Month: May 2025

I’m up with the wife and her 5:30 medications. My tooth #29 is much better, just like last night before I ate the salmon. I need to let the root of my tooth heal before I can eat anything. Then I need to lower the pressure of the water pick to prevent pushing food down into the roots of my teeth. Getting old is so much fun.

It’s raining outside, no lightning so I connected my antennas to meet up with the HAM radio guys. (But then I went to sleep and missed them.)

My tooth is behaving itself and there is a small clot in my cheek from the cavity in the bone. (Normal for me, I take aspirin to break up the clots.)

Today was our first day away from home with all our medicine in hand.

We left our home with our timers on our wrists and the emergency medicine kit in her purse. While we were at the dollar store her timer went off for Prilosec, which we took in the parking lot. My timer for 11:30 went off at Longhorn’s and I took them while I was in the restaurant. We both took our “after lunch” medication before we left the restaurant. The 12:30 timer went off while we were at Wally World’s, but we’d both had taken that medication. After we got home, we replenished the emergency box from the three pill trays that had medicine waiting on us. All in all, it all just worked out just fine!

I had chicken tenders for lunch since I wanted to keep my eating down to a minimum. (This should be the only meal of the day, no breakfast, not even coffee.) I brushed and water picked at very low pressure to remove the chicken from my gums.

More rain is on the way, lightning is with it. I had a plate of hard cooked eggs (Not Scrambled) because I am just a bit hungry. My weight has dropped from 215 to 210 during this ordeal. It’s 1:25 and I am turning on the A/C and headed back to bed.

Tuesday

Forgot to turn the Dehumidifier & A/C back on, humidity got to 63% with all the rain.

With the two of them working together the house environment will return to normal very quickly. Our home is so small that the humidity can creep up on us in the summer. I do need to add hoses to the bathroom vents to evacuate the humidity out of the attic.

We put our emergency medicine box in her purse and headed downtown to Emory for our appointment today. The appointment went well, but the Psychiatrist we’ve had access to at Emory is leaving Atlanta and we’ll have to ask our PCP to pick up the medications she prescribed. There’s no option to stay with Emory with Psychiatry doctor. We headed to Longhorn for lunch and took our medications before and after dinner according to our wrist timers.

It started raining after we got back home so we took a good long nap. I went to Lowes and dropped off the two bad bulbs over the laundry area. Batteries and Bulbs wanted 8 dollars for recycling the two bulbs. I thought to myself that if I am buying new bulbs at Lowes, they should accept the old ones? I purchased LED replacements and installed them over the laundry area, it’s MUCH brighter now.

I filled my pill trays a little early, but I was unable to sleep and needed something to do. I read the news for a while, but it was getting boring. I tried to watch TV for a little while but then got very sleepy.

Wednesday

It is raining again, no lightning but there is a good amount of rain out there. Checked in with the guys on the WW net.

Cleared some of the living room floor.

Washed hoses and tanks today. Washing hoses amounts to siphoning water between two storage tubs and drying them with air. The tanks are soaked in a large bowl of warm soapy water with a bit of white vinegar.

Well, I’ve solved one piece of my sore mouth. Tooth #31 on the outside is rather sensitive and has been for a couple days. The rest of the teeth have settled down now that I’ve turned the pressure in water pik way down after talking to the doc at Emory. Tonight, I flushed #31 with diluted H2O2 and it immediately felt better. I’ve known for about a day that what I eat has a direct relationship with my discomfort. Sauces are high on the list. I guess it is time to see the dentist, too late for an appointment today. I have changed to a non-alcoholic mouthwash, that should help it heal.

I also have the same problem that she has, I am a nibbler…. I am eating something all throughout the day and that may be preventing my gums from healing. Coffee with sugar and cereal with raisins and milk for breakfast. (Or eggs) When I emptied my trash can there was no less than 30 bite size baby ruth bars wrappers, that’s pure sugar with nuts to pack it in. I guess the thing to do is stop drinking diet coke as a refreshment, maybe at dinner only. Soft drinks encourage the body to overeat.

Warm salt water, that’s the current plan!

Thursday

Slept in until 7AM when my wrist alarm went off. I took my before breakfast meds and checked in with the guys on WW Net. I spent a good deal of time on my gums this morning. Best I can tell I have two issues. Tooth #28 has an abscess underneath it and tooth number #31 the gum line is in the crack between the crown and the tooth. The brush is not getting down in between the tooth and the gum because the crown is overlapping the top of the gum. We called the dentist and no one answered the phone. The answering service did make an appointment for 9AM tomorrow. We drove there and sure enough the office was closed even though the door says it’s open Monday through Saturday. We drove to a Doc in the box and picked up some Amoxicillin for me to take for the next 24 hours. I assume that the dentist will have prescribed Amoxicillin for the infection anyway. (It doesn’t start working for 36 hours.)

Friday

Took my Amoxicillin very early this morning and slept in until 8AM. Checked in with the WW Net and got ready for my appointment at 9AM. Dentist gave me a referral for the Endodontist, and I headed home. We headed out for Longhorn and stopped by the bank on the way out. We were there pretty early so we walked around the building several times waiting on them to open. Tiffany waited on us and after the manager let us in. No extras today, just two salads with Diet Coke.

One of the servers came to us thanking us for our generosity, she said that it has really helped her.

Bad day for the lawn service, their trimmer may have a hard time starting up again.
(Another shower is headed our way. This may not drain before it gets here.)

Lots of muddy water from the neighbor’s yard.

I have quite a family of pill dispensers, and it grew yesterday. We have our normal three dispensers for our medications. One dispenser is dedicated to OTC Acetaminophen and Ibuprofen tablets every three hours to prevent us from taking too many.

The newbie is for Amoxicillin; I need it because it is terribly important to take these pills on schedule. I took the first pill at 4 in the afternoon. I’d like to rotate the times to early morning and late evening. Moving them takes planning and reminders. The first 24 I took as prescribed. The next three days I am moving them slowly. The afternoon pill was moved from 4PM to 5PM today, effectively changing 875mg to 805mg. As an elderly person there is a risk to my liver to take this medicine at such a large dose.

We had cold cuts on Rye for dinner with creme cheese on rice cakes.

Saturday

Checked in with the HAM guys on the WW Net, I could not hear more than half most of the conversations.

Major progress on the living room today.

Okay then, we got this in the mail today.

I set my above wrist alarm watch for 19:00. We got new bands today and she opted for the pink band instead of the red one. I think I’ll keep the black one.

Our favorite wagon family went by again today with the new one.

Our neighbor took the garbage can in for her today.

And I took their recycling can in for them.

The family waved back when they went home.

Now that I’ve stopped taking Gabapentin the nerve pain on my back is getting worse. What I didn’t know (And no one told me) is that it is recommended I get vaccinated against shingles. With two doses, Shingrix is more than 90% effective in preventing shingles and postherpetic neuralgia. Other shingles vaccines are offered outside of the United States. Talk to your provider for more information on how well they prevent postherpetic neuralgia. With the Gabapentin the rash was not really bothersome, but the side effects of stopping Gabapentin is worth getting the vaccine at this point.

Her glucose numbers are rising. We need to figure out why!

Sunday

We are getting close to the end of both of our lives, and the political climate is to selfishly pit one family member against the other. Since the eldest of our children has decided to stand against me, we’ll probably pull all the beneficiary names off all our accounts. If there is anything left after taking care of us and paying for the probate lawyer, we’ll probably give that to charity.

My body pain was pretty high a little after midnight, so I drew a nice hot bath. I also took a whole 500mg Acetaminophen and 200mg Ibuprofen

It’ been hard moving these doses one hour later at every dose. We’ll be on a firm schedule with the Amox after today which will be a LOT easier to manage.

I am using one of the battery powered pill dispensers for the Amoxicillin doses.
Even though you cannot load overlapping times, it has been a life saver. I set the green flash 30Min before and it flashes red when I am supposed to take them.

I need to go onto the endodontist’s website today and register for an appointment to take care of my abscessed tooth #29. They gave her 800mg Amox and I am currently taking 875mg.

Registered with Kersh Endodontics, I missed an opportunity to schedule an appointment with them on their website after I registered. I’ll have to wait until they call me back on Monday to schedule an appointment.

Church started at 10:50.

CF Philippines sent me an E-Mail with two letters from Mariel that I hadn’t seen. One thing I did notice is that the “Chit” attached to the thank you letter now gives the child two whole months to write a letter back. The money leaves the US at the end of the month no matter what day it was given. It takes 2-3 weeks to change hands into the local partner and made available to the child’s family. That’s 5-6 weeks after I spent the money from my account. Now that the family has the money there’s another 8 weeks before the thank you letter has to be back with the in-country partner. They also give 8 weeks for the physical letter to make its way to the central office in New York where the letters are actually mailed individually. So now there’s 22 weeks between the gift to the family and any acknowledgement from that family what they did with it.

We had a simple plate of scrambled eggs and coffee for breakfast.

It’s sprinkling, albeit very lightly. (No lightning)

We discussed our options and decided to go to Longhorn for lunch to celebrate our anniversary because of a doctor’s appointment next door. We had a good lunch thanks in part to Tiffany.

Back home we took our medicine and took a nap. We forgot to bring our medications with us to the doctor’s appointment/lunch.

That’s been a reoccurring theme where we’re not home with our pill dispensers and we forget to take them.

We have a pill tray with all of our medications for 24 hours, but we need a reminder to (1) take the medications with us and (2) to take them at the proper time.

We bought two TabTime – Medication Management Products wrist timers to wear when we are going to miss our medications. That and the pill organizers we have should cover us for a short trip. If we’re going for more than a couple days, we’ll bring the battery powered 28 slot dispensers instead. (They’re not WiFi so the battery lasts much longer than 4 days.) We could power the WiFi dispensers we normally use with an external battery or the vehicle power, but I am thinking that’s a bit too much to travel with.

Tuesday

Got up around 7 and made some eggs sunny side up with breakfast sausage and rye toast. Checked in on the WW net and read some news before getting so tired I could not keep my eyes open. We have chicken and beef stew meat dated for the 19th to cook today since we went out to eat yesterday.

Chicken breasts are done, albeit a little overcooked. (They will be a little tough.) The beef stew is done too, but we have to wait until it cools before we can open the Insta-Pot. Dinner was really good, leftovers are in the fridge. Not sure what we are going to use all the chicken for since we have all the beef stew.

I cut up the chicken breast and added some salad dressing to make chicken salad for sandwiches. It was quite good and healthy since there’s no added salt or sugar.

Watched Sue Thomas FBEye for a couple of episodes. We did take our Glucose and blood pressure reading for tonight.

Wednesday

Woke up with a sensitive tooth this morning, on a scale of 1-10 it is a 2. It is like tooth #30 which is the same tooth that she almost had to have pulled. Well, I brushed, flossed, picked and rinsed with H₂O₂. I’ve been lucky so far with using Hydrogen Peroxide to ward off teeth infections. Well, no sugar until I get this resolved!

Line of thunderstorms rolled through last night about 2AM, slept right through it.

Lightning lit up the wet front yard at 2AM this morning.

We went to Longhorn’s after the doctor’s appointment;

Tiffany had it all setup for us!
We had a delicious meal and cheesecake for dessert.

We messed up taking our medications on time, we’re hoping the timer bracelets will solve the problem for us. I also attached my phone to her pill dispensers today. (I honestly didn’t think that I’d have too.)

Upset tummy tonight, old faithful crackers and coke.

Thursday

Up at 8AM and checked in with the HAM guys on the WW net. Took a shower with the Mrs. and we’re trying to organize our day. We’ve taken our morning meds, the next alarm is at 10:30.

We went to Wally World and got some $200 worth of staples, sheesh it has gotten expensive. I need to look back and see how much we spend a year getting groceries at Wally World.

Had chicken breast with BBQ sauce, it was actually quite good.

Filled our pill trays today, we empty the last slot every Wednesday.
We then swap out the entire tray after 5PM to be filled on Thursday.

Got four new trays today, battery powered (No WiFi.)

This is a much better solution when traveling, runs on batteries only.

Pulled all the pain medications from the other trays to put in the new dispenser.

It will rotate, flash green and dispense 2x 250mg Acetaminophen and 1x Ibuprofen tablets every three hours.

Reset her carousels to 2x and 3x per day after removing the pain meds.
3x per day is nine days for 28 slots, so we’ll just leave the eight extra slots empty to stay on a weekly schedule. 2x per day works out to 14 days, which means we fill it every other week which is ok too. Mine is still 4x and seven days since I only am using one dispenser.

Friday

Woke up with a rash down both arms and around my neck area. It doesn’t really itch, but I can feel the warmth. Checked in with the HAM radio guys on the WW Net. Made eggs and had breakfast with the Mrs. this morning.

It’s 11AM and the rash is still on my arms and hands.

The tops of my fingers itch up to the first joint.

The rash is just below the sleeve of my shirt down to my wedding ring. Google Foo says it is common to have this rash on the forearm when getting off the Gabapentin drug. I also have a bit of a rash around my neck, all of this feels very similar to a mild sunburn. (But I’ve not been outside for any length of time.)
The muscles on my torso just under my left arm are sore for some reason.

Salmon for dinner, with sweet potatoes and frozen veggies.

Met up with our garbage hauler, he had a NICE pair of sunglasses!

I tried my best to show the rash on this website to no avail.
(It looks much more prominent in person.)

This is a women’s belt that I use as a chin strap, I sleep on my left side away from the buckle. The normal chin straps are elastic and always apply pressure, the belt only applies significant pressure when I try to open my mouth. If I open my mouth while I am sleeping, it will dry my soft palate. The soft palate then becomes sticky and will not let air flow to my nasal passages. The belt is not tight enough to prevent mouth breathing. (An athletic mouthguard does prevent mouth breathing.)

The women’s belt (chin strap) fits nicely under my CPAP mask.

Mowed the back yard and then sat down for a bowl of sweet potatoes while watching Sue Thomas FBEye. Her Glucose was over 150 and she can’t remember what she ate for it to be that high. (Me Either, mine was 108)

Saturday

Our wrist timers should be here today. Hard time sleeping, had to take a whole 500mg of Acetaminophen and 500mg of ibuprofen before I got some sleep. Checked in with the HAM guys on the WW net this morning. We did a load of whites this morning. The four pill carousels have been doing well. The medicine was loaded correctly after changing the three of them from 4x per day.

Lunch was beef stew in the Insta-Pot, we were a little light on the veggies. We were thinking of going to Longhorn for some drinks until we remembered that this weekend is school graduations.

We gave away another wagon today.

We got our His & Hers timer bracelets today. We set them according to the pill dispenser times and they vibrate soundly when the alarm arrives. (It can store 10 alarms)

I did disable the 05:30 alarm for her since she’ll probably be sleeping. I disabled MY 07:00 alarm for the same reason. (I don’t want it to “Wake” us to take our pills that have an arbitrary time that will likely wake us.)

The timer part comes out to be charged with a regular uUSB cable. The manual says it only takes a couple hours to charge them.

Our neighbors brought over some Mexican food for us to eat.
(I kinda stabbed her fingers with my nails trying to get under the plate.)

My lower jaw from #30 to 28 all are sensitive tonight. It started with #30 last night. I drank coffee after lunch because none of them were bothering me, and I had whole grain cereal for breakfast. It all started tonight when I flossed with dental tape. Maybe I pushed food down into the roots of my teeth? (No more dental floss!)

I used a water pick to flush my gums with a 50/50 mix H2O2 and water tonight. I also use a soft bristled electric toothbrush to clear my gums. They will be sore from all the scrubbing, but hopefully not divulge into a tooth infection/abscess. For now, without any pain meds the pain is not uncomfortable unless I am chewing with those teeth. My jaw below the teeth is sensitive and hurts when pressure is applied, which is not good! It got a LOT worse in about 4 hours tonight when I chose to take care of it later. Oopsies!

02:30, gums still sore, maybe just a bit more sensitive than when I went to bed several hours ago. Rinsed with H2O2 and then mouthwash to clear the bacteria from my mouth and gums. I know that there is a cavity in my bone in both sides of my jaw, if that cavity gets infected it could cause the removal of all the teeth on one side. Last time this happened I used a syringe to push H2O2 into my jaw to kill the infection.

17:00, gums not very sore. (I am hoping this is all behind me, boy I am hungry.) I broke down and had two rice cakes with creme cheese on them. Time to check the website for today’s service.

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 all of them 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 to the other side 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, chips 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.

I received 200M (600Ft) of wire to play with today. 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. We had a frozen turkey breast with red potatoes and veggies for lunch. I posted the service to the church website and checked it.

Took a good long nap to close my eye for a while. My right eye bothers me more than the left, but I think they are both too dry. We watched Sue Thomas FB Eye until we started our evening routine.

Using DC-DC inverters has really worked out great for powering USB devices that are in the same area, but not really close together. I can use this twin lead wire to reach them instead of a long USB cable. (Long USB cables have a lot of loss at more than an amp.) These 20AWG wires have losses too, but they are on the input side of the voltage regulator.

The one problem that continued to crop up was powering Raspberry Pi’s, they have a rather dynamic load that seems to overwhelm the voltage regulator or the USB cable. I started out using 12V since it’s a very common voltage used on low voltage devices. (I could tap off of the 12V powering the switch to power the wireless router.) I ended up stacking so many USB DC-DC converters I overwhelmed the 12V power supplies.

When we got our first Echo Show, it came with a nice 18V power supply. I could tap off that 18V and power many 22V DC-DC converters. I had an entire table of devices in the hotel powered from the one 18V Echo Show power supply. (However, back home, the Raspi’s still were complaining about their 5V rail dropping out even at 18V. ) These devices were not able to handle 24V which is very common in our home.

I bought heavier DC-DC converters and still had issues with them at 18V source voltage even with larger 3Amp power supply.

I just found out this week that raising the supply voltage to the 24V USB-C family of DC-DC converters (That I already had) supplied enough current to keep them happy! They will still be waiting on the table for Rasberry Pi foundation to fix remote desktop for their operating system. RealVNC does not work with the newer Pi 4 devices and using Microsoft Remote Desktop doesn’t work very well either. The Raspberry Pi’s in our home are delegated to Home Assistant, Flight Aware or the shelf ! (Personally I think it was a waste of money purchasing these Pi 4’s.)

The newer power supplies use shielded wires and that’s not as easy as the IDC connectors I’ve been using. But, I can put three IDC capable wires into the 5.5mm adapter. Any more than three pairs of wires per connector just gets awfully messy.

I have cut off the 5.5mm barrel connector and fastened a Power Pole connector in its place. You still cannot put more than 4 pairs of these white wires in a PP45 connector. I have tried using large butt connectors and three wires per side in the hotel room setup. But it’s still awfully large and messy pile of wires at a single point. Another Idea I have is to use a 5.5mm “Y” cable to stretch between two sets of three wires. That way there’s only one larger wire stretched between two distribution points of three wires each on the hotel room desk.

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.