Blog – Page 63 – Mark's Blog

29 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: It’s a travel day. We got up around 07:00 and had breakfast and a cup of Java. We spent the next couple hours packing our bags and boxes. I managed to stuff all our bags and the chain saw into our Ford Focus. I was too sweaty and tired to leave the house right away so I took a shower then a nap. I woke up about 11:30 and we finished packing and left for Tifton. It was a beautiful day and the drive was easy. We did forget my CPAP and had to go back for it, a little voice in her head saved the day. Checked into the hotel about 16:30 and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a margarita and a salad at Chilis. Got back to our room and Kathy got out the laptop and started her schoolwork. I headed off to Wally World to get some granola bars and gum for the wife, apparently we put the ones I got yesterday away in the cupboards. It was a short trip and we’re settled in on our laptops. We use a T-Mobile hotspot rather than risk the malware you can get using the hotel WiFi these days. (You should have seen the script that ran in Honduras. It was tied to the “I agree” to the terms and conditions of their hotel website WiFi button and it was HUGE!) The battery is going bad in this Laptop, need to get a new battery for it. Went to the front office and got a cup of coffee and a warm cookie (2 of them).

Travel: 150 miles to Tifton.
Tomorrow: Drive to Citra.
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering:

To Do
Establish a VPN between Ricky’s Fortigate and home.
Turn camera over the dog runs to point toward the stalls.
Set timers for Nancy’s house lights
Lengthen the timer so that the camera over the runs, runs more of the day.
Change the Wayne’s shed timer so that it comes on earlier in the morning
Set mouse traps or bait in the trailer.
Card for the drama department.
Make a list of feeling words.
Talk to the neighbor about his offer.
Lighting support for the Christmas play.
Build two long run UPS units that have external connections for a solar panel charge.
Get two teeth pulled and one post put in.
replace two of my outside cameras.
Need referral for surgery on Jan 3rd at 8:30.
Call the doctor about the anti inflammatory that I seem to be allergic to.
Call Fl Blue, Lisa Rhodes 352-854-2100 about part D.
Call Mutual of Omaha (Ricky’s Insurance)
Find out about Dental coverage for Mom, Medicare “G”?
Find out about Eye coverage for mom.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT set clear goals for the day? No
Did I DMBT make progress to those goals? No
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes (Stopped at McDonalds for some Mocha for her.)
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes (shopp’n for gum and Granola bars)
Did I DMBT fix something today? Yes (remote controlled lights at home.)
Did I DMBT improve something today? Yes, night nights in the hotel room using USB lights.
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes, althought it was easy today.
Did I DMBT be fully engaged? Yes, as usual.
*Did My Best To

28 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Went to sleep late and got up at 06:30 about 30 minutes before my alarm went off. Had a couple pieces of toast and took a shower. Went back to bed until 07:30, got dressed and started the car. (It has no A/C so the windows fog up.) Off to church at 07:45 very tired. Church services ended but they’re practicing the Christmas play which delayed my departure until 13:15. Got home had a piece of toast and went to bed. Woke up about 14:30 and headed out to The Home depot for some networking wire (CAT-5e) and Wally world for some supplies. The Home Depot wanted almost 100.00 for the wire that was supposed to be a little over sixty dollars? Headed over to Wally World and got most of the groceries until I started feeling faint. Darted over to Burger King and got a sandwich. I didn’t feel much better but I was good enough to get the remainder of the wife’s list and head home. Had a bowl of Chili whilst I checked THD website for the wire that was sixty dollars and change. Sure enough there were four boxes at the store I just left. I placed two orders for a box each and I am waiting on confirmation from the store. Just so you know Sixty dollars was about the going price several years ago for a 1K box of wire. Earlier this year it was almost a hundred bucks at THD. I checked several places back then and everybody wanted waaay to much money for networking wire. I happened across the sixty dollar price this week and researched the cost of copper. Since July it’s dropped about 30% so I assumed that was the reason that the price had changed. I got a notice from the Lilburn THD store and sure enough they had two 1000ft boxes of CAT5e wire waiting on me. I locked the car and got ready for bed, it’s been a long day.

Accomplishments: Set the camera in the big barn to notify me if anything moves, sure enough I got an E-Mail tonight showing a cat walking the hallways.
Purchases: Two boxes of CAT-5e wire to set security cameras on Nancy’s farm inside the buildings.
Tomorrow: sleep in my mom’s house.
Travel: Drive to FL, the neighbors are going to watch the house for us and the cameras are all set.
Engineering: The two CPAP machines consumed about 520WH last night, the traveling UPS currently has 1800WH of batteries.

Feeling words: anxious, amused, apprehensive, bewildered, curious, cautious, dismayed, edgy, exhausted, loving, mischievous, nervous, optimistic, panicky, rattled, reluctant, reserved, skeptical, thankful, tired, uneasy, uncertain, weak, weary.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Noteworthy:

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647

From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT set clear goals for the day? No
Did I DMBT make progress to those goals? No
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT fix something today? Yes
Did I DMBT improve something today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
Did I DMBT be fully engaged? Yes
*Did My Best To

27 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: My elbow is preventing from sleeping on my right side and I’m on the left side of the bed. I cannot sleep on my left side without blowing a significant amount of air at my wife. I put the NOCO 15000 charger on the UPS batteries this morning to replenish them. These APC UPS units were not designed to have 72AH batteries connected to them. (They normally carry a 7AH battery that can be charged in one day.) At 0.5A into a 72AH battery string it would take more than a week to recharge them using the UPS. The NOCO G15000 can charge it in a much shorter time. (I hope) Not really a fan of the fan in the G15000, the smaller chargers are sealed units that can withstand a little weather. (I leave a G3500 out at my mother’s farm to keep the tractor battery charged.) One last addition to my traveling UPS is a power failure alarm. The alarm should sound when the power has failed AND the UPS battery is depleted which means we both are wearing masks that are no longer being provided with fresh air. I have on more than one occasion slept under the comforter where it is dark, quiet and warm. It does limit my access to fresh air fast asleep, wearing a mask under a comforter. It is odd after having spent a good deal of time with a CPAP that no one recommended a power fail alarm to wake the patient up. I’ve learned my lesson, I know that I cannot get restful nights sleep without it. This morning when I got out of bed around 7AM my body was just dragging. With the rainy cold weather of late it feeling like my body is just wanting to hibernate. I bet I slept more than five hours before we went to watch the grandkids today. I had four eggs for breakfast and two cups of coffee and still went to sleep for several hours. Supper was leftover chili and soda crackers which tasted really good and had a good texture. When I got up around 4 I was surprised the sun was shining and the clouds were not a significant part of the blue sky. That cheered me up emotionally for the evening. Talked to mom, she had fed the two cows, taken her pills and was settling down for the evening. Had a great time with the grandkids, they are growing into that wonderful age for parents between 7 and 12. They are old enough to participate in large activities outside the house with their parents. They are a sponge sopping up everything they can from the world around them while still being content to be in their parents arms. Trip home was uneventful and we’re both struggling to settle into a restful sleep. I’ve got both CPAPs on a Kill-o-watt meter tonight to measure our power consumption. The spare power supplies are actually more efficient than the ones that came with the machines by a significant margin. My consumption on the spare power supply was in the neighborhood of 13-20 Watts with the climate tubing! The old S9 RESMED consumed about 60 watts for the same setup. I have to pack tomorrow for our trip to Florida and I am not emotionally ready to take such a difficult trip again.

Feelings: I’ve spent a good part of the first month blogging building the habit of writing every day. I am terrible at scheduling things for myself, although it is quite easy for me to schedule things for others. From the book “Triggers” I am to set clear goals for the day, it’s been three weeks and I haven’t gotten that part of my life in order. I can make a list like the one below and work the list setting priorities. What I am not good at is assigning times/dates to the items on the list and following through with it. One more thing I would like to be able to accomplish is writing feelings. What level of emotion deserves expressing on paper and to what level do I expose my innermost self. One major hurtle is describing how I feel. I got an idea about that today to start by making a list of feeling words. When I want describe my emotional state I choose words from the list that connect with an emotion. It shouldn’t be a difficult task to then use those words in sentences. Time will tell. First I have to get a list of words together from our friend Google.
https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647

Tomorrow: Pack for Florida and configure the house for our extended absence.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering:

26 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: My biological clock is all out of whack. I am sleeping from 02:00 to 10:00 and I can’t seem to adjust it. It’s Friday, raining and cool outside. I am a little surprised Sis hasn’t chimed in on an E-Mail I sent yesterday, maybe she’ll call me this morning. I’ve been building a flow chart of the decisions with the solar panel and the problem is that it all depends… I don’t want to put more solar on the roof as two panels are quite convenient. I can possibly mount a 50W panel on the Dish Network post that’s on the back side of my house, that’s enough power for the emergency lights and the ice maker line heater. Had eggs for breakfast and Chili for dinner, that tasted pretty good for a cold rainy day like today was. Played a game of scrabble and we went to bed a little early. I connected both of our CPAP machines to the traveling UPS I built for them last night and everything worked as planned. I bought two battery chargers for the traveling UPS. NOCO G7500 charges 24V battery strings at 3.5 amps and the G15000 charges at 7.5 amps. The 7.5A charger is HUGE, (although it doesn’t weigh very much) it is a large unit compared to the tiny 1.1A unit I bought for Honduras in 2015. I’ve had really good history with their chargers, the battery connections are completely isolated. I am able to charge individual batteries in a string to make sure they’re balanced.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering:

25 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Still sleeping in several 2 hour stretches and waking with a sore shoulder. Family sends it’s greetings and we’ll likely be on the road Monday. Coffee was excellent this morning even though it was a little strong. It’s a cloudy day, so I won’t be cutting power to the refrigerator UPS as I have all week. The results have been positive, two 100W solar panels are able to keep a standard refrigerator running during a sunny day. (The two panels are pushing about 160W which is slightly less than the 170W drawn from the refrigerator. However when the refrigerator is coasting. The solar panels are pumping a significant charge into the batteries.) The trick is to balance the four banks of batteries and the one source of power that cannot supply enough power to run all of them. One bank of batteries runs the critical infrastructure of the house, network, Internet and cameras. The second bank runs the refrigerator itself. The third bank is on heavy duty 2500VA modified square wave inverter charger which Trip Lite calls a “Powerverter”, although this is a large bank of batteries it is intended to last less than two hours. The items plugged into this inverter are chosen to reduce the rate of depletion on the critical infrastructure battery. There is one last bank of batteries that power the DC buss which supplies 12/24VDC power to the alarm system, emergency lights and the 10W ice maker waterline heater. I could use a Raspberry Pi to make the decisions, but it draws 5W all by itself. 120WH is a significant chunk of winter time power of maybe 500WH. The original Raspberry Pi draws less power, but it is difficult remote into because of the small memory size. (I love a challenge though.) I mowed the front lawn today before it started raining. I also built a adapter cable for my solar panels so I can use a standard extension cord if I need more length.

Establish a VPN between Ricky’s Fortigate and home.
Talk to the neighbor about his offer.
Card for the drama department.
Lighting support for the Christmas play.
Eyedrops
process recordings
Build two long run UPS units that have external connections for a solar panel charge.
Get two teeth pulled and one post put in.
Plan a trip to Florida week of the 29th.
replace two of my outside cameras.
Mow the rest of the lawn.
Need referral for surgery on Jan 3rd at 8:30.
Call the doctor about the anti inflammatory that I seem to be allergic to.
Call Fl Blue, Lisa Rhodes 352-854-2100 about part D.
Call Mutual of Omaha (Ricky’s Insurance)
Find out about Dental coverage for Mom, Medicare “G”?
Find out about Eye coverage for mom.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering:

24 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Didn’t sleep worth a hoot, but that’s becoming the new norm these days. I did get a chance to construct the wiring needed to combine 8 SLA batteries onto the UPS terminals last night. I also performed a run test using two 60W incandescent bulbs and the UPS worked flawlessly. Each battery was only pushing a little over an amp for the two light bulbs. The UPS is rated for 1300VA and the wiring is fused at 10 amps. I could lower the fuses to 5 amps and still support 500VA. Had a bowl of shredded mini wheats for breakfast and a couple cups of Dominican coffee before taking a morning nap. My right shoulder is bothering me a little this morning. Walked with the wife down the block and back to get some exercise this morning. It’s a little cool, but the bright sun easily overcomes the chill in the air. Kathy walked ahead of me this morning, that’s unusual. She’s normally straggling behind me and I have to slow down occasionally to allow her to catch up. Today she was ahead of me the whole way. I have about 5 hours before church tonight to get something on my list accomplished.

Spent the last hour or so looking at Medicare, there are so many options it’s mind boggling. I cannot unravel what my mom has without going down there and sorting it out. It almost looks like we should just look into 2019 because that’s going to be hard enough. I need to do that too since I’ll also be on Medicare in July 2019.

TDL,
Establish a VPN between Ricky’s Fortigate and home.
Talk to the neighbor about his offer.
Card for the drama department.
Lighting support for the Christmas play.
Eyedrops
process recordings
Build two long run UPS units that have external connections for a solar panel charge.
Get two teeth pulled and one post put in.
Plan a trip to Florida week of the 29th.
replace two of my outside cameras.
Mow the rest of the lawn.
Need referral for surgery on Jan 3rd at 8:30.
Call the doctor about the anti inflammatory that I seem to be allergic to.
Call Fl Blue, Lisa Rhodes 352-854-2100 about part D.
Call Mutual of Omaha (Ricky’s Insurance)
Find out about Dental coverage for Mom, Medicare “G”?
Find out about Eye coverage for mom.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering:

23 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Measured the power consumed by my CPAP with the heated tubing. It was actually lower than I had anticipated, around 45 watts. When we both travel I need to provide for 60 watts each and 8 hours run time. 60 x 2 machines x 1.25 efficiency x 9 hours = 1,350WH / 24V = 56.25 AH / 18AH = 4 banks of two batteries in series depleted to 25% charge. That’s taking EIGHT 12lb batteries, sheesh! One interesting tidbit is that the current for each battery is now 1/4th the total, meaning the wire size can be 2 * 3AWG + 10 or 16AWG wire to each of the batteries. I wanted to start the construction of the wiring to the UPS but didn’t get there today. I spent a good deal of time looking at power cords and extension cords. My wife and I sleep on opposite sides of the bed so she needs to run her power cord to my side (Or vis-versa). She also likes to have a miniature fan running that needs one more connection. What has worked thus far is running a cheap SP-2 extension cord from the UPS to her side of the bed. I connect directly to the UPS. I’ve also been thinking of fail modes. When we are close enough to drive back home during an outage we can bring a much smaller unit with say 1 hour of run time. If that fails it will sound an alarm and we’ll drive home and use the house power sources. (Which are many.) When we are in Florida that’s impractical to return home we have to have a much larger battery/UPS combination in place. To be autonomous we need 1300WH of battery and a way of replenishing that during the 8 hours of daylight. My portable battery bank is 72AH, to charge that in 6 hours I need 12Amps of charger. (Each battery string gets 3 amps.) It’s impractical to charge each battery, charging four 18AH strings is almost as impractical. If the power returns I need a 300W 24V @ 12A charger or four 100W solar panels with good sunlight. Day 2 of a power failure we can turn off the heated tub and hose reducing our power consumption to 70W. 560WH is a little easier to replace than 1,300WH. We could use the car alternator one time depending on the fuel levels. Might be easier though to buy that cheap gasoline generator that runs 7 hours on a gallon of gas. Four 100W panels are more clunky to carry around than the 100lbs of batteries. I did have a bit of luck at midnight tonight, Amazon ran a sale on their smart chargers!

TDL,
Talk to the neighbor about his offer.
Card for the drama department.
Lighting support for the Christmas play.
Eyedrops
process recordings
Build two long run UPS units that have external connections for a solar panel charge.
Get two teeth pulled and one post put in.
Plan a trip to Florida week of the 29th.
replace two of my outside cameras.
Mow the rest of the lawn.
Need referral for surgery on Jan 3rd at 8:30.
Call the doctor about the anti inflammatory that I seem to be allergic to.
Call Fl Blue, Lisa Rhodes 352-854-2100 about part D.
Call Mutual of Omaha (Ricky’s Insurance)
Find out about Dental coverage for Mom, Medicare “G”?
Find out about Eye coverage for mom.

Engineering: Try and reduce the number of batteries we carry for our CPAP machines. (We seem to be sleeping 10-12 hours a day.) 12Hours at 140 Watts is 1680WH which is eight 20Lb batteries and that’s not very portable. The current method is to invert 24VDC to 115VAC and use the power supplies that came with the equipment. (Which is rented, not owned.) I can probably save 30-40% by running the CPAPS on 24VDC directly, but the manufacturer chose a pretty unique connector that’s going to be difficult to find. I can also purchase two $400 power supplies with large Lithium batteries, but that has hazards of it’s own.

Planned Purchases: I need to replace two cameras, the D-Link DCS-2310 must not be made anymore because their price is either really cheap or terribly expensive. My secondary camera the DCS-2330 also looks like it’s on the chopping block. I’d like to stay with D-Link since I have 10 of their cameras already.

Purchases: Received one of two 1300VA APC UPS units that I am taking to moms. Received one Securify Peanut Plug. Two CPAP power supplies have been ordered for our Air Sense 10 machines.
Tomorrow:
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments:

22 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Both my elbows were bothering me and limited my sleep last night. It’s the main tendon on the inside of my elbow? I am beginning to wonder if I have an issue with my blood sugar. I have other symptoms that point in that same direction like tingling feet for example. I have found a unique exercise that almost always clears up the tingling feet LOL. Walked the roof today looking for anything amiss. The two pads been blown from under the two small solar panels mounted to the chimney, so I put them back where they belong. The solar panels were pretty clean from all the rain we got last week. Dinner was pork tenderloin, sweet potatoes and spinach.

Purchases: I received my second Securify Almond Peanut plug. I use one to turn the power off to the refrigerator on a sunny day to let it run off solar power. The second one will be put on the power supplies to the cameras, that way I can do a hard reset from a remote location.
Purchases 2: I’ve ordered 100′ 12AWG extension cord that I will cannibalize into a solar panel power cord. I have one 100W Panel+Cord that I can lay in the front lawn to give one of my UPS units a little more run time. It’s also reasonably portable such that I can give it to my grandkids if they lost power for an unreasonable amount of time. I have a 50W panel in Florida that can recharge my mother’s cell phones. That one is quite a bit easier to store and deploy. I’ve given a lot of thought to provide each of my offspring a 50W panel and a 20AH rechargeable battery for emergencies.

Tomorrow: We’ve made plans to walk around the block in the morning.
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy:

21 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: It’s only a little past midnight and I am up. I’ve tried going back to sleep several times to no avail. One thing I have to figure out is where to distribute the power from the two solar panels. The number one power item is the 12V@10W refrigerator water line warming wire, that absolutely cannot freeze. (But its only needed when the temperature is well below freezing.) Next on the list is the four 12V 1W ceiling LED lights in critical areas of the house that have no windows. (Both bathrooms, kitchen, pantry, master bedroom closet.) Next item on the list is the 12/24V USB charging station in the den. (Almost all our devices phone, tablet, fans, radio, flashlights charge USB). When I first constructed this low voltage system I had separate power sources for 12V and 24V. Eventually I bought a 24V to 12V converter so that the charging (And Battery banks) are all 24V (Solar controller is 24V). Church setup / teardown was difficult, the sound room was in complete disarray from the walls being painted. Two members of the crew were not there when we started this morning. Had a sandwich and then took a two hour nap before getting up and researching Sound Pressure Levels. I think our services are roughly 95dB, but I’ve cut the amplifiers off and just the house singing is 93dB on my cell phone. (Which prompted me to get a real SPL meter.) I do have a 30Yr professional bass player on the stage, he’d know right away if the SPL was too high.

Tomorrow:
Injuries: Right shoulder sill bothering me, occasionally my elbow and wrist.
Purchases: Bought some AAA batteries for mom’s lanterns and remote controls.
Travel: Citra Florida.
Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Noteworthy: Accomplishments:

20 October 2018, A day from Mark’s past

Today’s Notes
General: Had a hard time getting to sleep before midnight. Woke up from a nightmare where pink insulation was replicating and filling the entire warehouse I was in. (Never had that dream before.) All four of my 5AH EGO batteries are roughly the same capacity using the EGO inverter run time. I will continue to rotate thru all four of them to wear them evenly. It appears that the EGO 2AH battery can fail prematurely in the lawn mower because of the currents drawn. (I got the 5AH battery for that reason, it’s a 2P14S battery and should be able to support 40 amps.) The 3P14S battery is 7.5AH and but is a monster to carry around. The only EGO product that I am looking to purchase is a leaf blower, but I don’t have leaves. Let my refrigerator run off of the two 100W solar panels on the roof again today. The refrigerator UPS batteries ended up at 26.3V yesterday afternoon which is short of a full charge. (But it was cloudy some of the day.) They were 27.3V by 6 in the morning from the UPS charging current. I have a Securify Peanut plug that turns off the UPS power at 8 in the morning forcing the UPS to go on battery until 2 in the afternoon every day. Woke up at 830 and had a delicious cup of coffee. I’ve ordered two more APC 1300VA UPS units from EBAY for less than $50.00 each, I hope they overpack them. The last one I got was severely damaged by the post office carriers. Those two will end up at my Aunt’s house running her network. I’ll extend their run time with 2 banks of 18AH batteries if I can which will give it about 2 hours run time. (Her power fails pretty often.) Called in sick for my grandson’s party, I really don’t know what I have or if it is contagious.

Accomplishments: I am transitioning from reactive to Proactive because the burden of my mother seems to be settling down some now that my Aunt lost her job.
Tomorrow: Church at 08:00
Purchases: Bought two more UPS units for Ricky’s farm. (I don’t have batteries for them yet.) Also bought a boost charge controller.

Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feelings: Travel: Noteworthy: Ricky: Nancy: Kathy: