Category: Blog

Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891) | LEO XIII

Slept in until 8:30, missed the guys on the HAM radio this morning. I have a bit of a caffeine headache this morning.

Made my coffee while I cut up some Tylenol tablets.
A normal adult dose is 325ng/4-6HRS, BUT no more than 10 in 24. Divide 25 by 10 gives you 1 pill every 2.5 hours. Extra Strength is 1000MG/6 Hrs, BUT no more than 6 in 24. Devide 24 by 6 gives us ONE pill every four hours. The 500mg tablets are very easy to cut in half to 250mg. For us Seniors taking a HALF of a pill every two hours is much easier to manage. After splitting these pills in half for a year, we’ve also found out that half a pill (250mg) is usually enough. The only thing is that breaking the coating by cutting them in half will reduce the effective life of these pills. (I have to rotate them! The idea is that we switch between the red ones [Pubix] and white ones [Wally World] every three months.)

Turkey chili left over from yesterday for lunch today. We’ve been cleaning today, the kitchen table was the first on our list then the Den where we spend most of our time together. (Cept for the bedroom of course.)

Turned out to be a beautiful partly sunny day today.

Finished off the turkey chili and checked in with the guys on the GARS 2M ham radio net tonight.

The + symbol is now on the opposite side of the connector from when I bought the first of these connectors in June 2021. (When we were locked in our home during COVID.) Most of the wall warts at that time used the same 18AWG twin lead wire. 75% of the wall warts used the marked side of the wire as POSITIVE which I copied for my connections. (I originally thought the marked side would be negative.) I never saw the + symbol on these connectors until today and some are 4 years old!

I used these examples on Amazon. I did a search today for images of these connectors and about 50% of them ARE wired like the above picture. Sometime in the past they changed the markings or just added them. (I don’t remember seeing them at first.) Seven hundred connectors in my home are wired like the above pictures and most don’t match the markings on the connectors. Once you start using them it’s very dangerous to change them and they are $0.30 each. Even 500 would cost me $150 to replace them.

And I thought they were all the same, oops! And the differences are all bad…

The only observed difference is that the green one varied its connection considerably between a disconnect/connect. Sometimes it wouldn’t click into place at all. So far, they seem to connect well between the two types, just the green ones can have issues connecting to each other. I’ve only had one case where the connection got warm, the load across that connection was several amps. Almost all the connections in my home are less than 1 Amp. As the power requirement went up, I raised the voltage to drop the current. I just recently raised the voltage to 24V on these new USB-C devices for that reason. I need to look at the hundreds of connectors I am using and see if there is a third type in the pile.

Tuesday

Got up around 7:45 and checked in with the Ham radio guys. Sent the monthly gifts to our sponsored children today. I have a subscription for Norton AntiTrack that’s on one of my laptops, it costs $50…

Zaxby’s for lunch today, Cobb Salad.

Put some bait down for the ants that have nested behind this wood.
(I don’t know why this wood is here, the water pipes do enter the home behind it.)

We ran a bath and had a good soaking today after our nap.

My Sophos firewall lets me choose what countries to block any connections.

We filled her pill trays in preparation for changing them tomorrow. I put one day’s pills in a pill box to replenish tomorrow’s pills since we’re doing this ahead of time. We are out of one of her pills, I am going to call them tomorrow and get them early.

Had a ham sandwich on Rye for supper and strawberry creme cheese on a rice cake for dessert.

I changed up the power for our pill dispensers.

This is a really old USB car charger, but it’s perfect for these pill dispensers.
(I have had this charger for a really long time.)

Wednesday

Up at 6, the pill dispensers are aligned properly, and she has taken her medications this morning. It’s raining and there is a significant amount of thunder in the distance. I checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net this morning.

Spilled coffee all over my radio computer’s keyboard. Poured distilled water over it and took it apart to let it dry out. They glued one screw in place so there’s no way to disassemble the keyboard completely without drilling out the last screw.

Added a new book to our collection to keep track of events. Our shortfall is events that happen beyond every day where what was done needs to be recorded. Our CPAPS are a challenge in that her mask needs to be changed every two days. Our tanks and hoses need to be changed weekly. Our air filters on those units need to be changed monthly.

Took a nap while the oven warmed up for the salmon dinner.

Salmon tasted terrific, butter and sugar with cinnamon for the sweet potatoes.

We took a good long nap after dinner.

I managed to lose my lunch after drinking a cup of coffee late tonight. I ended up eating potato chips and coke to settle my stomach. Crackers and coke ended up in the commode. My eye is also bothering me more than normal. If using eye drops doesn’t help, I need to make a Dr appointment to have it checked.

Thursday

I tossed all the coffee from last night and there are no eggs made for breakfast. I spent an hour or so reading the news online and watching OAN on Roku. It sounds like that OAN will be returning to cable networks after the US Government had them censored for fake news.

Chicken thighs with sweet potatoes and Normandy frozen veggies for lunch. Then we took a good long nap. It’s 2PM and I am trying to get a plan together.

Pure decadence, two Ballpark franks and a Coke.

Glucose looks good, my A1C was about 6.1on our last visit.

Another pretty day today, albeit a bit warmer than yesterday

Friday

Got up around 8AM and had a cup of coffee that I had put in the thermos last night. Made scrambled eggs for the Mrs. and checked in on the WW net with the HAM radio guys. It’s going to storm north of us so traveling is not in the picture at all.

I have some discolored skin that needs to be addressed.

This is what it looked like in December, 5 months ago.

Dinner was a pork tenderloin, sweet potatoes and Normandy frozen veggies.

Severe weather north of us headed East.

She made Dinner, Pork Tenderloin, Sweet potatoes and veggies.

It was a cloudy day, but no rain to speak of. I did get a package from Amazon today.

200M (600Ft) of wire to play with. It has turned out to be the orange wire that I used for everything in Las Vegas and the purple wire I used for everything in Elgin. (Until my sister used it as a barrel for her horse and it kicked the end of it off.)

Watched Sue Thomas FB Eye until we decided to retire for the evening.

Saturday

Storms are just west of us headed our way.
I can hear the crashes on my HF radio from the lightning, but I cannot hear any thunder just yet.

Cleaned the dehumidifier sensor and changed the settings in the Home Assistant so the dehumidifier does not run all the time. I tried using the humidifier sensor, but it was at least 30% off.

Sunday

Had hard boiled eggs for breakfast, my eye is really bothering me today and it’s raining so we’re staying put.

Woke a little early and went to bed for a bit of a nap. I took my pills grabbed a cup of coffee and checked in with my fellow hams.

No Margarita’s today, just writing E-Mails about yesterday’s church service.

It took us eight hours to stand it up and tear it down, I was exhausted!

I spent a good part of this morning documenting the equipment that was being used. I had three boiled eggs and breakfast sausages for breakfast this morning.

We had left over turkey breast for lunch with sweet potatoes and frozen veggies, it was quite delicious. We took a good nap afterwards. It was also a beautiful day today, so we drove to the park to check out the pavilion’s tables.

A couple of them were moved, but mostly they are where they were yesterday.

We had sandwiches for dinner and watched a little TV before the 2M net at 7:30. I checked in with them and turned off the 2M radio again.

Measured my Glucose, it was a little high after drinking grape juice and crackers.

Off to bed.

Tuesday

Challenging day, I got up around 8AM and checked in with the HAM radio guys. I spent a little while researching Peter’s request for an inventory before our 9:30 meeting. We laid out a timeline to get a nap, groceries, dinner at Zaxby’s and arrive home. That plan went well until we got to Kroger. On the way out of Kroger we were behind three other people trying to get past the grocery carts that were piled up at the exit door. The poor guy in the front was on a handicap buggy and it wouldn’t fit in the space they left at the door. For whatever reason they totally filled the vestibule with carts all the way to the other wall. There was no room to pull a cart from the long rows of buggies. After they moved a couple carts out of the way we all piled out of Kroger. I went back in and asked for a manager, the cashier pointed to a women counting the cash at the safe. (I know better than to bother anyone at the safe.) I went back to the Kroger vestibule and started moving carts out of the exit lane. About three carts later I hear an employee yelling at me saying something on the order that Kroger will take care of the carts. I got the impression that she was the one that piled all of the carts in that area. I asked her why she was yelling at me and again she said something to the tune that Kroger will take care of the carts. A man walked up behind me and asked why I was yelling at that young employee instead of walking over to her and having a conversation. I started walking toward the female employee that was about 30 feet from me and then I just stopped. She could take my approach as threatening and then I would be in trouble. I asked her to come over and I would explain the situation with the carts. I maintained a safe distance and then told her that the exit doors cannot have anything blocking our exit from the store. It’s a fire code requirement. We then exited the store and went to get our zalads for lunch.

It was emotional to be yelled at for clearing the exit of a business. She should have helped me or gone to her supervisor before confronting me. Buggies are customers to use as we like, they are provided to facilitate our purchases through the store. It’s absurd to confront a customer about moving carts around the store entrance by yelling at him.

Wednesday

Checked in with the HAM radio guys and finished documenting the service last Sunday. It took me 3 days to pull all the information together. No breakfast today, we didn’t have any hard-boiled eggs ready.

Light Rain today, good day to work on organizing.

Lunch was beef stew for lunch with carrots, onions and potatoes. We refilled our medicine this afternoon before the normal time after 5PM since we’re not going to be home. The normal plan is to swap trays and fill the tray Thursday. I need to empty the van tomorrow. I’ve been busy with capturing the outdoor service data for the church.

We washed masks and hoses for our CPAP machines this afternoon instead of returning all the equipment to storage.

Church services tonight so I’m calling it a day.

Thursday

Checked in with the HAM radio guys and had two eggs with several sausage links.

I’ve spent an hour or so organizing the things I have to do, it’s quite a list! Took our BP and Glucose while I sipped on a cup of coffee. Talked to Paul for a few minutes, he is preparing to get his sister from Illinois this weekend. We planned our day to include a trip to the doctor this afternoon. I am putting all three laptops on the Internet for W10 updates.

Dinner was terrific, we added veggies to the beef stew from yesterday.

We headed to Public Storage to unload the van after we did dishes. We ran out of time before her doctor appointment, so we still have the monitors and a few tubs still in the van tonight. Doc appointment went well. They cleared out the wax in her ear with warm water.

Back home we found the front lawn had been mowed. I mowed 2/3rd of the back yard before I got too tired to finish. The grass was getting wet after the sun went down so I couldn’t go much further anyway. I measured my Glucose and to my utter surprise it was 110 without eating anything. (I thought it would be under 100.)

Back inside I had soup and a couple rice cakes for dinner. We watched a couple shows until 8:30 and went to bed.

I’m starting to have issues with powering my devices on DC. I’ve been using 18V for a while now and the power supply is good for 30W.

These were used to power the Echo Show 18V@ 1.67A 30W

I bought several of these 18VC KFD @ 2.7A and 50W

I have four of these CPAP power supplies 24V 90W@ 3.74A

The Beryl AX can draw 15W which means I can power 2 or three devices maximum.

Another problem I have is the connectors, they’re good for a couple amps MAX.

If I work this from the device that draws 15W @ 5V, I can power one device from the Echo power supply and it’s under an amp. Three devices from the 18V KFD power supply if I use Power Pole connector adapters and six devices from the 24V KFD power supply with an adapter.

I have 14 USB powered devices on my HAM desk, in the old days I could power them from six outlet bricks. (But then they drew less than 3W.) There are still six “Mango” routers that will work fine on a Micro USB cord. I have five USB-C travel routers and two Rasberry Pi computers.

Friday

Eggs and sausage for breakfast while I sip on a cup of coffee.

We went to dinner with a couple of friends and our neighbor brought in our garbage can again while we were gone!

I built Dongles by cutting my 3Amp 5V USB-C power supply wires in half.

These 4A power supplies will power the new routers and Raspberry Pi’s.

The 24V power supplies arrived today, so far, they are testing out perfectly!

The HF Noise from the 14KV upgrade is gone, whatever it was blew apart yesterday.

Finished mowing the back yard with the help of our neighbors. They are pretty awesome people, we routinely exchange doing things for each other.

Saturday, Rain

It’s supposed to be wet most of the day today.

Took her glucose, 122 which is a little high for her. But she did just eat breakfast. (I don’t have a chance to get her glucose before she eats at 7AM.)

Off to Longhorn’s for lunch, our friend was there today! We gave the server a generous tip to help them buy a home now that they are married. Lunch was terrific as usual with our extra toppings and our military discount. (Which gives us a code to leave a survey.) It was raining pretty hard on our way home.

We walked up the street and picked up a Mother’s Day gift for our neighbors after it stopped raining. She was selling Mary Kay cosmetic baskets. We bought two and delivered them to our neighbors next door.

The power supplies from Digi Key arrived today.

I wasn’t thrilled that the power supplies were not rated as VI. But they didn’t get warm idle or when loading them either. The one thing this power supply does have is a live circuit LED that flashes when overloaded.

Barrel connector and reciptical with terminals.

I’ve never been a fan of these terminal adapters, but I may rethink that. They often come with power supplies and I’ve either put them in a drawer or just tossed them. The one advantage that comes with my current project is the length of wire varies considerably with the application. Previous installations promoted wires that were much too long for the application to prevent waste of butt connectors when changing them.

I tried three wires in the adapter today, I don’t think I can get four into it. As long as the connection is reliable, I may shift to these connectors which solves another issue.

Modern power supplies come with round wires and a shielded crab connector. The typical open-faced barrel connector does not “Grip” the center pin for a good contact. The round wires are a pain to re-terminate cleanly, it’s much better to use the barrel connector if I can.

These can be powered from 5V USB bricks.
0 TP-Link
6 uSB Mango’s
2 uSB Raspi’s
1 uSB Creta left. They are EOL, I am retiring them.
0 uSB Slate
Upgrade to 24V, these are 5V high current devices. NOT PD compatible.
2 USB-C Beryl
2 USB-C Opal left, they are EOL too.
4 USB-C Raspi’s

Sunday Mother’s Day

Did not sleep very well, my body and my mind seem to be in different places this morning. I got a call from church and had to make a run to storage to get a couple cables for them. It took an hour to get dressed, drive to PS get to the school. We participated in services using Zoom today. I posted the service on the website shortly after lunch.

2x Beryl, Home Assistant and the Pi-Hole are now on 24V where they have a bit more power to stay alive. There is one 18V adapter and two 24V adapters to power all 17 USB devices on my bench.

Watched a couple episodes of the Sue Thomas FBEye series before heading to bed. Took one Benadryl and I slept for 11 hours.

Had a rough night, weather and all this heavy equipment is taking a toll on me. I did manage to check-in with the Ham radio guys this morning.

I set them out to test them, all four are working.

The van has the fender speakers in it and the weather is going to be in the 80’s.

Covered the speakers with a comforter to keep them cool. I checked them at 4:30 in the afternoon and they were just as cool as they were when I covered them.

Salmon for dinner with sweet potatoes and veggies.

Power will be shut off at 1PM, we’ll have to see how fast that goes.

The lightning arrestor failed shortly after they turned the power back on with the higher voltage. It yanked the tale the wire from the distribution wires which allowed them to turn the power back on. Then they promptly turned it back off to replace both arrestors LOL. Power is back on, everything held up on battery for the duration of 3 hours. The computer room UPS didn’t even go to the caution battery is low.

4PM and the air conditioning is back on, now that they are done playing around with the power. (It’s probably been a long day for them.) The deep cycle batteries are all charging so I opened the garage for some fresh air. I have a couple batteries in my cave too that are charging back up so that small window is open. When the garage door is ajar the top part of the door is open to let the heat & gas escape.

Tuesday

Up a little late it’s almost 8AM, I did manage to check in on the WW Net this morning.

I worked on my network firewalls today. When I replaced the obsolete FortiGate 60D with a 60F the configuration did not pull IPV6 addresses from our Comcast ISP. I didn’t spend a lot of time on it last year since the FortiGate 60E on AT&T did have IPV6 working. Today I found out that Comcast stopped giving residential customers 16 subnets, which is why the configuration failed. They chose to do what AT&T did, offer just one subnet to residential customers. Now, granted that’s still over 65,000 IP addresses to a home that probably never have more than 100. The problem is that IF the entire home network on one subnet, the broadcast domain gets very congested. IPV6 doesn’t lend itself to subdividing networks like IPV4 did either. I don’t know if Comcast also 1:1 NAT the IPV6 like AT&T did at our gateway.

Longhorn for lunch and sandwiches for dinner today. My glucose was 130 after drinking some of her Margaretta this afternoon. It was 99 tonight after we took a walk up the street after dinner.

After about 4 hours work all my subnets have now have IPV6 addresses. I had to use Network Address Translation to subdivide my home networks. (But they all work and do pass the IPV6 test from the Internet.) YEA!

Wednesday

Up at 7:30 in time to tune into the WW Net.

I noticed a new noise on my HF radio after they raised the distribution voltage to 14KV, I might try taking my portable radio and walking the power lines around me.

I am moving my devices between the 10 networks and I had plans on color coding the network wires.

Right now, they are a bit of a mess behind my desk.

For the wireless in my network I use these GL.iNet travel routers.

One of the first things I do is attach a USB power supply to them.

Then I can power any number of them with a single power supply. The GL.iNet Beryl AX (above picture) locked in an IPV6 address without any hassles! The trouble with these new USB-C devices is that they can be 10W or more. Even with a 30W power supply it can only support three devices. At 18V 30W is maybe 2.0 Amps, the wires and connectors should be limited to 3 Amps. At 24V at 3 Amps is 70W which is double the 18V power supplies.

Thursday

Up at 7AM and I took my medication on time today. I checked-in with the HAM radio guys too. We took our morning shower, and I made a plate of scrambled eggs with breakfast sausages.

Lunch was at Longhorn’s, we gave the entire team $20 each today. (They call me “Santa”.) We planned on getting some meat at Publix, but that didn’t happen.

Back home we took our afternoon nap and dinner was soup, we’re out of Lunch Meat. Her BP was a little high, but we were watching a news show on North Korea’s new destroyer. Went to Public Storage and picked up a couple of tubs to sort through.

Took the garbage out and locked both cars that have church equipment in them.

Friday

Got up around 7 and had scrambled eggs with the wife this morning. The power lines are making so much noise that I cannot hear the guys on 40M this morning.

Moved the equipment out of the car into the van so that we can get groceries. We went to Longhorn again for lunch, the bill was $22 after the discount. We’re back home and it’s sprinkling. We took a nap and headed to Guiter Center for some items we need for the outside service.

Storms headed our way, I’ve disconnected my antennas.

Ordered some new power supplies for these 5V@3A devices like the GL.iNet routers. I can run TWO of these wireless routers on 18V @ 1.6A, but I can run four at 24V @ 2.3A. It’s convenient to have these power supplies with twin lead wire since the connectors attach directly to them. They are migrating all these “wall warts” to a round shielded wire which is more durable, but requires a different approach. I won’t know what I am getting until it arrives.

Our neighbors brought over a Mexican dinner to try out.

the meat was tough as nails, but the sauce and cheese had good flavor. (Spicy Though!) My bowels were noisy this morning LOL.

Saturday

Took a shower with the wife and checked in with the HAM radio guys. It took every watt of my HF radio to reach them this morning. Spent a good part of the morning drawing up plans for the service tomorrow.

Dinner was a frozen turkey breast cooked in the Insta Pot along with Sweat potatoes and frozen veggies. Turned out pretty good, served it in the Serving Crock Pot.

Spent the afternoon loading the van with the equipment for tomorrows service.
(It took a lot longer than I expected!)

Spent a couple hours this evening making sure that the wireless router we’re using for Internet at the service tomorrow is all set. It will be used as an Ethernet bridge to my personal T-Mobile hot Spot. I have a spare router, USB cable and power supplies.

Sunday

I spent a couple hours in the middle of the night finishing packing the wires and hardware for today. We got up a little before the 6AM alarm, took a quick shower and got dressed. I loaded the van, and we left around 7AM for the park. We were the first ones there and Larry showed up right after. He had brought some egg McMuffins that really hit the spot. I found out about this gig 10 days ago and I have spent many hours transporting and sorting the equipment.

We moved the equipment out of our vehicles and proceeded to set the tables in their proper places. (We need an isle for the Live Stream Camera.)

I had to cascade two sound boards to handle the 13 channels of audio today, the second board had all the instruments. (Keys, Cajon, Conga’s and electric guitar.) My only complication was that I bought a condenser microphone for the Cajon. The phantom power ended up reaching the electric guitar amp and killing the Line Out. I ended up putting a microphone in front of the amp which worked well.

9 microphones and 4 music instruments is the largest service I’ve done in the park.

By the time we arrived home it was an 8-hour day and we were exhausted! We went to Longhorn’s and that experience was not up to par either. Our salads were less than acceptable with the dressing cups IN the salad and the chicken was overcooked.

Back home I linked the service to the church website and sat down in front of the TV to relax. This by far was a very difficult endeavor that was made so much worse because of poor planning.

Watched a little TV then we went to bed.

Woke about 7:15 which was too late to be on the radio B 4 the boat check-ins. I put on a pot of coffee while they checked-in all the boats.

We did most of our routine and we had 7 scrambled eggs for breakfast. We were tossing things around for lunch and decided on Longhorn in Suwanee. We took a nap when we got home until the linemen rang our doorbell.

They removed the transformer providing the power to our home. The power company is raising the distribution voltage to 14,000V next week. The old transformer had a fixed winding of 7200V so it had to be changed first. There were two such transformers in the neighborhood fed from the substation. I think I’ll throw the main breaker until I’m convinced that our transformer was tapped correctly as the voltage has a good chance of being wrong.

They’re putting the new transformer on the pole after removing the old one. Personally, I would not be standing under something that weighs several hundred pounds.

Almost done, it took a little over an hour to change the transformer.

Moved the equipment out of the van into our living room, I need to inventory the equipment and test it Saturday.

We had leftovers for dinner from Sunday. Ham sweet potatoes and veggies. We didn’t watch much TV, we were pretty spent today.

Tuesday

Up at 6, rebuilt a Raspi 4 and it failed to update. The operating system is locked and my only choice was to cut the power. I tried another SD card and got the same error. I changed the DNS on the router, and it seems to be finally getting all the updates. (The DNS was local but the network traffic was through the VPN, strange you would have thought the VPN would have carried the DNS traffic too.)

Joined the guys in 2M repeater this morning and listening on 40M to see if they come back to me. Checked in on the WW Net after taking a shower.

Salmon, red potatoes and veggies for dinner.

Bought a pair of identification tags for her.

Wednesday

I am up at 7:30, a little groggy though. Spent a good while upgrading my wireless routers this morning. Checked in on the WW Net, talked to Paul and made eggs for breakfast for both of us.

Took a nap and then made dinner together. We steamed the vegetables and microwaved the ham steak.

We warmed the plates on the steamer before serving dinner.

How far can 10Watts reach…. Europe is not too far LOL

It rained pretty hard tonight, little bit of lightning.

Thursday

My average Glucose is 108 my A1C is 6.1, target is less than 100 / 6.0.

I didn’t sleep very well, and I am at fault for not taking my pills on time. If I take Norvasc in the evenings, I have an issue with my feet getting numb after laying down. I think I am going to stop taking Norvasc and closely monitor my BP and see if some of these weird symptoms subside.

Took a shower and I am trying to dissect how a decision was made to have an outside service on the 4th? What happens if it rains? We went to storage and inventoried the large items. It doesn’t look like we’re missing anything for the training session on Saturday. Weather also looks good, overcast skies will keep the direct sun off of us.

Friday

Checked in with the guys on the HAM radio and we ended up going to Longhorn for lunch again today. That’s three times this week! I sent an E-Mail to Larry letting him know that rain is predicted for Saturday and I called off the audio training.

I did put together a bridge router for the service on Sunday. I need to connect it to the cellular hot spot for testing. This is a GL.iNet Opal router, it was only $30 at Amazon today.

Saturday

Checked in with the HAM radio guys and got ready to go to Public Storage to pick up the equipment. That went well, we have everything we need to get Logan up to speed on the equipment in the van. (Picture Needed)

We settled in on eating chicken legs for lunch and Logan showed up while we were eating. We spent several hours hooking things up and seeing how they work.

I put the sound board in the trunk in case it rained, which it didn’t even come close.

We were done by 3PM and I was exhausted.

Our beach cart family came by and waved back at us today.
They seem to be making a family event out of doing the laundry now that their burden has been lightened.

I went down for a much-needed nap for several hours. Made our sandwich for dinner and watched some TV.

Sunday

I was still really sore from yesterday and I was coughing up some awful looking sputum, so we decided not to join the family group at Russ’s house. We did go to Longhorn for lunch, but there was no one there to be bothered with a cough.

We stopped by Wally World on the way back and picked up some odds and ends.

Back home we went back to bed for another good nap. They are turning off the power tomorrow afternoon, so I need to get prepared for that. I don’t know how they are going to switch our lines to 14,000 volts a neighborhood at a time?

Off to bed.

A new day, geez last week was a long one. Sent a picture of the moon to my daughter and she’s not answered? Checked in on the WW Net with the HAM radio guys while sipping on my coffee.

Time to refill our pill dispensers, a pair of long nose pliers are a must. With three dispensers we always have at least 14 days loaded in them which gives us time to get the next refill.

We cut up the potatoes for lunch and its Nap time! Lunch was ham, red potatoes and frozen veggies. (Normandy Blend) We made short work of cleanup while looking up dietary ways of satisfying hunger between meals.

3:30 We’re getting ready to make a run to Wally World for some odds & Ends after our nap.

I missed having a cart to bring in the groceries, it gets here Friday

Had a sandwich for dinner and checked in on the GARS Monday Net before watching Castle with the Mrs. We checked our Glucose and BP then got ready for bed.

Tuesday

Had a bit of coffee while I checked in on the WW net using my HAM radio.

I send our C.F. sponsored children their gifts for April.

Salmon, red potatoes and frozen veggies for lunch. Checked in for our Dr. Appt tomorrow, answered lots of questions. Changed our pill dispensers to sound an alarm today versus just flashing a blue light. (Boy, you don’t miss that alarm!)

We reworked our morning schedule pages on her NUC and printed two copies for our procedure books.

I found a new use for a folder divider. It worked really well holding the dispensers.

These folding pill cases were cheap, and they’ll work great for traveling. I bought six of them and they have 7 compartments which is two days for us. This is all we’d need for a week of travel, longer trips we can take the 28 compartment dispensers.

Wednesday

We got up around 7:30 and followed our regular routine. We have to leave by 10:30 to get there by 11AM. (It turns out that the “Arrival” time is 11:30 and the appointment time is 12 Noon.) We sat in the waiting room for an hour before being called in. (I dearly hate it when they call an arrival time the “Appointment” time.) The Dr. Appointment went well and we both felt refreshed that we’re finding ways to overcome our problems. They are not actually recognizing the depth of our difficulties, but I don’t really care at this point.

We went to Longhorn’s to celebrate and to refresh her determination to do the best we can. We even had cheesecake for dessert. We made the Hostess’ Day by giving her a gift. She just didn’t believe it when she gave her the final gift of $20 after I had given her two five-dollar bills.

Back home, we needed a nap to prepare for tonight’s service. We had to take our medicine before leaving. Service went well and I changed out the dispenser trays when I got home.

I put the spare in the dispenser and filled my spare tray#2.

Thursday

I got up around 7:30, she was up and had taken her medications already. I didn’t take my medications on time all day. I need to turn ON the audio alarms when things are not going smoothly as they were today. We did fill her two pill trays that we had emptied on Wednesday this morning. (I filled my tray last night.) We took a nap and started making COD for dinner. We didn’t make any mistakes and dinner turned out really well on warmed plates.

We did have some drama while she got a haircut today. I dropped her off at the hairdresser, but she had forgotten her phone. I came home and was waiting for about two hours for her to call. When it became apparent that something was wrong about two hours later, I drove there and met them as the hairdresser was driving her home. She had forgotten MY phone number AND assumed that I was not home. Since I wasn’t home she didn’t bother to call the house phone. She did call HER phone, but we both have call screening, so it didn’t ring. (And she only called once.) Had she called a second time it would have rung. I need to make sure that she has her phone with her. Two issues make that difficult. First she normally carries her phone in her purse (So it’s not visible upon leaving home) AND it is usually buried so deeply she normally cannot find it in a reasonable amount of time.

The decision is to carry our phones in the open so that we verify we both have them when we head out of the house. I am also going to make some kind of tag that we’ll attach to her purse with my phone number on it.

We went to the nursing home and played Bingo tonight. We were also invited to eat a bit of dinner afterwards. She took two pieces of pie even though she knows that will cause her sugar to spike. I took one too and a piece of fried chicken.

We took out the garbage can when we got home for the pickup tomorrow.

Friday

My Pi-Hole has died, I am assuming that the SD card is worn out. I temporarily pointed my private network at Google DNS until I can rebuild one. This has gotten more complicated since most of my Raspi’s are really outdated. I am thinking my best bet is to reload the operating systems, then update them.

Eggs and sausage for breakfast this morning, I need to look at my to-do list before getting too involved in these Raspi’s. Checked her blood O2 levels from last night and they were good.

We went to Wally World for a few groceries today, eggs, juice and frozen veggies.

Mowed the back lawn today and our mowing service mowed the front lawn as well.

Saturday

Checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net this morning. Signed up with Aetna Dental account as well. I am kinda foggy this morning, I may lay down for a refresh nap. (I did sleep 8 hours last night.) The vacuum filters for the portable vac arrive today along with batteries for one of the temperature thermometers.

I guess I need to rebuild my Pi-Hole, I sent Western Journal this warning.

They’re off to do the laundry with two large bags of clothes this time. Seeing them trot by with the wagon full of clothes really makes us happy!

Yep, 2 hours later they’re done. Apparently, they decided to do a much larger load having the cart to carry it. Curious that the dad accompanied the family walking to the laundromat today, one wonders if they have a car and opted to walk instead.

We got a new one to replace the one we gave away today.

Replaced the battery in one of our thermometers, it actually works.

Easter Sunday

Had breakfast with the wife, eggs and breakfast sausages.

Rebuilt the Pi-Hole Domain Name Server Protection.

Went to Sunday church and picked up the equipment for the Sunday service on the 4th of May.

Back home we had ham, sweet potatoes and veggies for lunch. Took a nice nap and then we had a sandwich while watching Castle. We went to bed pretty early, we were pretty tired.

Up early, we have a dental appointment at 08:00 for her deep cleaning.

It ended up being a pouring rain when we got into the car. Even in the rain we managed to get to the dentist a bit early. We were in the chair before 8 (Our appt time) and had to wait on the dentist to arrive. I went shopping at Kroger while she was being worked on, we were back home around 9:30. I took blue to get the emissions done, I had a little help in this endeavor. I renewed our license plates and we took a nap before dinner.

We warmed up the round steak that we prepared on Sunday for lunch, it was pretty good I must say.

We decided to have some fun, so we drove to Longhorn in Swanee for dinner. She got steak and I got my usual Strawberry salad. I did indulge myself and had a shot of Royal Crown whisky. The entire crew of the restaurant sang Happy Birthday and brought her a cake alamode. We are still having issues with Express Scripts.

Tuesday

Beautiful bright sunny day and Turkey Chili for lunch. I did manage to get the Express Scripts website to load after two weeks of trying. I also purchased Microsoft Office 365 for all my computers. I bought one license for her computer and then Microsoft offered one for half what I paid on the computer in the den. I cancelled the license for her computer and will load mine when her trial period expires.

Our friends took us out to dinner at the 57th fighter group. That’s a very interesting building and good food as well.

When we got back to their house, they served us with cheesecake for her birthday.

We had a really good day.

Wednesday

We went to Longhorn’s for lunch, we gave the entire crew $20 each.

Everyone came out to wish her Happy birthday at the end of our meal with a piece of cake. We went over to the friend’s house for Church tonight.

Thursday

We got to Longhorn well before they opened for lunch after Dr. Appointment so we stopped by Payless Shoes.

She got some good look’n and fitting shoes for cheap! ($30)

We then went to Longhorn for lunch and gave the entire crew $50 each this time! We took a good long nap and I worked on my pill dispenser for a couple hours. I have an issue with my feet going numb and that can be because of blood pressure medicines. I separated all my meds into four different dispensing periods and subdivided that into a total of eight periods.

I have a couple of issues at night, so I adjusted my pill schedule. There are four “Alarm” times about 4 hours apart. Each dispensing time has two medications in that slot. The idea is to put the second medication in the medicine cap to be taken later.

We were supposed to get severe storms, it did rain but I would not call it anywhere near severe.

Friday

Up at midnight with a yeast infection that had to be dealt with, I am too tired to write very much. I did make a pot of coffee and sipped on that during the wee hours of the morning. I took a shower very early this morning and was able to lay back down. I managed to get about 6 hours of sleep last night. Took a shower with the wife and I am making a bit more coffee for this morning.

We drove to Whole Foods and picked up some frosted bran flakes and a few other things. We then drove to our favorite lunch spot where we had a healthy lunch. Back home we took a good long nap before watching a bit of TV and eating dinner.

Saturday

We had planned on eating chicken but ended heading out to Longhorn’s for lunch. up at Longhorn’s for lunch. (We took our pills with us but failed to take them.) On our way out of the driveway a friend called delaying our departure.

This mom and her two children walked by carrying a large bag of clothes. Both mom and daughter waved at us when they walked by. Normally women avoid eye contact with strangers in cars. She had set that bag on her shoulders down twice by the time she got to the top of the hill, so it was becoming increasing difficult to carry. I loaded our beach cart that I bought for just such an occasion into the van and headed down the street after them. (People are always walking by us with a heavy load and no wheels!) We caught up to them down the street a little way and gave them our beach cart to carry their heavy bag.

I managed to find them walking back from the laundry mat on our cameras about an hour later, they looked very happy! The daughter appeared to be looking for us to greet them as she walked by.

We went to Longhorn’s and the parking lot was empty, so we gave the entire crew $20 each.

Lunch was excellent cept for the salad had very little lettuce for an $18 salad.
(Which is strange since that’s the cheap part of the salad.)

Longhorn’s on Hugh Howell has always served us with a balanced plate of lettuce and fixings!

Well, time to finish up this draft and eat my evening sandwich.

Sunday

I have got to figure out what our plan is for taking our 20 medications on a schedule while we are traveling. These pill trays are excellent when we are at home, way to big and clunky for traveling. (not to mention they have to be powered!) Problem one is the reminder to take the medication, problem two is to carry several days worth. If we were going to be gone a week, I would carry the current trays! One dispenser is the size of a cup and has seven slots (Good for one day.)

The more interesting one is a folded tray with seven slots on each side. That would cover us for two days for each tray. *She has five dispensing times, and I have seven. I went back to bed until 08:00 this morning when I got up and checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net.

We went to Longhorn’s after church and had the worst experience we’ve ever had. I wrote them a review that basically said we were never coming back.

We got the first of the travel pill dispensers today, the major problem with them is that they don’t fit into a purse very well. It’s likely we’ll use the flat ones instead.

Woke up and had my cup of coffee while I listened to the HF radio. Talked to Paul for a bit, he’s doing a yard sale to get some cash in hand this morning. I did some poking around and there’s only one small change to my taxes and I can file them.

The Toshiba has been rebuilt and seems to be solid. *I had forgotten how fast it was.

The storms were well south of us so that wasn’t much of a problem today.

Ham, sweet potatoes and veggies were lunch today.

I checked in with the GARS 2M Net, I tried to check in with ARES but I missed the call15

Applied for the Homestead exemption, but it was just an update to the application I sent in October 24.

Tuesday

Woke up this morning around 7 and got onto the 2M repeater with the GARS HAMS. I switched over onto the HF side and checked in with the WW Net too. Had eggs and breakfast sausages for breakfast. We have an orthodontist appointment at 10 and then Longhorn for lunch.

We went to Wally World for some groceries and a few other things this afternoon. We did buy some chicken legs and a package of ground turkey for chili.

We’re disposing of the aluminum (Left) and keeping the Stainless Steel (Right) humidifier chambers for our CPAP machines. We had about six of each kind.

I never got an acknowledgement from Gwinnett county so I reapplied for the homestead exemption about 9PM tonight and it went through. The strange thing is the time/date is GMT and the application has to be submitted by 1 APR 2025. (I don’t think it will let me reapply two times within a year.)

The E-Mail was delivered at 8:48 on 1 April 2025.

Bedtime.

Wednesday

We had scrambled eggs and ham for breakfast this morning. I got onto the HAM radio and checked in on the WW Net while sipping on my coffee. Lunch was salmon, sweet potatoes and veggies. I had a cough most of the day today. Just in case it was caused by my 10 Day old hose, washed four of them and dried them on the dehumidifier. When I logged into Amazon I got this VERY LONG list of items that had changed price. I assume that all the venders added the Trump Tariffs to their existing stock to make a little extra cash. The cost of the Jackery was a little shocking, it almost doubled in price to $800.00.

Church was virtual on Zoom tonight, so we watched the Empire Strikes Back.

Thursday

Up at 6:30 and went back to bed until 7:30. Checked in on the HAM WW Net while eating hard boiled eggs and breakfast sausages. Made a pot of coffee and read some news while sipping on my cup of coffee.

Time to fill the pill trays.

Dinner was in disarray so we went to Longhorn for lunch.

We came home and I mowed the back yard before it rains this weekend.

We went to Kroger for a few things. We have dinner plans for tomorrow, so we’ll cook them on Saturday. (We’re also going out on Sunday.)

Yup, that’s me holding my back yard HF antenna mast.

Friday – Saturday

Sunday

I had veggies and ranch dressing last night while we were watching The Intern. Trouble is that I still taste the ranch dressing this morning, ewe! I did not sleep well last night. My back pain is disturbing to say the least. I rolled up in two heated throws and watched a bit of TV while trying to calm my back. I’ve taken baths, that always helped a lot. I rolled up in these throws one time and it was almost as soothing. Not this time thought.

I checked my Glucose to make sure my kidneys are not complaining and that was fine. Tuned up my HF radio and checked in with the HAM radio guys on the WW net. I’ll have to disconnect the antennas with the storms arriving this afternoon.

I cleared out the trunk of Blue Focus and took it around the block and I was shocked that the computer came back as “Ready” for emissions! That’s a huge deal since I’ve procrastinated this until two days before her birthday.

The neighbors brought over a slice of cake.
I wonder if they knew it was her birthday?

Again, this morning I had trouble with my feet even though I ate very little after dinner and my Glucose was less than 100. I have not figured out why my toes tingle at night and not during my nap at lunchtime.

Checked in with the HAM guys on the GARS 2M repeater this morning. Then I checked in on the WW Net with my HF radio this morning while sipping my coffee.

Loaded my medicine into the next tray and rotated them.

The CF website is still broken. We cannot reliably get feedback from the children on what they’ve spent their gifts on. The recommended gift is between $20 and $50 and has been for years. With inflation that We exceeded that gift since the pandemic to help the families cope with all the chaos. Now that we’re 2yrs out and we’re having real issues with the letters we’ve decided to reduce the gifts back to pre-COVID amounts.

Took a good long nap and we had chicken legs, sweet potatoes and veggies for lunch. I worked on my E-Mail for several hours to reduce the load on my Toshiba laptop’s Solid-State Drive (SSD) to extend its life as much as possible. I learned my lesson about letting my computer’s SSD get full when her computer failed. I also made a backup of all the Microsoft Outlook PST files on an encrypted thumb drive.

I looked up the SSD for the Toshiba laptop and ordered one, it was similar to the experience with the NUC. Like $20 bucks? My only catch 22 is there is no product key on the surface of the laptop. It’s located in the firmware, I don’t actually know if I can use it to activate WIN 10 Pro. Step one, put the SSD in the laptop and find out.

Turkey sandwich on RYE and creme cheese on a rice cake for dessert while we watched Castle. My left molar is sensitive, I need to pay more attention to it.

Tuesday

Need to stay focused today. Had eggs for breakfast and I’m out of breakfast sausages so I just had Rye toast. Need to get the car emissions done this week and I am down to six days to turn in my Taxes.

CF Sent me a letter back, “they wanted to clarify the gifts and apologize.” The two pill dispensers get to Patty’s tomorrow. I packed everything up for the dog show tomorrow, have to be there by 5:40. (Which means wake-up is at 4:40.)

Made a trip to Wally World for some catch-up groceries. I guy pulls into the neighbor’s driveway and walks the sidewalk East and West of our neighbor’s house. Then gets into his car and drives away. We don’t have Xfinitywifi, but there is one close to use somewhere. (I changed out the Xfinity router that I had to pay a monthly fee for.

WAAY too early tomorrow morning. 4:30 Alarm and leave by 5:15, I am really getting too old for this.

Wednesday – Saturday

It has been a LONG week working the dog show for the GARS HAM club. I had to get up at 4:30 for the last four days. It’s about a 25 minute drive Gwinnett fair grounds. Dog Show – Lake Lanier Cluster Dog Shows It was a bit cool when I get there. Wednesday I wore three layers, shirt, sweatshirt and a jacket under my vest.

I basically parked at one of the entry gates and sifted traffic.

The weather was perfect, sunny with a comfortable breeze.

I was exhausted when I got home so I didn’t do much but get a shower and take a nap.

I did get revive an old laptop with a $20 SSD. I successfully loaded W10 on it, I need to download the Toshiba utilities to protect the battery. (I had forgotten they only charge the battery to 80%, the power supply was very hot!)

My son bought a new home in Colorado, three floors.

Sunday

We have church this morning and it is supposed to storm in the afternoon.

We’re going to get wet traveling to church this morning.

Service went well, we only got a little wet. We did go to Longhorn for lunch and I worked on the Toshiba for several hours updating the drivers. I can buy a used one for $40 if there’s any issues with it. The power supply costs as much as the Toshiba laptop.

Took Blue out for a drive and I checked the computer when I got home. The car says it is ready for emissions testing. I plan on doing that on Monday along with transporting the wife to her appointment in the wee hours of the morning.

Up at 07:30 and made a small pot of coffee. She had cold brew coffee in her french press this morning. Checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net and ate two boiled eggs with breakfast sausages.

Took our BP and our Glucose, mine was on the high side at 129. But then I had just eaten breakfast too. We both took a shower, and I laid down for a quick nap. We both changed our CPAP hoses and tanks this morning.

I found out the hoses have dates encoded on them a while back.

We’re tossing all of the hoses manufactured in 2020 since we have no way of knowing when we put them in service. (I had previously tossed hoses made before then.) When I was the only one on therapy and I had to use them down range, I kept them pretty long. (Years) Now that we’re both on therapy I’m being a little more particular.

New hoses sent to us can be late 22, 23 and 24 so we’re writing the date we open the package on the hoses from now on. The recommended replacement schedule is every 3 months, and our contracted supplier provides them at that time frame. If we keep working spares, then more than half of them is up to a year old.

If this store wants to charge $10/Lb that’s fine.
BUT DON’T HIDE THE 2 DAY OLD BROWN MEAT INSIDE !!!

Back from Wally World with some odds and ends.
The beach cart is perfect for bringing in the haul from the store.

Tues-Thursday

It’s been a busy three days. Her computer SSD ran out of write cycles and I didn’t pick up on what was happening until it was too late to recover the operating system. I paid Microcenter to copy the SSD, but all they did was recover the files on a USB disk. (Which is better than not having the data.) What I did loose is the website data in the browser, usernames and passwords. Websites drop cookies that make it easy to get onto them, but it is not something I know how to get from a hard drive.

The second thing that Microcenter did was leave a screw so loose that it fell onto the circuit boards. Worse they mounted the SSD upside down and crushed the memory into the motherboard! It took me an hour to figure out that they mounted the SSD upside down and that’s why the case didn’t go back together.

I spent the better part of Wednesday trying to get one of the three laptops configured with her login credentials and attached to her websites. It was a strange behavior, logging onto the websites would fail even with proper credentials. We spent three hours today trying to get onto Express Scripts and I ended up changing out the laptop with a newer one. (The one I installed was my anchor, it always worked for me.)

The second laptop worked like it should and I put the old laptop on my DMZ network to scan the hard drive with a “Deep Scan”. I don’t expect to find anything, I think there is a corrupted module intercepting the traffic from the browser that’s corrupting the conversation to the host. I know that it’s not located in the user files/directories since I created a new login for her. It is also affecting both Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers. Two pieces of software have modules that are suspect. One is Net Limiter and the other is Wireshark. They sit in between the operating system and the network interface.

I also loaded her pill trays since they ran out on Wednesday.

We got into a disagreement about turkey chili that was on the menu for lunch today. There’s something wrong with the recipe and she’s putting it together from memory. I went on all recipes and found a similar recipe. There were two huge issues, one was she should NOT drain the black beans and two we should use crushed tomatoes. We didn’t have any crushed tomatoes, so we went to Kroger to pick up a few odds and ends.

Friday

We got up and I checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net while sipping on Dominican coffee I got at Wally World. We took our Glucose and blood pressure and then prepared lunch correctly this time cept for two ingredients. Shredded cheese and scallions, which really makes the meal.

We went to get some cash and then to the dollar store for a card. We dropped by Waffle House for a chocolate waffle, and I had a couple eggs since I didn’t have breakfast this morning. Her Glucose was over 163 when we got home so we both walked up the block and back. When we checked it again it was 170! That’s the first time I’ve ever seen the glucose rise after a walk. We checked it an hour later and it had dropped down to 116.

Watched Hudson and Rex and Castle before bed.

Saturday

Checked in on the WW Net and took my shower. Took our Glucose and her BP, mine was a bit high at 125. Mom’s back in the hospital. Where’s my coffee? Dropped her off at a birthday party for a friend.

Not sure what I am going to do with these two fully functional PC’s. I can load Windows 10Pro or Linux Mint and that would work well with either of these. Intel sold these Intel NUC min PC line to Asus who makes really good motherboards.

Like many other things I’ve liked, I have more than one of them. I bought one, then bought two more, then bought three more. Then I bought three more after we found out about the issue with taking our medications twice a day.

I bought an SSD for a very reasonable price of $20 that will get me back onto these NUC computers. I downloaded the media creator tool and loaded Win10 onto a flash drive to install into the NUC computer. (Took 3 minutes, 900M Bytes per Second!)

An hour later I had rebuilt both of these Intel NUC mini PCs. Intel makes a tool that downloads and installs the correct drivers.

I spent a good while looking for information on how Microsoft is responding to the 65% of us that do not have Win 11 compatible computers. There was also good information on Microsoft Office, they are retiring all versions except 2024 in October.

Sunday

Had a terrible time sleeping last night, AGAIN! The first issue is usually I have a little pain in my back from the Shingles. Then it will be some discomfort in my feet that will get worse over the next hour so after getting to bed. I had 2 hours of sleep by 05:00 this morning an 6 hours before leaving for church today.

We had ham sandwiches for lunch and a nap. I had another ham sandwich for supper with creme cheese on a rice cake. BPs and Glucose were unremarkable.

Up at 7AM helping her with her meds and making coffee. Turned on the HF radio, but I’m not hearing net control at all. I can hear the Bahamas weather report. We took her BP and Glucose. They were both good to go, my glucose numbers are falling into the 100’s. Soaking rain all day, leftover chicken thighs for lunch today.

Spent the morning refilling my spare pill tray, I have one in the dispenser and two in holders waiting. I cut the 500mg acetaminophen in half to make a 2-1/2 hour dose.

We went to Kroger and picked up a few things for beef stew today. The potatoes we had were less than edible because we had gone out to eat so much recently. Mom should be home today. We watched a great Castle episode yesterday where his daughter was kidnapped to trap his father.

Tuesday

Another sleepless night, I don’t know what is going on. I am not very tired and too uncomfortable to get a good night’s sleep. Checked in on the WW net and took our BP and glucose levels this morning.

Mine is around 100 if I’ve not eaten, it does go up to 130 if taken after a meal. It is also

I need to defend my eyes from getting dry today. Also, it might be a good day to mow the back yard, it’s getting pretty tall.

We are refining our day using these pocket Daytimer and punches.

Picked the sticks out of the back yard today and mowed 1/3 on the west side of the lawn. The mower had less grass under it than I had anticipated.

One problem with our economy is that the stock market is driving profit over affordability. In the old days companies would compete with each other over the market share. Today with so few companies in the food market, they now know that we’ll by food at whatever price they set. It makes more money to sell less product at a higher price and that profit is highly desirable for those who own the company’s stock. We are heading into a time where the concentration of money is so great that it will eliminate the middle class. (Like Iran and other countries where you have workers who support those who pay them, and no one is left in the middle anymore.)

Wednesday

Gave a dozen eggs to our neighbor at zero dark thirty. Checked in on the WW net with the HAM radio then took a good nap before heading out to Longhorn’s for lunch.

We sat in our lawn chairs waiting for the mail today on a perfect afternoon.

We had a good day, BP and Glucose numbers were very good with the change in our diets to accommodate her distressed tooth. We have to keep the gums clean and that requires us to STOP eating in between meals.

Church services went well, we scrambled just a little with the rigid schedule of our pill dispensers. If we don’t eat between meals, then the 17:30 meal is a bit early to wait until 06:00 the next morning for the following meal. We run into a bit of trouble with church if the dispenser opens after we’ve left, and we wait to eat at 19:15 alarm. Church is at 19:30, so we have to eat BEFORE 18:50. It also means the testing for Glucose and BP has to occur before we leave for our friend’s house.

Neighbors took our garbage can for us tonight!

Thursday/Friday

I sent a message to Child Fund about missing letters from Jim Jim, we last heard from her in December and we’re supposed to get a letter every month. Nothing showed up in my E-Mail yet so it will be at least Sunday before I get anything from them. *Late Sunday is their Monday morning.

We made Texas Pecan coffee both days as the Dominican Santo Domingo Coffee doesn’t taste normal. Grinding the Texas Pecan whole bean coffee makes an awful noise.

I have two medications that are not performing very well. I separated them early in the week hoping to improve their performance and it has not changed enough. Specifically, my shingles (Gabapentin) postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) has been bothering me enough to prevent me from sleeping in the bed. If I take a bath the pain subsides dramatically for some reason. I’ve also been fighting a yeast infection and a difficult time urinating (Alfuzosin) occasionally.

The original three slots that I created from two to help with my symptoms are.

1. Multi vitamin, Potassium, Omeprazole
2. Aspirin, Alfuzosin
3. Gabapentin, Norvasc, Lisinopril

I created one more time slot (Now 4) to these medications. I cannot separate these pills to less than three hours without buying/using three more dispensers.

1. Multi vitamin, Potassium, Gabapentin (To be taken separately)
2. Aspirin, Alfuzosin, Omeprazole (To be taken separately)
3. Lisinopril, Norvasc
4. Gabapentin, Tylenol

We totally messed up lunch on Friday. She wanted sweet and regular potatoes plus mixed veggies. We had three steamers running at the same time. I was watching Bernie Sanders make a speech that was a total fabrication while the water ran out on the mixed veggies. When I smelled the burnt pan I pulled it off the stove and then the potatoes started burning. While I was dealing with both of those the mixed vegetables started burning. We gave up and put soapy water in all the pans and went to Longhorn’s for lunch. Dinner was a Ham on Rye sandwich our regular meal. The problem with eating at 7 is that my glucose is too high at bedtime. Boo!

Saturday

Checked in with the HAM guys and looked up the storm progress, it is not even in Alabama yet LOL.

My shingles is bothering me this morning, I took a hot bath and then a nap. I felt good enough to help with lunch which turned out terrific. Ham, Sweet potatoes and mixed vegetables. We went to Publix and spent way too much money on just a few things before the storm arrives.

I moved the cars up the driveway in case our yard floods.

Well, it looks like the storms have arrived. The interesting thing is that they petered out when they got to Atlanta. We did not get much in the way of wind, rain or lightning last night. The storm was a bust.

Sunday

This young man came to the door this morning just after 7:30 saying he was being chased, and his phone was dead. Indeed, the other camera had his running down the street until he got to our house.

He was also looking down the street where he came from in earnest.

I was fast asleep from having stayed up all last night with the storm. Further when she woke me up, I had to get some clothes on before I could address the situation. By the time I got my pants on and got the wireless house phone he had walked back the way he came.

We’ve had a lot of people come to our door. None of them said that they were being chased. He was respectful of our door and never entered the home even after asking us not to close the door. (I was trying to get dressed on the other side.) We discussed protocol and from now on we’re going to lock the screen door with the window down. That way when we open the front door, we’re not exposed to whomever is on our porch. (They cannot open the screen door.) We can safely discuss the situation through the screen. Also, if the person at the door needs a phone, we can hand them the house wireless phone. (NOT our cell phones.)

Went to Longhorn after church since we spent so much time on the chaos this morning. Service went well and feedback was not an issue today.

Slept for THREE hours after getting home from Longhorn’s, I guess I was tired!

My glucose numbers were less than 100 for the last couple of days.

Spent a couple of hours putting my pills in my three dispensers tonight.

Cleaned four more hoses individually tonight.
(I could not find these connections to do it all at once.)