12/31/23

New Year's Eve.  Well Happy new year everyone!  

Work up early again today.  Sleeping has not been going well for me. Might be the Covid, might be the mattress. I'm just not comfortable.

Cut up some melon and fruit for breakfast, I had fruit and bagel with nova and an espresso.

While making breakfast I remembered. Years ago I use to get up early on a Sunday morning and go to the grocery store. One Sunday I was looking at the selection of cheese in the deli area. It was the case where the supermarket keep the “artisan” cheese.  While there was this guy. I would say old guy, but who is really old? Anyway, he saw at me looking at the cheese and started grumbling. Who would buy this? Why would you buy this fancy cheese? Why pay so much money for this cheese? American cheese is 69 cents a pound! Now I looked at the cheese before me, none of it fancy, mostly reasonably priced for what it is. It was not exotic cheese by any stretch of the imagination, feta, a blue, pecorino, possibly a Stilton.  People should just buy a American cheese,  not this fancy stuff, he opined. Cheese to him was something on a ham sandwich or slightly melted on a burger from a fast food place. He probably never enjoyed the salty, funky goodness of a Brie on a cracker. Or the satisfying taste of a Romano sprinkled on a well made plate of pasta.  I know that I could not and would not change his mind. There is a look of a man who is determined to have his  opinions and to let you know them whether you wanted them or not.  He clutched on to his deli sliced American cheese like a trump supporter with a red hat.  I looked at him square in the eye and picked up a ripe blue cheese and sniffed it and said, “I like a good cheese in the morning, it smells like feet!” I turned and walked away. 

Interesting tidbit, today is 123123.  

12/30/23

Saturday, Still positive.  8 days on and still a positive test.  Did not even have to wait 15 min for the test, a big bright second line showed up fast. Don't feel bad a little nose action but ok. I'll wait until Monday to test again. 

Doing pickup shopping for groceries today.  Going to pickup at Giant and Wegmans.   

Got the laundry from the trip out of the frunk of the car.  That place makes good storage for a laundry bag for the road trip.  

Workshop news the morning. Got the front retract placed on the Avanti. Steering and retracting, doing all the things that it needs to do. Glued in the brace with adhesive caulk and have to wait until it dries to see if it is solidly in place. 

Picked up all the groceries for the week. Lots of fruits and veggies. Going to make some marinated baked chicken for the week. 

Got a lot done on the Avanti. It should be mechanically complete tomorrow. Then work on the radio and gyro. 

Tomorrow I'll get back to working out on the elliptical. I should be healthy enough to do a workout.

 

12/29/23

Friday.  Not feeling too bad.  I'll test tomorrow.  Trouble sleeping woke up at 2:30 and could not go back to sleep for hours.  Woke up mostly refreshed this morning. No brain fog.  It might well be a sunny day! 

Made Café Busteleo in the espresso machine. Does not produce that good of a creama, but tasty . Wil have to give it a go in the Moka pot. 

Going to work on my planes in the basement tonight. I think I can work more moderate tasks and the planes that need to be fixes are just bugging me to get done.  Ordered some "bush" wheels for my cub. It should look like a Alaskan bush plane.  

Made a nice breakfast using the slow cooker double boiler method of steel cut oats and buckwheat with dried figs.  The dried figs got nice and moist after being in the hot cereal overnight.  Got to clean the cereal dishes quickly as the buckwheat turns to concrete in short order. 

Catching up on some home backlog that have to be done before going to the basement workshop.  Ordered a new laptop for the basement the tablet was not cutting it anymore got a cheap AMD Dell from the outlet. That should work for the basement / hobby computer.  

Made some packet Indian food. Had some curry and bean packets and made rice with those for lunch.  Change up from Chinese food and eating out of the cupboard.

Worked on the Avanti Jet today. Got the motor, ducted fan and "afterburner" lights sorted out and Into the fuselage.   Work on control wiring tomorrow. 

12/28/23

Slept in my bed las night.  I think the bed is lumpy.  Hmmmm.  Got up early and made coffee and turn ed on the fire place.  Published last weeks blogs posts. Going to empty the car and unpack. 

But first coffee. 

My brain is a little foggy today. I keep jumping from thing to thing as my head just put to many thoughts together. M not doing too good today.  She needs just a little rest and to relax.  We'll get over this it just may take a while.

All I can focus on is getting lunch today. Doing an online order for Chinese food a quick in and out.  Soup and noodles….

Getting really tired today.  I'm falling asleep on the couch. I'm not going to do anything complex today.

Updated a machine to run the Dyn DNS client. What was that about complex things.

Watching M make some banana bread. Mmmmmm.

Going to stream some shows tonight. 

12/27/23

New Day … not sure what day it is.  Had a great sleep. M had a good sleep too. Was actually breathing through my nose for once.  Ah, the little things in life. 

Back on the road home this morning.  Will be raining, it will be a treat no?

A very long drive home.  Started out well cruise control working and all. Found a bunch of new chargers and chargers that had more slots installed. We ran into a Panera and Starbucks for bagels and coffee. We had our breakfast in the car.  

Found out Mom caught 'Rona from us. I really feel bad about that. Jay brought her a test and it was positive. He is going to see her on Paxlovid to help her out.  Hope she has mild symptoms. 

It started raining and the cruise control went out on us. Ugh it was not ideal. What was going to be our last stop the charger had an issue that it only putting out 27kW. Had to go to one more stop to find a better charger.  

The rain and fog was really soupy and visibility was low so traffic was just not good.  Some people going slow others real fast, Semi's putting up a spray wave. 

Home at last.  Rebooted the router. House back on line.  I'm sitting in my easy chair and life is good.

 

12/26/23

Homeward bound.  Christmas over early and we are heading out of town. No visits with Mom or making pot roast or bbq pork. No more being with the BW's or Kimatha. Bit of a bummer and a let down but it's for the best. A let down for sure. 

We left Columbia early in the Morning.  Took out a mountain of trash from the room and loaded up the car.  Good news after charging the Autosteer did not give up this time, It would have been a bear to be on the throttle and wheel all day. The Autosteer is really great to have.

Did drive thru at Terre Haute while charging, keeping a low profile. 

12/25/23

Merry Christmas!!! 

Coffee and still stuffy. 

It think the internet connection at home is not working. I need to reboot the ONT Optical Network Terminal.  I'll do that when I get home. Looking at early termination of vacation.  Going home tomorrow. 

Sorry to say It can't come soon enough.  Christmas dinner is replaced by stale bagels.  With Rona just not feeling Christmas this year. I feel I spoiled Christmas for everybody especially M.

We joined the tribe and ordered Chinese food on Christmas! We had a quart of egg drop soup with wonton dumplings. Ah, was it good!  M had chow mien and I had noodles.  Well maybe we didn't join the tribe as I got pork fried rice.

Opened the fortune cookie and it said " Don't Panic".  Did I just go to the Chinese Restaurant at the end of the Universe?  

Ok packed bag and am ready to start packing the car.  I think I'll fell better at home where I'm comfortable being miserable.

12/24/23

Christmas eve!   Slept better than I had a right to.  But still nose dripping.  Having a good cup of coffee this morning.  Planning on what to do with the rest of the day. 

Happy Festivus, for the rest of us!!!  Boy, do I have problems and you people are going to hear about it!!!

Ugh bad new I tested positive for 'Rona…

Lots of chicken broth and being locked down in a hotel room.  M not going to do baking with family and we won't be going to her Mom's house for Christmas.  I feel like the Christmas Party pooper.  

Had to get M out of the baking session at the BW's and get her back to the hotel so we didn't infect the whole crew. 

Hope Mom didn't get sick after our visit.

Covid, the gift no one want for Christmas! Guess I'm going to be standing at the end of a 39 and half foot pole from everyone.

12/23/23

Saturday.  Bad sleeping last night.  Stuffy nose, drips ugh!  Got some Hall drops they worked for a bit.

After supercharging the cruise control / autosteer dropped out again.  Ok it's after a supercharge. 

Went to M's Mom's place.  She was very happy to see us . M was also happy we did a paper Christmas tree that was decorated with birds.  Checked into hotel then a bite to eat. Started to feel miserable with a stuffy nose again,   Going to be a another long night. 

12/22/23

FriYay !!!!  Woke up late. M and I hit the gym this morning first thing.  Had the hotel breakfast. It was not terrible and it was not too crowded.  We got a pour over cone and making Café Bustelo. It's going to be a good cup of coffee!  

We have a reservation at Andre's at 11am today.  After that a miniature museum, break then to Ginny and Brian's for the evening. 

Oh my gosh! The pour over is the best coffee I've had in a while, strong and tasty. The coffees aroma was divine. 

It was fun at Andre's and the miniature museum.  The miniatures we exquisite in detail. The workmanship was on another level. I was not felling great I had to sit out a bit. Later we went to Ginny and Brian's home for Christmas party. There was lots of sad hugs when we left as we will not see each other for a year. 

121/21/23

Was very stiff and could only get 20 min of elliptical yesterday. Body telling me to get some rest. 

Trip yesterday was pretty brutal. Our estimates on range yesterday were getting us to charging stations with little reserve. We tried the more stations less charge method and it seemed to work with the charging but took a long time.  Have to get my calculations back on track. Second the cruise control, autosteer was having issues. It would not be available. Reset the computer it came back and went out again. Being on the throttle was giving my foot and ankle a cramp. 

Traffic was rush hour crazy between  Columbia an KC. Well it's rush hour and the malls are packed and everyone hitting the road. 

Finally at the hotel. Bummer! No K cup machine! Have to remember that and get a pour over funnel. 

I also should look at my dynamic IP address. It was not work right yesterday. 

This morning I hit the gym with M and got a good workout. Will be able to hit the gym again tonight. 

Meeting the KC crowd at First Watch on Armor Rd at 9 this morning. 

Karen, Gary, Shirley, Roxanne, Ginny, M and myself were there. Breakfast was good, catching up with everyone was even better. We were all chattering away telling all the details that we have missed in out lives for the last two years.   Brian was at work I hope he is there tomorrow,  We then wen to Shirley's new home. She has a very nice place.  More talking and we got on the the subject of videos.  Videos of Rico the porcupine from the Cincinnati zoo  came out. But the girls started with a dance along video of salsa dance. Karen was kind of shocked to learn that YouTube video to learn something were free!  We had some snacks, what is Christmas without snacks! Shirley had to go to work. The tyranny of work!  But she left us at her apartment,  I don’t know I would never toss the keys to my place to a bunch of pals.  We avoid tearing down the house.  The we went to a walk around Macken Park about a mile around at least it was good to work off the big breakfast. Getting back to the apartment and more catching up, the girls made plans for tomorrow since it is going to rain. Andre's downtown, a Swiss restaurant.  I think they had more in mind and we are going to Ginny and Brian's later on in the evening tomorrow, 

We came back to the hotel after stopping at HY-VEE. Got a pour over coffee funnel and salad and fruit for dinner. We went to the gym to round out our day with a workout and had dinner back in the room.  I also loaded PhotoScape X to try and it seemed to combine pictures pretty good. 

12/19/23

 

Having breakfast at Sheetz first charge up of the trip. Started snowing early, roads are not greasy. Getting out of the Philly area by the turnpike is always nerve racking.  Commuters driving like idiots.  Really looking for a great getaway.

Good breakfast sandwiches at Sheetz but no napkins!!! How is a messy boy supposed to eat breakfast. 

Somerset turnpike plaza for next charge.   Empty today except for a couple of nuckelhead kids with their mom. M pacing around the food court. I’m calculating the next stop. Triadelphia, or further. 

Cambridge, was our next stop. Sheetz for lunch.  The head wind had burned off 50 miles of range this trip.  We got to Cambridge with 30 miles of range.  

Dayton last charger stop. Limped in with 23 miles of range. Just made it!  The winds was murder.  I should have done another stop.

Did some routing using A Better Route Planner, it looks to be a bit better, more stops and faster charging. 

We got the car wash after charging it. Get the salt knocked off it! 

Did a turn on the elliptical at the hotel.  Felt good to get some exercise. 

12/18/23

 

Monday,  Lot's of getting ready for the holidays this weekend.  Cleaning, checking and generally keeping busy.  Mostly done by Saturday and Sunday morning. Had time to work on rebuilding the jet.  Found more parts that needed to be replaced. I really should have tossed the broken bits and bought a new one. It would have been cheaper.  Now I'm wiser. 

Raining like crazy this morning. The morning workout was punctuated by the sump pump running at intervals.  

One more day of work and on vacation for the rest of the year. The whole team is on vacation it could be a slow day or a real pain in the ass. I'm hoping for the first option. 

Day turned out to be not that bad.  M made cookies. The sun is staring to come out, it was to be a crappy rainy day, everything coming up roses. Got the car packed ar we are ready to go for vacation. Now just have to pack the computer and get a good night sleep.

12/16/23

Friday was busy. Got the alarm sensors hung. Did some financial errands. Also, some shopping.  

Made cheese ravioli and Impossible "meat"balls for lunch.  Does ravioli take me back!  When I was a kid my grammar school user to run a carnival near the holidays. It was a real simple carnival with chance wheels, bingo and 50/50  for the adults and magnet fishing and similar games for the kiddies. Boy those nuns uses to love their bingo and 50/50! Anyway there was also a ravioli dinner. The lunch ladies would sell tickets and people would come to the cafeteria and have ravioli with red sauce, meatball and bread. It would be one of the places my dad would not bitch and moan about going out to eat. The lunch period before the carnival they would also have ravioli and my parents would give me money to buy lunch that day. So I would not have to have the greasy pepper and egg sandwich that I would throw out. Ravioli and red sauce was just so great for me as a kid.  I mean even today if I could only eat one thing and it could be spaghetti and sauce  that would be ok.  Ravioli is just plus ultra.  Don't get me started on the lasagna crunchy corners! 

Mike came by this morning after breakfast. We had a nice cappuccino and discussion. We talked about going to Dayton OH to the Air Force museum for a long weekend. I gave him a bunch of lipo batteries from the planes and a couple from computers to put into the recycling box at Home Depot.   I feel great that they have those boxes there to recycle lithium batteries. I just hope that they don't just go into a landfill. 

Been working on trying to reduce out internet/cell/subscriptions bill. Going to drop youtube TV and a Microsoft subscription will save us of $75 a month.  Dollar here, dollar there it starts adding up fast. 

Did a little shopping for clothes so I could have shirts that did not have soup stains on them. I want to be presentable for M's family and friends for the holidays. New clothes were in order. 

12/14/23

Thursday, last work day.  Early meeting today.

M meeting Gail for coffee this morning. 

Trying to find out why NAS file syncer is not working.  Also, coming to the conclusion that the windows surface that I have in the basement is not cutting it any more. Found a cheap laptop on Dell outlet for $300.

Mike has reconsidered the battleship tour. WE are giving a crowd a wide berth before our trips for the holidays.  Maybe next year. 

Meg and M went out to Doylestown this afternoon. They had tea at our house when they were back. I took the opportunity to have a few butter cookies with them. 

12/13/23

Wednesday Hump Day!  

M's car is ready for her trip will warm it up before she leaves. Elliptical done this morning. Decided on have a can of veggie beans and pasta for lunch, should be filling

Got a lot of good feedback from all who went to that stakeholder meeting. Alex did a great job and I put him in for a quarterly award. 

Pat the mouse guy stopped by to reload the mouse traps outside. Keep those little critters in the woods this season. 

Added sensors to the alarm system. Mount them permeant later this weekend. 

 M's trip went well no need to recharge. 

It seemed cold here today, the wind chill is low for a sunny day. 

12/12/23

Tuesday,  Up this morning and doing the elliptical.  Not wanting breakfast today, had soup last night. Coffee is all I need.  Staying home this week.  Just wanted to be comfortable this week.  

Looks like Friday visit to the battleship is on track.  Check with Mike if Chris wants to go too.

Loading iOS 17.2 going to give the journal app a whirl let's see if it can augment what I'm doing here. 

The landscapers are here. Blowing leaves and getting the place cleaned up.  Man the blowers are noisy! 

Start of new journaling app. Let’s see where this journey takes us.

Charged up the keyboard for the iPhone so I can take notes in the journal.

M went out to grocery store to get supplies. I was really in the mood for a sandwich and now it can happen!  M is really good to me!

M going to Winterthur tomorrow setting her car to charge to 100%. 

 

12/11/23

Monday.  Good Weekend.  

Friday we got the snow tires mounted on the car. M and I went to Pumperknicks for breakfast. 

Saturday I went to the flying field. I broke the wing mount on the cub putting it together.  I would have come apart in the air that would have been bad. Otherwise a nice day flying with John. 

Saturday night M and I went to Kathleen and Kevin's Christmas Party.  Very good time met a lot of new people and lots of holiday food!  Hey Mad Dog, your cheese cake was excellent!!!  We had a really good time even though we were out way past our bed time. 

Sunday rainy day.  Hit the elliptical and then just relaxed around the house. Fixed the cub, it's much stronger now. Had to rip some 1/4 inch strips of wood on the mini table saw which was fun. M made cookies. I had to check to see if they were any good. Took 3 cookies before I could make a decision! 

Monday, now I'm trying to catch up on work. Have to get the work done and the team prepped for a couple of week downtime. 

12/7/23

Downtown again.  Chris and Mike were working on me to take the day off and have coffee with them.  Very tempting indeed.  Meeting today and a schedule scramble is going on have to get the guys at least looking at the right things this morning.  Really I could care less about what I'm doing now at work.  another 18 months or so at this point. 

Frustrating again today at work as support issue pile up, product managers giving us crap  and new project appear out of thin air.   Lunch is a welcome time to relax and chase everyone away, I just want to be alone! 

12/6/23

 Downtown again. Sprint end day.  Busy all day. Compete with a late meeting.    

Watched a trailer for Amazon Fallout. Looks like a good series to steam over the winter.   trying to keep a big list of things to watch so I don't get bored.  

Coffee good today.  Even though I have my own k cup machine on my desk it still is a bit hit and miss.  

Been working on SRECs for our solar system.  Needed our PTO certificate and got it from the electrical provider.   Have to talk to Q about a few things with the SRECs. 

Found the layout display for the solar system. Good all the panels are working. 

My verb of the day is Structure.  I need to structure my life, I need a reliable schedule and routine to get into a better mindset to complete my life goals  

Working on staying away from the bags of trail mix and chips in the lunch room today.  so far so good. 

At work Alex made a demo of the project we are working on.  I kind of helped him with laying out the presentation and the demo.   We worked on telling a story of the program and the feature that we had completed. The story was why we needed the feature why the customer should care therefor why the upper management of our company should care.   We'll know in a couple of days how the demo landed with the stakeholders.  

Home on the early train. Traffic in Ambler was crazy, This season brings out the crazy in drivers.  

Home automation acting up, Hue switch died and having issues with family room lights.  

M thinks I'm ignoring her. Trying to fix lights while she is telling me about her day. No I can do both, mostly. 

Elliptical session tonight.  

 

 

12/5/23

 Tuesday downtown,  Uneventful.  have pretty much caught up with work in the morning.  In Early and the motion lights in the office keep going off. It's annoying.   

Took the early train home. Went directly to the elliptical, that felt like a win.  I did not get unmotivated.  

12/4/23

Ok Monday.  I have to get the little grey cells warmed up and talking to me today.   Started off with a good workout.  I really have to get back on the two a day workouts for the days I'm home.  I just feel better and I really should not be that lazy. 

Work was not too bad today. I think I got away unscathed! 

Did another workout in the afternoon. Yep, it felt really good. Two workouts a day about 90 minutes total feel like I have done something. 

12/3/23

Sunday.  Where does the weekend go?   Coffee tasting great this morning.  

Pulled out a veg lentil stew from the freezer. Something from this summers party. It was frozen solid but the top had dislodged due to expansion.  Defrost it and make some rice it will be tasty.   

Last night we sorted the last of the coins. Now we have 4 bags of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.  I got some cheap counting funnels that make counting the pennies and filling rolls real quick for the pennies. If M counts and fills the rolls and I crimp them it goes fast. 

Going to jump on the elliptical this morning. It will be easy on the knees. 

Elliptical was a good workout.

Working on Avanti Jet today. Fixed most of the landing gear.  Cleaned and lubed, working correctly.  Ordered retract motors and other hardware to replace broken bits. Result is that I have the wings with the servos mounted.  Ready for the landing gear when it package arrives. Wings should be done next weekend. Then the fuselage and motor will be next. 

Sunday evening stress starting, I just don't want to go to work tomorrow. Hope tomorrow won't be a $hit$how. 

12/2/23

Foggy morning.  Reading a bunch on the winter forecast. Earlier they said it will be a warm and wet winter.  Now they are saying that it will have a lot of snow.  They are just covering all the bases I guess. We did see 3 full up snow plows on the road Friday when getting snow tires for the Bolt.  We'll just be prepared. 

The Tesla pickup is out.  I think that thing is an eyesore. Not my cup of tea. I don't get the real hate people are heaping on it. Well I do because Musk is an idiot and jst brings it on himself.  Things I like about it was it really looks like the prototype. Not like other car companies that bring out prototype and then use just a little of the styling. I don't see it a practical But I don't see pickups as practical either. I'm just not a truck guy.  I'm sure he will sell all he can to tesla stans and youtubers that will shoot them up to see how really bulletproof they are. But it's not on my Christmas list. 

Did a quick check and the Mac works on my dell thunderbolt dock.  It gets the keyboard, the mouse, network and power but not the displays.  That's ok. Glad it works at all and the keyboard is at the tight height for me to use. 

Cloudy day but warm ish, think we'll go out for a walk in a little bit. Won't get more 50 degree days is the winter. 

M and I did a walk on the path. The usual 3 miles. My knee was barking at me after. It was damp and chilly ish I think that was the cause. 

Working on the Avanti Jet and found that the landing gear and retract motors we damaged. Looked on the website and the V1 parts are no longer available.  I opened a tech support ticket to see what can be cobbled up maybe from the V2 parts.  I think I’m going to box up the project for now and work on something that I can complete. 

12/1/23

Friyay!  Vacation Day again. Up early this morning.  Going to take Bolt to get snow tires put on. Also, to go to Fill A Bagel to get fresh bagels. 

Got the T-28 model the other day. The Avanti Jet work is progressing. The tile caulk is working well as an adhesive for parts. There is an indoor fly tonight at 9pm.  Way past my bed time! Going there to fly my micro and see the guys. 

Fill a Bagel was good! Water bagel what could be bad. But the mention of water bagels have me thinking of NYC dirty Water dogs.  Having a Sabretts dog from a cart with onions is the best. 

Received the coin wrappers and crimpers going to try them out. 

M and I wrapped a bunch of the coins. Pennies are a real pain to wrap. 

M went to a concert with her friend K. I was too tired by 8 to out to the indoor fly at 9 so I stayed in.