Monday
Up at 7:30 and we’re eating breakfast and drinking Dominican coffee.
While I was working on the new camera a ran across a recording that showed the car shooting in front of our house at our next door neighbors house (Steve and Christy Parham used to live there.) This is the first recording I’ve ever gotten of the flash of a gun being fired. Last Wednesday I thought the gun was fired at the big blue house on top of the hill. Our neighbors (Who were renting) just moved into AJ’s house just down Jackson’s Mill on the right. (So the house was empty.)
Called Gwinnett County Police non-emergency number to have them pick up the 10 or so shells on the street in front of our house. I called 911 last Wednesday when the shooting happened at 1AM in the morning. (I never saw them) I found the casings on the street today after watching the following video.
I need to get rid of this Digital Video Recorder, it is a royal pain to get these recordings off of it! It’s appalling that the DVR firmware is not updated and then all of the applications that used to work now fail miserably. (Of course they want us to purchase a newer DVR!) I did buy three new cameras like the ones I had in Vegas (But Outdoor type) that don’t depend on having a Digital Video Recorder.
I used a tablet to download the video from the DVR, a PC is now incompatible with it.
My sugar levels are better without snacking and drinking water. It’s very hard not to drink coke and nibble on snacks while watching TV with the wife. I bought my first bottle of Whiskey in almost two months. It’s probably been twice that since I’ve tasted Jack Daniels in anything. I’ve settled in on Crown Royal Canadian Whiskey when I am out and Evan Williams when I am home.
We had a really good day today. I was not much help having spent 5 emotional hours getting the video uploaded to Gwinnett County. (Which is kinda why I bought the Whiskey today.) Boy, one sip went right to my head tonight.
Well, we’re off to bed…
Tuesday
Slept reasonably well, we’re both up and grocery shopping is the first order of the day. Wife has a Zoom meeting at 11AM so that pushes groceries a little earlier than usual. I need to check the roof this morning for bullet holes, I could not see any from the front lawn though. This requires more effort to capture a fast moving car in the dead of night. I’ve ordered better cameras and I’ve purchased night illuminators to reduce the shutter time. (Moving cars.) Current thought is to install three additional cameras on the front of the home with overlapping coverage. With the attic getting to 120 degrees during the day I’ll have a plan and collect all the necessary items the day before. The attic is down to 70’s in the morning, but we’re too busy today to start anything. I did order my THIRD new camera yesterday, the only problem with the new cameras is that they have no audio.
We did our Grocery shopping and I went over to the neighbor’s house like ours. The Vietnamese family really let the place run down. There were roach trails everywhere, the owner had to remove the countertop to clean up the mess. (It looked like German roaches too!) We then went to Longhorn’s for lunch paid for by you! Thanks so much, we had a really good time.
Took a good nap and then we found out that the dairy was not taken out of the insulated bag before we went to Longhorn’s. The bag was placed alongside the couch when she brought it in from the car and I never saw it. The milk reached 50 degrees along with the breakfast sausages. The milk should be fine, but it won’t last as long now that it got that warm. We discussed the process of bringing in the groceries. In the end we decided that it was really important that the blue dairy bag be kept in the open and emptied right after the green meat bag.
The van rear gate pull down motor started working yesterday. It stopped working after I exercised it to make sure everything was working. It seems likely that the button to close the gate has failed and remains closed. I didn’t see an easy way to get to that switch so I’ll have to check on YT for a video.
I worked on the IR light most of the evening yesterday and I tested it after dark tonight.
This is the way it looks with the IR light from the back yard camera.
The new IR light is in front of the Air Conditioner.
You can see the far lawn and the picture is significantly sharper. I am on the fence whether to replace the IR circuit board in the light fixture to improve the illumination. There is a bird’s nest right where I want to put the light. (I need to check it for eggs.)
I look like a ghost, don’t I?
Wednesday Juneteeth
Slept reasonably well. we’re both up and drinking our coffee. She woke up on the other side of the bed and is a little depressed this morning. That happens when we have difficult discussions the day before.
Paul is even on his radio this morning. It’s been weeks since I’ve heard him on WW.
Received my 2nd camera, I loaded the current firmware on it. I don’t have the Micro SD cards to be able to deploy it yet. I need to take one outside in the dark and see how it preforms before mounting them. (Although I should have done that before buying three of them.)
We took a short nap and she’s making Pasta Fagioli for dinner while I get organized. As usual she put the Corelle cereal bowls on the table to eat with.
I have always requested that we use heavy Pyrex glass bowls instead so that they can reduce the super-hot dinner to edible temperatures. She’s almost always forgotten, so I put them out for myself again today. (And then she changed out her bowl as well.)
We have midweek service tonight 1 Cor 1-17 was our reading assignment. We’ll eat dinner at the Mueller’s and then attend the Zoom service tonight at 19:30.
Trying to improve the capture of the cars in the street at night. There are a lot of challenges. Stray light at night blurs the camera’s view as shown below.
The IR camera is much clearer without the yard lantern on.
Thursday
Slept horribly last night, I had an uncomfortable torso that just made it difficult to sleep. I put my car at the end of the driveway and turned on the dashcam hoping to be able to see the license plate on passing cars. Not readable at all.
The picture of the vehicle is a little better?
I don’t think I need to put the car at the end of the driveway again.
Another complicated day, we had to throw away some salmon this morning. We have to embrace that things like this are just MORE DIFFICULT because we’re older.
I’ve gotten really behind on things I have to do, the table is a mess. I have received two cameras of three and I am waiting on the 2nd 96 LED IR illuminator to light up the front yard. I do have a six LED and a Laser IR illuminator that I may also use.
I did renew my tag for the van, no ad valorem on it. Just 20 dollars.
Her Facebook account got one of those “You Have A Virus pages” a while back. It came to her as a “Sponsored” FB message like the one below and that opened “You have a VIRUS call Microsoft at this bogus phone #”
I fell for it too, clicking on these “Sponsored” messages are extremely risky. I also got one of those splash pages. Her FB was even worse because they added “Live …” onto her “feed” to follow. (IT WAS REALLY SICK STUFF!) I couldn’t find anything helpful online; it was sheer luck I looked at the following section on FB.
After I stopped following the two links, the content stopped showing up in her feed. Except for two of them that showed up today. (They were by far worse than yesterday!!!) However, after closing the feed and checking the FB account again today it seems all is well.
The two complicated meal days are Sunday (Church) and Tuesday (Grocery day). There’s not enough time to cook a casserole on Sunday. We could possibly do it on Tuesdays, but that’s usually when we’ve chosen to go out.
Today I realized that this has to be done on Thursdays. The tall pole in the tent is that all the meat in the refrigerator is now 3 days old. (We went out and had a canned dinner for two days that doesn’t spoil.) Chicken and Pork are hard to tell if they’ve spoiled and ground beef will spoil rapidly. (Just leaving them in the fridge for three days makes all this the more necessary.)
If we start with the limited preparation time on Sunday, it’s the most desirable day to eat out. (Even though we may have to compete with crowds.) The second most desirable day is when she has a 1 hour Zoom once a month on Tuesdays. Eating left-overs on Sunday is also desirable, but that meal would have to be prepared on Friday. (That would be a good plan for her meeting days to have leftovers on Sunday prior.)
Friday
The passenger that was shooting had it over his head on the roof of the car. It is very likely that the gun rose up from the recoil quite a bit (He wouldn’t have noticed.) I plotted where these 13 or so rounds traveled. Keep in mind, Dickens Rd is about 30 feet higher than Burns Rd.
It is very likely they ended up in the trees.
I put one of the new cameras on a table in the front lawn so see how well it performs. The only drawback is that they have no microphone, and the police like to hear the shots being fired.
This is a copy of the full resolution frame and a fast moving car. An improvement.
I have a third camera arriving Monday and a second illuminator arriving on Saturday. A third illuminator will arrive sometime in July to replace the illuminator on the side of the house. (About half of the LEDs died from being overdriven.)
I cut the power to the LEDs in half to prevent them from dying, I also realized that the “Starlight” cameras don’t need 10W of Infrared light. I removed the infrared illuminator for the driveway. (The streetlight is sufficient.)
Back to bed
Checked into WW net on my radio this morning, I don’t know if Uncle Paul was on. She’s at the gym, but she forgot her M+M’s… If she had read her procedure book she would not have forgotten them. It’s almost where I need to read her procedure book as a follow up to help her out. (Boo)
3 Hard boiled eggs and breakfast sausages for breakfast this morning.
We took Silver Ford Focus to get an oil change today after eating Chicken for lunch and don’t forget our nap.
Camera mounted on chimney can see the entire street in front of the house.
It only took me ALL day to get it up and running. I received my third camera today. This is WITH the IR Illuminators that will help to see the car that’s shooting at us.
This is the view from the chimney camera.
Headed to bed, it’s been a long day.
Saturday (HAM Field Day)
It took several hours before I understood what the settings were supposed to be in the software to participate in Field Day. Most of the documentation has to do with the field day sites. (I just wanted to answer a few of their calls.)
Finished the install of a 4K camera on my chimney. This camera lets me see the entire street in one camera.
There’s a LOT of detail in the image with this camera on the roof.
Coffee, boiled eggs, breakfast sausages and coffee to get me going today.
I installed the one IR Illuminator that I have, another one arrives next Saturday.
I am beginning to wonder if I should have gotten black ones.
Do you see the camera?
How about now?
A bird made a nest in the wires on one of my cameras, there are two chicks in it.
Pork chops for lunch today with canned veggies, supper was cereal with raisins. We watched a couple Hallmark movies then I started working on the IR lights while it was dark. I found out that the IR light on the west side of the building is a really cheap one. I bought a better one and knocked down the power to increase the life. I should get another Illuminator next Saturday, and one more Illuminator in July.
Sunday
The new camera seems to be working really well, I think it’s a little over 100′ from the roadway.
I’m up and sipp’n my coffee while trying to figure out the larger plan for these cameras. The Reolink DVR is not compatible with the Amcrest cameras, but that’s ok since I really dislike this DVR anyway.
Time for a shower and get dressed for church. We had Chinese food for lunch with some friends then home for a BIG nap.
I need to mow the back yard. Do I feel like getting out in this heat…. No!
Watched Hallmark while we ate our evening soup and crackers. Mounted another IR light and now we’re headed to bed.
I got a late night idea, TIRECAM!
I can set the camera on top of the tire and it’s in plain view. I doubt anyone would notice unless they are walking down the sidewalk and happened to see it. It doesn’t have to be there during the day either, all of the shootings were after midnight.