 11:30 AM and I am bushed! I didn’t sleep well and then the shooting happened at 1AM. It took me another two hours to reformat the video to be uploaded to their website. I took a nap around 4AM until about 7AM and then had some coffee while we got ready for her to go to the gym. I took a shower and then read the news looking for what Biden was going to do. It appears that he’s dug in and believes that he’s the only one that can defeat Trump. I set the driveway camera to take a picture of every car that drives by the house today. (Some 900 of them ended up on the camera, there are a couple that just seem to drive by all day long?)

Looks very similar to the car that shot at the house this morning, and it looks like it has a sunroof? I saw this car up close later in the day, it’s a Toyota Camry. (The trim was still hanging out the back of the trunk and the windows were DARK!)

When she got home I realized that the time was getting crowded. It was almost 12 Noon and we’ve not started lunch. Worse than that, she has an orthodontic appointment at 1:15? When I asked her what the plan was, she said the pork tenderloin. That’s usually a baked dinner with potatoes and vegetables and she has less than an hour before she leaves! The only thing I can come up with was to go to Longhorn after he dental appointment. Also, I probably need to abandon my radio nets in the morning and get involved in her Daytimer documentation. We’ve talked extensively about filling out her schedule the night before so things like this doesn’t happen.

She headed for the Orthodontist appointment while I took another nap. We went to Longhorn for lunch after she got back.

In the evening when it was cooler I got the ladder out and walked the roof checking for holes. (I heard the bullet hit something this morning!) Back down for another nap around 4PM, I just didn’t sleep at all last night. Had I understood how much the audio was needed, I would have bought different cameras! (I wanted the best nighttime camera I could find.)

I moved the East VAN camera onto the shelves in the porch. I didn’t realize how important it was to have Audio & Video to reinforce when the shooting happened.

The Reolink DVR cannot be read from a Microsoft computer, it has to be an Android tablet running their software. That’s problematic because none of the wireless was really meant for high-speed data. There is a router in the middle of the house and one in my Cave that can be configured for a little better performance.

Saturday

It’s been a crazy day today. I was hoping to get organized and that didn’t happen. She came to me while I was eating my two eggs and breakfast sausages to move the car so she could go to the store. She returned pretty quickly and said that she didn’t need anything at the store after she looked at the recipe after she got there. I took a nap while she put the tenderloin in the crock pot since I am still not sleeping very well. When I woke up, I realized that it was 12:30 already. She mentioned in passing that she didn’t have anything for lunch. That kind of irritated me we hadn’t discussed that the tenderloin would not be done until 4PM. I looked in the Daytimer and Saturday’s page was blank. (Which means to me that she hadn’t thought through cooking this crock pot dinner and how long it takes.)

We ended up going out to Longhorn for the third time this week. I complained to the bar tender that the taste of the coke was off. She came back with it tasted ok to her. Drinking a coke that’s too diluted doesn’t taste very well with a good burbon.

She offered us drinks to take home, this is NOT very scientific because I am sure the ice diluted the coke a little bit with the half hour ride home. (BUT) We did compare them on our next visit to Longhorn.

When I compared them, the bottled coke on the right was darker.

Sunday

Had my coffee while I listened to the HAM radio and filled out a Longhorn survey for yesterday. I just am not happy with the taste of their fountain coke at the Web Gin store.

I listened to last week’s service to get ready for the service today. Service went well, we’re back home for a nap. Cory is not here yet, so we’re up making dinner. Checked both copies of today’s service and they were correctly uploaded.

I did an update to Home Assistant (Home Automation) and it broke the routine that turns off the attic fans.

The two smaller ones ran well past midnight because of it.

Had to make a run to Public Storage to get a set of headphones for Cory. It took me a minute to find them, but we were at church by 10:30. Service went well, it was a continuation from last week which I thought was kick butt.

We got home around 12 and steamed some veggies with the pork tenderloin we cooked on Saturday. Cory didn’t arrive until well after 3PM which wasted most of the day. We worked on our Sunday routine until about 9 when we just got too exhausted to continue.

Monday

Up at 7 and nodded off for another hour until 8:15. Hooked my antennas back onto my HF radio and I am listening to them while I write in this blog. I didn’t adjust the IR illuminators last night because I was just too tired. I am still not at my game today. I need to rest and watch over my skin abrasion that happened yesterday.

Had leftover turkey with vegetables over noodles and turkey gravy for lunch, it was quite good actually.

We spent the next three hours trying to agree on what to document where in the family Daytimer. We ended up calling it a draw, she’ll document to a blank page, and “We” will document things into the three Daytimer sections. (Action List=Todo, Scheduled=Planned/timely, Work record=Document accomplished.)

There’s a bit of a hubbub about our President in the paper. https://www.westernjournal.com/dems-advance-dark-theory-biden-conservatives-shouting-since-2020

https://www.westernjournal.com/bidens-defiant-letter-house-democrats-slammed-breathtakingly-cynical-dishonest-side

I had chicken soup and crackers for my evening meal. We watched “Murder She Baked” movie until I had to take another nap. Didn’t get much accomplished today, I was dogged tired from not sleeping.

I did manage to get the IR Illuminators adjusted tonight; they look pretty good.

Ate a hotdog for midrats tonight and then took my daily pills 4 hours late. Oh well, at least I took them tonight and not tomorrow morning.

Tuesday

This is the third shooting in front of our home in three weeks.
The guy just walks up with a pistol in hand and empties the clip in the air.

I am really tired, I probably got 2 hours of sleep last night before the 3AM shooting. The police and I spent the next hour trying to find the shooting in the camera recordings. I spent the next two hours downloading the video so it could be uploaded to Gwinnett County. She got up around 6AM and fixed me a cup of coffee and I just didn’t have anything left. We decided to get groceries AFTER lunch since I was done for the day.

Lunch was terrific as always since we moved to Web Gin Road Longhorn. Shopping went pretty quickly, apparently, we didn’t need very much from the store.

Added a new camera (#7), the headlights may not blind this camera?

There is just so much to do, these shootings and her poor memory are such a distraction I am not getting anything done. I think I am going to put up my HAM radio hat for a bit and use that hour more wisely.

Wednesday

I slept better last night but I totally busted my butt this morning. I got up out of the chair and looked down at my slippers in the middle of the floor and just fell over against the end table. My side is a little sore, my wrist and ankle are tender but not hurting.

Bruised ribs.

The camera I set out in the driveway died before dark, I’ll have to figure out what the issue actually is after I get these computers and routers updated. Windows updated and Android posted updates too, I think they all are trying to fix the Wireless vulnerabilities that the DOJ has been abusing for years.

GL-iNet has retired their “Slate” travel router, but they did have a current firmware update for it today. (I need to pull them off the network at some point.) It took several hours to log into all the routers and upgrade their firmware. One of the GL-iNet “Creta” routers was forwarding traffic to somewhere that was a 100ms away. Although I just upgraded it, there’s just something strange about the behavior of that router. I ended up replacing it with a GL-iNet router “Opal” which required a USB-C power connector.

Somebody sent me some delicious cookies FedEx.

We watched a couple of Murder she baked and most of a Johnny Carson show. I had chicken Noodle soup for dinner and a few M+Ms for dessert. My bruses from this morning’s fall are appearing, I’ll post them tomorrow.

Finished off upgrading the routers and I’m headed to bed.

Thursday

I was up late double checking the network and cameras, everything looked good enough to head to bed.

Got up late, like 9AM. It was only 67 degrees here this morning.

She got me my morning cup of coffee and I pulled the wire running to the brick camera to shorten it. (It was three times the length it needed to be.) I also pulled the IR Illuminator from under the car, I think I am going to mount it in the grill of the silver Focus next time. (Under the car it couldn’t really illuminate Silvercrest street.)

Lunch was ham steak, sweet potato and veggies. Took a LONG nap and

I replaced the connector on the brick camera, its working again.

We watched some TV and then took another nap.

I installed the IR Illuminator in the grill of the Ford Focus underneath her license plate. (It’s low on the vehicle and barely visible at night unless you have a dashcam.)

My Digital Video Recorder’s hard drive has failed, I need to replace it tomorrow.

Ok well off to bed.

Friday

Got up around 8AM, Waterway Net was just a conversation not a strict net for some reason. She’s getting ready for the Gym this morning, so I pulled the illuminator off the car. We centered it in the driveway around 9AM and put the dashcam in the window.

I worked on the backyard fence this morning. It has been overgrown with weeds.

Air conditioner worked pretty hard yesterday for 92 Degree temp?

One of the old sensors in the attic needs to be replaced.

We used less electricity than we did last year at much higher temperatures.

Our lawn service is mowing the front and side lawns today.

Where can I hide from this motorcycle was roaring at me at 60MPH on one wheel.

Saturday

My HAM buddies were not happy with the propagation this morning, they could not hear each other. Breakfast was a couple eggs and ham with a glass of orange juice. My entire body was aching, so I took a hot bath and a nap.

She messed up and we didn’t have any meals and grocery shopping is next TUESDAY. She went to the store and got stew meat for today and I put the sunshade up in the windshield when I got up. Mom does not have any hurricane supplies and I don’t know where to begin. It would be tough for them to buy them after a hurricane is announced for Florida.

I finally got a new RSA device from Wells Fargo. They have a specific department just for those devices 888-245-8454.

Melvin’s website FINALLY let me donate https://www.jordanmusic1.org/donate using PayPal this morning.

Reversing the large attic fan so that it pushes air into the attic has really helped our electric bill this month.

When all three fans were pulling air out, it was actually drawing some air from the home. I added eight new vents and the home as three large vents in the eves assuming that was sufficient. I was shocked to find out it was sucking air around the air handler. (We found out about the negative air pressure because of the water that was collecting under the water heater.)

NYT offered 6 Months for $1/week, it might actually be worth that.

Trump was shot in the ear today, YIKES that was a close call.

unday

Up sipp’n on a cup of coffee while listening to my HAM radio. I have an issue with my Home Assistant that I have not been able to resolve. The node in my cave dropped offline and I just can’t seem to get it back for some reason.

Updated my Home Assistant nodes, but the Home Assistant database has failed. It took me another 5 hours to figure out what was wrong and undo all the changes I had made.

Church was ok, they sang happy birthday to me and Danny. We spent the next hour and half playing around with the trays for cultural Sunday. Longhorn was the lunch today and we bought a family’s meal for them. We took a good long nap after we got home, and I checked the recordings of today’s service to make sure they were good.

I received a IR Illuminator that had a broken glass in it. I originally was going to send it back, but I needed the circuit board for another white fixture.

I ordered two black illuminators, but I really needed one more white one. I took the glass out of a black one and repaired the white one that had the broken glass.

I’ll put it in service tomorrow. We got caught up with the Trump shooting till about midnight and then we headed to bed.