Day 115

Today was a stay inside day.  I don't know why, it was sunny and 80 outside.  I think it's because Sunday is the only day we don't HAVE to go somewhere.

The first thing I did was play Minions.  There wasn't much to do because everything takes so long to build.  Then it was breakfast.  Then it was the control panel.

I worked for hours on the control panel.  I got the second direction switch done, including the 12V supply.  It was a lot of work redoing all of the wiring that I'd done before.  I also complete wiring a couple of the flashing LEDs and installed the direction LEDs for two other direction switches.  I soldered some short wires onto them so that I could cross wire them like those backward switches require.

I took a little time off occasionally to do some Minion.  There just wasn't much to do.

Minions heated up after lunch.  I got a party going so some of the required items actually got done.  I did some game playing to earn money, but really just because I wanted to play.

We gave the dog a dogacure.  If we keep at it eventually they will get back down to a reasonable length.

That was it.  A little more Minions and some TV in the evening.

Day 114

We met Lee and his daughter at the club today.  We spent about 2 hours shooting.  Ellen got the girl on targets.  She shot about two boxes, which is a lot for a first time shooter.  We shot some skeet with Lee.

When they left we ran the dog.  She did a whole lot of long retrieves because the wind was blowing.  I just didn't feel like shooting the course and having to wait for people.

On the way home we stopped at Denny's.  It was actually better than we expected.

The post office had packages from amazon containing electronic components.  It also had several tax documents.

When we got home I started to do a little work on the control panel.  I didn't get much accomplished.  When I tested what I did the other day I discovered that the direction switches were backward.  When the switch is left, the right contacts are connected.  So I had to remove the connections from the two switches I'd wired.  I reconnected one, but I got disgusted and left the other for some other time.  I'm really getting tired of redoing things.

The whole evening was some Minions and a lot of TV.  We're on our fourth movie now.

Day 113

Today marks the end of the second week of Ellen's radiating.  She's beginning to complain of symptoms, mainly diarrhea and fatigue.  She also has a canker sore in her mouth and she may get more.  I hope it doesn't get worse, but I'm afraid it probably will.  She got more drugs today and she's taking them and the ones she got before now.  Maybe they will help after a few days.

After the doctor we went estate sailing.  We went to two places.  I got a couple of pieces of yard art - an old two headed hammer and an oil can.  We also got Patty a cool framed print of Texas lighthouses.  We also got a wrapping paper cutter and a pair of nail clippers.

One of the houses was near a park.  I took Lucy out to do retrieves  Even though it was sunny and in the 70's she did a lot of retrieves.  Ellen stayed in the car, she wasn't feeling well.

After the post office we stopped at the upholstery place and dropped off the cushions from the trailer couch.  The guy doesn't speak very good English, I hope he understood what I wanted.

On the way home we stopped at the Italian place for lunch.  We stopped by Tomlinson's first for some hamburgers so Lucy could eat with us.  The last stop was HEB.

We didn't get home until after three.  I didn't do any work on the panel because I didn't feel like it.  It's supposed to be fun, remember. 

A note on Minions, since it consumes a lot of my time.  I got a 4 hour 2X time party in the morning.  By the time it expired, I had another.  I had to quit tonight so that I didn't get another and waste it over night.  I'm at a place now where every item that I need requires 1.5 to 3, to 6 or more hours to construct.  Some of the raw materials are that way also.  Progress in the game is about to slow way down.  For example all of tonight will be building precursors for things I need, and I won't have all of them.  Then all day tomorrow will be spent building the requirements from the precursors.  At the end of the day I'll be about half done, so the next evening and day will be the same thing.

Day 112

We took the dog to Zilker after the doctor today.  The day was sunny and got up to 70.  She had a great time.  She did a little socializing, but mainly she ran.  We walked around the middle of the park and she retrieved the whole way.  She was tired out by the time we got back to the car.

I had cut out some coupons for a place called Schlotsky's.  It has sandwiches, salads, and pizzas.  It also has an outdoors where Lucy can sit.  The food was pretty good and the coupon made it fairly cheap.  It will be on our list.

There were two packages at the post office.  One was the shoes I ordered.  The other was a joke book that Hooch sent us about stupid questions to ask doctors.

I did some work on the control panel.  I finished wiring the grounds and LEDs for the second direction switch.  Then I decided I'd done enough and quit.  This is supposed to be fun.

I also went out to the trailer.  I wanted to get the cushions out, but the batteries were dead so the slideouts wouldn't open.  So I plugged it in and started to replace the water inlet.  That went fairly smoothly, but I needed Ellen to help hold the hoses.  They were so short that if there wasn't anyone to hold them when they were disconnected they would disappear inside the trailer.  We got it done without any drama.

Ellen also got some more painting done on the bird house.  There's a little left to do.

Last night a power glitch screwed up the motion light in the back and the yard light.  This morning I decided to leave them alone until tomorrow.  I'm glad I did.  They both work fine tonight.  I love it when things fix themselves.

Ellen is phoning in to a board meeting tonight.  I'm reading and doing a little Minions.  Because of the long build times there isn't much to do except play with it for awhile a couple of times a day.

Day 111

After the doctor (and some Minions) we went to the post office.  Then it was back home.

I decided to make the day a "do little things" day.  I organized all of the trailer papers (threw away a lot of old stuff) and took them and some other stuff out to the trailer.  I did significant work on the control panel (installed 1 direction switch and LEDs, reamed out the holes for the others, completely wired up another).  I also got Ellen started on painting the enclosure pieces for the stove vent.

There was a lot of Minions work in between and in the evening.  The game is now at the point that it takes several hours to construct whatever I need to make progress.  I predict that I won't be spending as much time on it in the future.

We had a serious power glitch in the evening.  It apparently blew the yard light.  It may also have wrecked the motion sensor on the porch light.  I have to check both tomorrow.

The evening was a little control panel work, TV, and Minions.

Day 110

It was cold (44) and raining today.  I felt like we were in Oregon.  So the only things we did were go to the doctor and the post office.  We get to the post office at 11.  There wasn't any mail.  I now know it's not worth going there that early in the morning.

When we got home I did Minions and spent a lot of time on Amazon.  I needed to get some diodes for the control panel, but I needed to add stuff to get free shipping.  Eventually I thought up enough stuff to make the limits.  It's all stuff I'll need eventually.

I also finished reviewing the direction switch wiring.  The description of the turntable switching had an error also.  I think all of the errors were because when I first did it I worked out everything in my head.  This time I set down and pictured it all out.  It really made things easier to understand.

In the evening we just watched TV and I did a little bit of Minions.  The requirements to build things now are long periods of time (4, 8, 10 hours).  So I just work on it for awhile and then put it away for a couple of hours or more.

Day 109

This was the start of another "doctor week".  I spent most of the time before we left playing Minions.  I'm getting to the point in the game where it takes a  lot of resources (read time) to do anything.  Of course it's designed to get people to pay real money for virtual stuff.

After the doctor we went to Home Depot to get some paint so Ellen could paint the boards I cut years ago to enclse the stove vent.  Lucy was really disappointed that she didn't find any magic aprons.

The next stop was the post office followed by lunch at the pizza place.  The rest of the day showed me that I really shouldn't eat pepperoni any more.

The dog was really stinky and the day was warm (mid 70's) so we took the dog to the park so she could swim.  She had a blast.  Tonight she isn't moving off the couch.

When we got home I decided to continue my review of the direction switch design.  I found some more problems.  It's not really that complicated, but it hits my weakness - spatial reasoning.  The last thing to review is the roundabout wiring.  I quit before doing that.  It's really complex and I didn't really describe it well when I designed it.  What I need to do is almost duplicate the design work.

After that I just watched TV and played Minions a little.  I got tird of Minions and did some surfing instead.

Day 108

We didn't leave the house today.  I did a fair amount of work on the panel.  Some of it was negative work.  First of all I redid the resistors on all of the direction switch LEDs (14 of them).  This means all of the LEDs I have left to install are ready.  I was going to start installing the direction switches, but then I decided to review the design documentation first.  It's good that I did, because there was an error.  Of course the error involves the only direction switch I've already installed.

While doing the review I got myself screwed up and ended up undoing some wires on a switch that I shouldn't have undone (negative work).  To avoid any other design errors I'm making up connection drawings for each switch.  I've got three of them done and 4 of them to do.

All of that took most of the day.  When I was finished I just wanted to veg out.  So I started playing Minions "for a little while".  It turned into a long while because I started a two hour "party" within the game.  In between I watched a little bit of 1 playoff game and a lot of another.

The only other thing I did was run the dog in the yard.  She didn't run yesterday, so it was necessary.

Day 107

We picked up the trailer today.  It cost $2,100 to get it out of hock.  The insurance only paid about 2/3 of the repair bill, and the gut did $350 worth of "inspections" that I didn't order.  I was a little pissed about that.  After all of that they forgot to replace one of the damaged parts.

When we got home it was an adventure parking the damn thing.  I think this was the most effort I've ever had to put into parking it.  It's in a perfect position though.  After that I didn't want to do any more work today.  Putting back the rocks and putting stuff back into the trailer will have to wait until some other time.

So I went into the house and worked on the control panel (that's not real work).  I finished wiring the rotary switch LEDs.  They look really cool.  Because it was simple, I also wired the 12V from a rotary switch to one of the direction switches.  That was a good stopping point, so I stopped.  The next step is to do some more of the 12V supply wiring.  I want to review my design for that, as it's complicated because of the flashing LEDs.

The rest of the day was surfing, reading the newspaper, and Minions.  I'm putting the game down to allow it to build things during the day, but at night I'm sitting watching TV and playing the distraction games.  I'm getting pretty good at a couple of them.

Day 106

This was the end of the first week of treatment.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Afterwards we went to Harbor Freight to get a pin vise.  They didn't have one, so we went across the street to Hobby Lobby and got one.

After that we went to the post office, ran the dog (she did great), and then to the grocery store.  Then we went home.

I did quite a bit of work on the panel.  I bought the pin vise so that I could ream out the connections on the rotary switches to all the diode leads to fit.  It didn't work.  I did manage to do it with the dremel, but three of the fifteen got a little mangled (nothing serious).  Then I hooked up the LEDs for three of the switches.  After that I was tired, so in the spirit of not making it work I quit.  It will be there tomorrow.

Camping World called.  The trailer is fixed.  We'll probably pick it up tomorrow.

There was a fair amount of reading and Minions in the evening along with Gold Derp and some episodes of the Blacklist.

Day 105

Of course we went to the doctor today (Ellen wore her new pants).  Before that I did a little work on the control panel.  I installed 10 of the 15 rotary LEDs.  I ran out of time for the other five, chiefly because I had to enlarge a lot of the holes with a file.

After the doctor I decided to go on a search for a container to hold my new bluetooth headphones (I really like them).  We went to Best Buy, Target, Office Depot, and Wally World.  No luck.  We also stopped at the post office and ran the dog at the field nearby.  The wind was blowing hard and Lucy was doing 80 yard retrieves.  She did a whole lot of them.

We were basically just killing time until 2:00 when we were to meet some person interviewing us about Lee.  It was at the Firehouse, so we got there early and ate lunch.  Then we just surfed (and played Minions) until she showed up.  We had a great conversation, answering questions about Lee and talking about Austin.  The lady is thinking about a place to retire to, and we recommended here.

After that we stopped at the pet place so Lucy could get a treat.  She had been heartbroken when we left her in the car.  After all, it's a place where we eat outside and there's a pet store next door.

When we got home I finished installing the rotary LEDs.  Of the 5 green ones I had made up, 2 were dead.  Two more died while I was attaching resistors to them.  I only have one extra.  I'll probably order more.  Then I wired the negative side of all 15 LEDs to the shorting block.  The next step is doing the positive side  I've got an idea for installing the diodes to the rotary switches.  It will make for a neat installation if I can make it work. 

The rest of the evening was surfing and Minions.

Day 104

After the radiation treatment we met with the radiologist.  There wasn't much to discuss, she'd only had 3 treatments.  He did say that it was likely that she'd be able to go to Oregon in March.

There was an hour delay before we met with the cancer doctor.  So we made a quick trip to the yuppie grocery store to pick up a couple of things.  We also stopped at the doggy cookie store.  Lucy was happy.

Back with the cancer doctor we had to wait again.  I guess we always will.  He was positive though.  He said there was a 90% chance of a cure.  He said that the tumor was restricted to the rectum and that the lymph nodes looked normal.  That's the most positive stuff we've heard from any doctor.  Of course we really won't know until after the surgery.

After doctor time we stopped at Kohl's so that Ellen could get some sweat pants to wear to the doctor.  She bought 3 pairs.  Then it was Cheddar's for lunch.  As we drove to the post office we stopped at a vacant field for the dog to run.  It was a great place, less rocky than the park.  She loved it and ran until we called a halt.

All that took most of the day.  I did take the panel out to the garage and attached the LED mount to the panel.  I didn't feel like trying to install the LEDs or do any other work.

I did spend quite a bit of time with the Minions game, but I'm changing how I play.  From now on I'll work for half an hour and then put it down for hours.

The evening was reading and watching TV.

Day 103

Today was a two doctor day.  The first one had an office on Medical way.  The appointment was at 9:15.  I figured that rush hour would be over when we left.  No.  The Mopac south of 290 was a parking lot.  So was 290 going into town.  So was Escarpment at William Cannon.  So I took 1826 to Slaughter, Slaughter to Escarpment, Escarpment to William Cannon, William Cannon to McCarty, and McCarty to 290.  That got us on 290 with almost no delays.

Mopac was slow from 360 to downtown.  It was almost up to speed north of downtown.  We ended up getting there with about 5 minutes to spare.

The doctor was the surgeon.  He went over how the treatment would go - five weeks of radiation, two months of rest (the radiation is still working), and then surgery.  I left when he was going to stick the tube up Ellen's ass.  Afterwards she apparently asked about the lymph nodes.  He said that they were 5mm and 10mm is considered infected.  Apparently the radiation is being targeted at them, too.

Since we were half way there we went to Fry's.  I bought some Bluetooth headphones for use at the doctor's office.  Ellen got a solid state external drive.  I also got some heat shrink, solder, and a surge protector for the trailer.

We drove back to 290 for lunch because we didn't want to be late for the 1:15 radiation treatment.  The traffic going back was great.  65-70 through the 55 construction area.  We ate at the Chinese place.  It's just not a good as it used to be.

After the treatment we got the mail and ran the dog.  It was windy and she did a full set of long (60+ yds) retrieves. 

When we got home I went to work on the panel.  I wired all of the power switch LEDs to the switches.  Then I did about half of the grounds.  I couldn't do all of them because there are direction switch and warning LEDs in all of the chains.  The new LED holders came in the mail today.  That was a relief.  Tomorrow I'll probably install the rotary switch LEDs.

I spent hours today playing Minions.  I suspect that I'm on the verge of getting bored with it.

There are two doctors tomorrow - radiation and the head guy (Chaka?).  I'm trying to get up the courage to ask him what Ellen's prognosis is.

A weird thing happened when we got home.  There was a card on the gate keypad asking us to call a number about a person applying for a "position of trust" with the federal government.  I returned the call and left a message.  I suspect it was Lee.

Day 102

Today was a Minions day.  I think I spent most of the day playing Minions.  I payed it before getting up.  I played it while Ellen was getting her treatment.  I played it while we were at lunch at Red's Back Porch. 

When we got home I took a break from Minions to do a second metal mounting for the control panel.  I used a hand drill this time and it's a lot better then the first one.  I also fixed the bird house in the yard.  It was coming apart due to light construction and wood rot.  I rehung it along with the one that I've been fixing for weeks.

Then it was back to Minions.  It's 7 now and after dinner I may go back.

Day 101

I spent until 10 in bed playing the Minions game.  I can see that that may become a real time sink.

When I did get up I went to work on the control panel.  I installed all 11 siding switches and their LEDs.  I didn't do any of the wiring.

After lunch we went to the post office.  On the way we passed an estate sale sign so we followed it.  It turned out to be successful.  We got this neat oriental stand to replace the one by the grandfather clock.  It's much nicer and holds items better.  It was wobbly, so we stopped at Lowe's to get feet for it.  They didn't have any, so it was off to Home Depot.  They did have them.  We also stopped at Culver's for a late lunch.

I didn't stop at the park.  Lucy worked really hard yesterday and I wanted to give her the day off.  We did stop at HEB.

When we got home I filled up the buckets with the bird seed we bought yesterday.  Then I installed the feet in the new stand.  I'm not sure it needed it, since one of the legs had an old caster that I just removed.  Ellen cleared out the old stand and we put it in the truck for Goodwill tomorrow.

Ellen went to archery.  Apparently this is the last time because she can't do it when she's doing the treatment.  Apparently it will wreck the skin on her fingers.  I watched football (Denver won, yeah) and then played Minions for hours.  I've made some errors that have cost me a lot.  I wish there were instructions.

Ellen's treatment starts tomorrow.  Whee.

Day 100

Everybody had a good day.  We went to San Antonio to a gun show.  The drive wasn't bad - 73 miles and traffic was OK.  The show sucked.  There weren't many tables and the prices were ridiculously high.  I was disappointed (I did find out later that the people putting it on were known to put on crappy shows).  On our way back we stopped at one in New Braunfels.  It was much better.  I saw some cool things, but didn't buy anything.

After that it was the dog's turn.  We went over to Prince Solm park so that she could swim.  She had a great time.  She did a whole bunch of water retrieves and then 20 land retrieves to dry off.  When we were finished she was still raring to go.

The third stop was Gruene.  Ellen had a good time there.  All three of us went through the town.  One of us would sit with the dog while the other went in the store.  Unfortunately we didn't find this soap Ellen was looking for.  It's made in Gruene, but Ellen bought it in Fredericksburg.  It's weird that there wasn't any for sale in the Gruene shops.

We actually bought some stuff in Gruene.  I got summer shoes (they were $5 cheaper than Austin) and an armadillo t-shirt.  Ellen got a Metal Art Iron Man.  She's working on it right now.

I watched the football games.  They sucked from my point of view - the Patriots won and the Packers lost.

Day 99

Today was a doctor day.  In the morning we went to the oncology place for a "dry run" of the radiation treatment (they begin on Monday).  In the afternoon we went to the MRI place on 35th street.  In between we went to Home Depot, Lowes, the post office and the pizza place on 290.  We got out of the MRI place at 3:00.  Traffic was a little backed up until the river, and a little more by 360.  We breezed through Slaughter without having to stop.  All in all it wasn't bad.  I wouldn't want to try it an hour later.

I'd always wanted to go to that pizza place.  It was great.  We both had lunch pizzas with salads.  We'll be going back.  It was crowed when we got there (about 12:15).  By a quarter to one the place was almost empty.  I think it was all the people from AMD and Freescale.

The trips to Home Depot and Lowes was caused by a real dumb dumb I did first thing in the morning.  I took the control panel out to the garage and enlarged the 15 LED holes.  I didn't need to do it, and the result made them too big for the holders.  I went to the hardware stores to find something to fix it.  I ended up with an aluminum strip which I'll mount over the holes.  It won't look as nice.

When I got home I drilled holes in the aluminum.  I don't understand how the holes came out so uneven when I measured so carefully.  I give up though and will finish it up tomorrow.  I'm actually getting tired of working on it.

One strange thing happened.  About 5 the MRI place called.  The spot on Ellen's liver is benign.  It's amazing they gave us the result so quickly.

The evening was surfing and watching Gold Derp. 

Day 98

We went to an estate sale today.  I didn't expect much, but t turned out to be successful.  I bought a neat fold up step stool to replace the crappy blue plastic one I have in the garage.  I also got a couple of of old tools ($1 each) and a shop light NIB for $10.  The house was right across the street from a park, so Lucy got to run when we were done.  She did a whole lot of long retrieves.

After that we stopped at the grocery store and the post office.  Then it was time to get home so Ellen could go to the doctor for her yearly checkup.  The cancer doctor called.  The insurance approved the MRI and the treatment.  The MRI is tomorrow and there's also an appointment for some sort of prep work before the treatment.  I guess the treatment will start early next week.

I spent several hours on the control panel today.  It fought me again.  The holes for the rotary switches weren't big enough.  Then I had to work out how I was physically going to do the wiring.  I got sidetracked during that into designing how the track power is going to be distributed between the direction switches.  I had to redo the 15 LEDs for the rotary switches to make the dropping resistor closer to the LED.  Finally, the holes for the LEDs are too small.  They were made for a different LED holder which doesn't work.  I'll have to redrill the holes tomorrow.

We watched more episodes of the Blacklist in the evening.  We're almost finished with season 1.

Day 97

I spent the whole day working on the control panel again.  It fought me all the way.  I had another bad switch and three burnt out LEDs.  The LEDs might have been my fault.  The way I soldered the dropping resistors to the switch allowed them to be bent over and short the LEDs.  I fixed it by putting heat shrink on all 40 switch connectors.

I did get it finished though.  40 LEDs controlled by 20 switches.  It lights up like a Christmas tree when I power it up.  I finished it before dinner.  Afterwards I took the evening off and watched zombie movies.

I went to the post office alone because Ellen wanted to do archery.  I took the dog and we stopped at Tomlinson's to get cat food and dog treats.  She ran in the park for an impressive amount of time considering it was sunny and near 70.

Ellen's calls yesterday seemed to have done the trick with the doctors.  She got several calls about status today.  The doctor wants an MRI of her liver, the insurance approved and it should be scheduled tomorrow.  The damn insurance company hasn't approved the radiation treatment.  They say that hopefully the treatment could start next week.

I might go shooting tomorrow if the weather is nice.  I need a day off from the control panel.

Day 96

The whole day was dedicated to the control panel.  I got into one of those modes like I used to get into at work where the only thing I wanted to do was work on it.  The panel fought it though.  It took me two hours to connect the ten +12V LED leads.  I had to find a short - a ground wire whose insulation was barely burned through.  Then I had to reroute a ground wire that was going to interfere with the installation of a direction switch.  I finally got it all done just before it was time to go to the doctor.

The doctor visit was interesting.  It was basically a blood test and he stuck his finger up my ass.  The bad news is that I will have to get a colonoscopy because the goddamn insurance company won't pay for the Cologuard test.  I mentioned Ellen's cancer and that we were waiting for the imaging results.  Because she is a patient at that clinic he was able to call it up.  The good news is that it doesn't appear to be in the lymph nodes or through the wall the bad news is that there is a spot on her liver and questionable lymph nodes.  It was characterized as stage 2.

I was pissed.  The cancer doctor should have told us this by now.  I told Ellen to call people as soon as we got home.  The last stop was Wally World for drugs.  They were supposed to be ready at 1:00.  I got there at 12:30 and they weren't ready.  Crap.

When we got home Ellen called various doctors.  The cancer doctor's staff was useless.  They didn't even know the imaging had been done.  The radiologist was really helpful.  They got the images, are constructing a treatment plan, and will then send it to the insurance company for review.  It looks like at least another week until the treatment will start.

I continued work on the panel.  I hadn't taken the dog to the park, so I took a break at about 3:30 to run her in the front yard.  She did a good number of retrieves.  She didn't want to stop for a drink, since Ellen wasn't there to give t to her.

The panel continued to fight me.  A LED fell out.  TWO switches broke, one after I'd completed wiring it up.  Two LEDs were put in the wrong holes (my fault).  I worked all afternoon and until 9 in the evening.  Then I watched a movie, then I did another hour (until 12:15).  All in all I completed the LED wiring on the second 5, completely wired the third 5, stripped all the wiring for the final 5, and wired +12V to two of the switches.  I figure I have about 30 connections left to solder.

Day 95

To continue yesterday's comment - FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

I spent most of the day working on the panel.  All total I must have spent at least 6 or 7 hours on it.  I don't have much to show for it.  When I started this morning I had the +12V wires rewired for one group of 5 switches.  After all of the work today I have 5 switches completely finished, and the +/-12V wiring done for another 5 switches.  All that work essentially only completed 1/4 of the task.  I must admit that seeing the LEDs light when you switch the switches is cool. 

Everything involved in the redo is a pain in the ass.  Unsoldering the +12V wires is a pain because the little jumper wires are solid core and don't want to come out.  The -12V wires come out easily, but cutting out the old resistors and getting rid of the excess wires and solder is a pain.  I think it takes as much time to remove the old wires as it does to replace them.

Wiring the +12V the first time was a pain and redoing it is also.  Wiring the -12V is really a pain because I have to wire short jumpers on all of the negative LED leads. 

The only good thing about this is that the end result will be a little better than the original wiring.  I'm using half of the resistors and all of the -12V connections will have heat shrink on them.

We did the usual post office, HEB, park trip.  Lucy did her usual impressive amount of running.  The new weather station came, so when I got home I installed it.

The only other thing of note was Lola came by so I could show her what I wanted done.  She says she and her boyfriend are coming on Thursday to start picking up rocks.  I'm glad I'm not paying her by the hour.

Day 94

FUCK!!!!

I just discovered that everything I've done on the control panel has to be redone.  It turns out that I'd misread the polarity of the power supply I was using.  That means that all the work that I did to change the resistors has to be redone.  I'll have to cut the heat shrink off the negative leads and remove the resistors.  It also means that all of the -12V wiring that I did needs to be removed and redone.  Finally, I'm going to redo some of the positive wiring at the switches to incorporate the resistors at the switches.  FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

The football games went well I guess.  The Seahawks won by a miracle.  They won't win next week if they play as poorly as they did today.  The Packers also won.  They played a whole lot better than they have been playing.

The rest of the day was reading and TV.  I read a few more pages of the camera manual and a gun magazine.

Day 93

I reached a milestone with the control panel.  I got all of the LED grounds wired.  I also got the +12V and -12V mounted on the panel.  I was thinking I'd do a little more, but I just didn't feel like it later in the evening.  The next step will be to connect the +/-12V leads that I've made so fare to the blocks.  There are 8 of them.  That will clean up things a little and make it easier to attach the wires from the switches to the +12V LED leads.  That will take awhile.

One of the things that needed to be done today was to fix the toilet lever.  We went to Home Depot after the post office to get parts.  I ended up getting a trick plastic one.  It won't corrode.  You had to buy a separate handle, so I ended up spending $20 for  a toilet handle.  Oh well.

The last stop was the park, because I don't plan on going anywhere tomorrow (it's supposed to be really cold).  It was windy and Lucy did a whole lot of long retrieves.  She earned herself a lot of treats for the evening.

Because it's supposed to be cold the next two nights I turned on the heater in the well house again.

When we got home I fixed the toilet.  The new parts went in with no drama.  The thing seems to be working really well now.  We got a new bird feeder at Home Depot, I'll hang it up tomorrow.  I still plan on fixing the broken one, but it's too cold to glue anything right now.

The evening was watching TV, reading, and a little surfing.

Day 92

I worked on the panel both in the morning and the evening.  I finished redoing the LEDs and got a small start on wiring the LED grounds.  I also continued repairing the bird feeder.  I glued the top of the roof.  The next step will be gluing the bottom.  It was time to take the truck out, so I measured the board that needs to be replaced.

A little after noon we left to do errands.  We stopped at the post office and then went to Restore.  The trip to Restore was a pain.  Some jerk had piled it up where 360 meets 290.  We were in a traffic jam for 15 minutes or so.  I was following the GPS even though I knew where the place was.  That was a mistake.  It to me on a roundabout, pain in the ass, way.

When we got there I was surprised to find that it wasn't as near as big/stocked as I expected.  Some of the prices were good, and some weren't.  We picked up a few small items, less than $20 total.

Ellen wanted to go to Red's back porch.  The weather was a little cool, low 60's.  So we left the dog in the car.  She did not like that at all.  We ate on the upper deck looking out over this deep gorge with a creek in the bottom.  The waiter told us how to get there.  We'll have to go down there some time.  The food was great.  I had shrimp tacos and Ellen ordered a key lime pie for dessert.

I was feeling really guilty about the dog, so we stopped at the cookie place by the yuppie grocery store.  That cheered her up.  We had to do some real grocery shopping, so we stopped at HEB.  The last stop was the park.  It was a fairly cool day and Lucy did a whole lot of retrieves.  We didn't get to Lowe's.  I just didn't feel like it.

We didn't get home until 4:30.  I did a little work on the panel.  The toilet in the master bath broke.  The end of the arm that goes from the handle to the chain corroded off.  I guess there's a Lowe's trip tomorrow.

The evening was surfing and watching Gold Derp.  It looks like the kid has caught a bad case of it.

Day 91

The first thing today was to hang up the new, repaired, bird feeder.  It didn't last long.  Ellen pulled out the mounting screws when she was loading it and it crashed to the ground.  The damage this time was extensive.  I was pissed and just put it on a shelf.

There were no doctors today.  The D7200 didn't come with a hot shoe cover.  This is an $1,100 camera body and it didn't come with a 10 cent part.  There's only a couple of real camera stores in town.  I called one and they had the covers.  The GPS said the store was 21 miles away.  We used it to guide us there.  After that I turned towards town on Burnet, since we hadn't been down it before.  Somehow it turned into Medical Way which ran by a hospital and all the ancillary medical buildings that always spring up around one.

We tried to stop at a place to eat, but it was lunch hour and the place was packed.  We tried another, but there was no place to park.  So we gave up and headed into town.  Somehow we ended up on Lamar driving past McBride's.  So we stopped.  Neither of us saw anything interesting.

I suggested a couple of places to eat, but Ellen didn't want to eat at them because they didn't have food she wanted to eat.  I was a little mad at myself for not realizing that things had really changed.  Her diet means we can't eat anywhere except full size sit-down restaurants.  So I think from now on it will be eating at home.  Sandwiches at lunch and TV dinners for dinner, just like when we were working.  Crap.  Oh well.

We stopped at the post office and then the park.  It was sunny and 74 degrees, so Lucy didn't do a whole lot of running.  Certainly not as much as yesterday.  The last stop was Costco for some water and some frozen chicken sandwiches I can eat for lunch.

When we got home I started to repair the bird feeder.  It's pretty busted up, but I figure with enough glue I can get it back together.  It won't look as good as before though.

I did a little bit of work on the control panel.  Redoing the LEDs is a real pain in the ass.I'm doing things in sets of 5.  One set was completed yesterday.  I got about half of the second set done before I got tired of it.  Things went well yesterday, but they didn't go wel today.  Ellen did archery while I was working on the panel.

Ellen is watching kids designing clothes tonight, so I'm just going to surf.  Maybe I'll do a little more on the panel if I regain my ambition.

Day 90

After a little bit of in bed surfing it was time to get up and go to the MRI place.  They called just before we were going to leave to tell us to come a little later.  So we surfed a little bit more and then left.  It took about half an hour to get there, which was a little less than I thought it would.  The bad news was that they didn't take her in immediately.  They good news was that they managed to do both tests, so she doesn't have to go back tomorrow.  It took a long time, though.  We didn't get out for almost two hours.

Ellen didn't eat at yesterday, so the first priority was to eat.  All of the places we drove by were fast food, which she doesn't want to eat.  So I just drove to Cabela's and we ate there.  I had a club sandwich and she had a bison burger.  I guess that was healthy enough.  Then we did a tour of the whole store.  They were having a sale on shotgun shells, so we bought three cases.  We also bought some pistol ammo on sale and I picked up the dies and bullets to reload 6.8 SPC.

It was cold and raining today, so we had brought the dog.  Before we left Cabela's I took the dog over to a grassy area so she could do retrieves.  She did 40 long retrieves - at least 2 miles of running.  Then we drove home. 

When we got home I started to work a little on the control panel.  That's when I discovered that I didn't have any orange LEDs that I thought I had.  I also discovered that I had wired the LEDs wrong.  I'm going to have to resolder all of them.  Doing the 40 that are already installed is going to be a pain in the ass.  I did one and then gave up.  Instead I ordered the LEDs.

The rest of the evening was surfing and watching TV.

Day 89

I got a lot accomplished on the control panel today.  First, I completed wiring the +12V connections to the track switch switches.  Then I installed the 40 LEDs.  This was a much bigger pain in the ass than I thought it would be.  The LEDs wouldn't stay in the holders, so I had to hold them in as I pushed them into the panel.  The holders didn't want to go in.  I had to use a socket to push them in.  When I was finished I didn't want to do more.

We ate lunch and surfed for awhile.  Then it was time to go to the doctor's.  Ellen took her chemo class.  I didn't go in with her because I didn't think I could.  Apparently I could have.

We stopped at the post office.  The parking lot is still full all the time.  It sucks.  I did get the bird feeder I ordered.  The last stop was the park.  Lucy ran for a long time.  That was good because she'll be left at home for the next two days.

When I got home I went out to hang the new feeder.  Unfortunately I dropped it and it broke apart.  So it was off to the garage to repair it.  The repait involved lots of gluing of parts.  I'll need to finish it tomorrow.

The evening was TV and surfing.

Day 88

Today went pretty good.  We got out of bed before 9 because doctors' offices were calling Ellen.  I called the insurance company and Camping World.  The insurance has paid and Camping World is waiting on parts.  If all goes well the trailer should be fixed by the end of the month.  I'd still be pissed if we were going to Shot.  Finally, my camera showed up about noon.

While I was waiting for the camera I got a couple of more switches on the control board wired.  I would have done more, but I wanted to play with the camera.  I unpacked everything and moved both cameras into their new bags.  That took some time, since there was a lot of stuff.

Then it was time to go to pick up Ellen's stuff for the MRI.  I thought it was over by the post office, but it was really on William Cannon close to Manchaca.  Ellen spent most of the driving time on the phone, mostly on hold.  The imaging company screwed up an order from the main doctor's office.  It took her most of the day and several phone calls to straighten it out.  The bottom line is an MRI on Wednesday and a CAT scan on Thursday, both at Kyle.  Tomorrow is "chemo training" at the oncology place.

On the way back we stopped at the Chinese place on Brodie and William Cannon.  I liked it more than Ellen did.  The last stop was the park so Lucy could run.  She didn't do as much as I expected, but that's OK.

We got home at 4.  I spent an hour reading the camera instructions.  It's cool.  I've probably got a couple more hours of stuff to read.  I think I'll do some more wiring tonight while Ellen watches kid's in a cooking competition.  There's some sort of marathon going on.

Day 87

We are definitely in mid-winter mode.  Basically we hang around the house and do a little work on hobbies.  The nice thing about today was that it was sunny and got into the low 60's.  That meant going outside was OK.

After the morning in bed surfing I decided to do some work on the control panel.  Unfortunately I didn't have the right size wire to wire the +12V to the track switch switches. So it was off to Lowe's.  Because it was sunny, the first stop was the park.  Lucy hadn't ran in two days so she was very happy.  She did quite a bit, but maybe not as much as you might expect given her two day's off.

Lowe's didn't have what we wanted, so it was off to Home Depot.  Luckily they did.  I tried to get heat shrink at both places, but they didn't have the right size.  So I went to Radio Shack.  No luck, but they sent me to a place on Slaughter and Manchaca.  It didn't have any either.  Neither did the Radio Shack across the street.  The only good part in that was that we stopped at the Thai place for lunch.  I really like their Pad Thai.

So we went home and I started wiring.  This part is a real pain in the ass.  After 5 switches I decided to bag it and watch the Seahawks instead.  They won.  After the game I didn't feel like doing anything more.

The rest of the evening was more football.  The Packers lost.  Ordinarily I'd be bummed, but that means the Seahawks won't have to play at Lambeau.

Day 86

I really got something accomplished today.  I stripped all 40 wires for the LEDs and soldered them to the switches.  I also soldered one end of the 12V wires.  That took quite awhile.  When I was finished I decided I'd done enough.  I'd been listening to the Tar Heels.  They were playing a unranked team even with 10 minutes to go when we decided to leave (they won).

Ellen wanted to exchange a gift at Banana Republic, so we went to Bee Cave.  We also stopped at the post office.  The parking lot was still almost full.  We got a lot of mail.  It was cold and raining.  We exchanged the gift and took a look at the toy store, but didn't buy anything.

Ellen wanted to stop at Michael's, so we did.  I got a hot glue gun for the control panel and she got something for her sewing project.  We also stopped at an Italian restaurant.  It was pretty good, but at the end I figured I'd need a pill tonight.  I was right.

It was 4 by the time we got back, and raining.  We got several magazines today, so I spent the evening reading and watching the Ducks.  They blew a 31 point lead and are about to lose.

Day 85

Today was new year's day.  We spent the whole day just sitting around.  I did decided to start out the new year by doing something useful.  So I got a bunch of stuff from the well house and started to work on the track switch switches for the control panel.  I wired short wires between two of the contacts for +12V.  I took a lot of time since there were twenty switches to do.  Then I cut 40 small lengths of wire to wires the +12V contacts on the switches to the LEDs.  I was going to strip them also, but I got tired and decided that was enough for the day.

I fixed myself a drink and sat down to watch TV.  We ended up watching a lot of Counting Cars.  I got sick of that ans turned on Amazon Prime.  I watched a Transformers movie.  It was mildly entertaining, but 2.5 hours long.  Then I watched a scifi movies about an intelligent robot.  The web said it was good, and it was.  Finally I watched a 2 hr documentary on the Dutch/English wars in the 17th century.  It was surprisingly interesting.

That killed the whole afternoon and evening.  I don't think we have anything to do tomorrow, so I'm not sure what we'll do.