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Sorry, just a quiet Sunday. Maybe that is a good thing!

We hit now the end of three weeks of this process of trying to save lives by stopping contact with people and “flatting the curve.” There are some signs that it is working. Oregon appears to have been passed over from the terrible number of deaths, likely because of our lower population and quick acceptance of social distancing. We are so polite here, “of course we will do that.” And also drive slow in the fast lane and slow down for green lights because they do change. We do not pump our own gas. Maybe it is that we are just weird.

Most of us are proud of our governer sending 114 ventilators to New York where they are needed now.

I had some trouble sleeping last night, mostly too much caffeine and too much thinking about robot circuits. I was up about nine.

At 10:30 I joined the first church service as technical support for Zoom. Everything was fine.

I got Susie going while I had the last piece of Dominos pizza for lunch. We watched Pastor Jefferson’s sermon online and then Zoom for my regular church group at 2PM. I cut a palm branch from my palm tree to wave. It is Palm Sunday!

Returning to the robot work, I managed to get the GPS, LCD, and lights all working at the same time.

I took Susie for a walk down the street twice, and we drove over to the Golden Vallery Brewery and picked up some of their good beer. We practiced social distancing and both Susie and I have on masks. I have only paper ones.

Corwin started dinner while we were wandering. Beef stew.

So a slow day with lots of robot stuff. I am currently not able to manage a servo controller that works by itself but crashes everything when combine. I think I can route it to its own communication port and isolate it. This should make it work. Something for later.

It was sunny and warm. We turned off the heat and opened the doors for a while.

Reports show more than one-thousand one-hundred Americans passed from the virus today, Palm Sunday 2020.

So I think we will go with this: Sunset Sunrise.

 

 

 

It was heaven to sleep into 9AM this morning. No nightmares. No asthma stealing into my dreams of happy days and changing the dreams into nightmares of drowning in the air. No waking to events from work or at home. Just blessed sleep.

The headache is still just a hint that it can come back. No problems reading and light sensitivity, while even there, is not enough to stop me. I will admit that my laptop is at 60% brightness.

To my robot projects! All sitting shelved for lack of time and thinking space. I need not only time, but I need to have some imagination, and that takes even more time.

I grab the Cricket. I have two different models. I have never had the time to make them work. They exploit existing microcontrollers and add even more cool things like servos and motor controllers, everything a robot needs.

Hours later and I put the Cricket back on the shelf and then try the other one. That too ends on the shelf. One must accept failure and move on. The software is not working and poorly interfacing with all the cool hardware. Next time!

Which reminds me, I spent a few hours with Rev. Ann Weld-Martin helping her with Zoom. Zoom, after many reports in the edgy part of the Internet were repeated, mostly correctly, by the mainstream press, has decided to finally fix a few security issues. This means the users of Zoom, especially those who host a meeting, will see a few different screens and have to park their participants in the virtual waiting room and then admit them.

(It takes quite a few mistakes to end up hosting a meeting to oneself and having to admit yourself–I have not idea how I did that)

I helped Rev. Weld-Martin get that all under control. I will be tech-support at 10:30 Sunday again.

Note: I have tried to put links under the names of technical thing items if you want to know what they are.

Back to the hardware, after failing so much, I remembered that I had some cool hardware that I was itching to try out. This is the impressively named microcontroller, Metro M4 Grand Central, from AdaFruit in New York City. I had to purchase the boards without headers (header allow easy use for wiring up test set-ups) as the regular boards sold-out fast. From China, I bought colorful pins that you can solder in place of headers. Mine looks cool now with colored pins and standing on brass separators.

(My first movie in a while, a bit shaky)

I love to connect to satellites from the ground. I have a small GPS board also with a  working connection to the Grand Central. Then an LCD readout is always handy. I found a spare in my cabinets–I have a virtual Radio Shack in the garage. The display is also now running on the Grand Central.

All this was coded in Python. I used some of the code I developed previously for some other projects. Everything went fast tonight and worked!

Reaching for an aside, my first tools included a hammer with a wood handle. I remember that the handle broke and I got a better hammer for Christmas–I last saw it in dad’s shed before he passed away, he kept it after I left home. Next, I had an old electric drill–it made sparks inside. The third tool I remember was a wood burner that I also used to solder with. I had these I remember in 1974 when I was very young. I liked to work with my hands, but only on precise things.

I solder over seventy pins on the Grand Central and a few other items. Something I can do without effort. I also did a few wiring harnesses. I have the tools, shrink wrap, heat gun, and so on to get all this done. None of the tools and items are expensive, but the right tools and supplies make everything simple.

Which seems to take to today’s song: Pinball Wizard.

Dinner was a debate as I wanted pizza on a Saturday night. We settled on Dominos delivered. Two salads, pizza, and two types of pasta. Extravagant, but it is Saturday. Can’t go drinking, to the movies, or exploring Portland for cool used books. So we will go with the works delivered!

We spent the day inside. Susie was reading and has found Shattered by Dick Francis. We used to see Mr. Francis at a book signing with his wife when we lived in Maryland. We have a few books signed by him. His son started writing with him and then took over when Dick Francis passed away. Shattered is an excellent read.

Today it was reported more than one thousand three-hundred thirty people passed away in the USA from the virus. I found this video that I liked: Many Gifts, One Spirit

Just a short update today.

I have been a bit ill today. Leftovers from the migraine and having to check in with India for work on our project at 1AM. I have been given support from India. In the current world of IT, you end up working crazy hours.

Today was meetings and more video meetings. I was also having issues with the system I need to upgrade. It took all day to get those under control, and I was still getting requests at 6PM.

My headache came back, so I rested and woke to dinner made by Corwin. Excellent meal!

I am finishing the day working on my electronic project. I finally finished the circuit using supercapacitors to run a microcontroller. It works as I designed for five seconds. I have all the boost and regulators working, and with a row of very expensive supercapacitors, I could extend the run time. That would also then extend the charge time, or I would have to increase the amps. Physics cannot be denied, and a capacitor is not a battery. I will have to return to older designs using batteries. My scale is too small to have substantial charging circuits. 

The circuit, while not usable for my purposes, is really cool. I never had anything like this before. A no battery 5-second delay to no power without distortion.

Today’s lunch was ordered from Gyro House and delivered on time. The food is always a dream of the Middle East and Turkey. I ate too much.

My neighbors are building a chicken coop. We talked that we should set-up an exchange rate. So many eggs for a roll of toilet paper.

I am very tired tonight.

The stock market went down today. Not really a crash. It seems that folks are rushing to buy all the cheap debt now backed my The Fed and Central Banks and backed by the American taxpayer. Let’s go with this one, Tiny Bubble.

Today it is reported that more than one-thousand three-hundred people lost their battle with the virus today in the USA. The song for our loss: Rock of Ages.

 

Today was another Thursday in lockdown here in Oregon. It ended with a Migraine that just stopped. I had full-blown vision issues, dizziness, and pain. I get these maybe once a year, and this one was particularly bad. I just have to stop and find a dark place and sleep for an hour. Sleep does some form of a reset that brings everything back to normal.

Today was another day of video conferences with more and more alignment happening on the project. I also joined a video meeting from Europe about revising some accounting data (sorry details cannot be shared) by a friend who lived in the USA before returning to Holland. We had another conference to just check-in with each other and as a substitute for the usual dinner we have. The travel restrictions mean that his intention of introducing the changes in person is not possible. He asked me how things are in the USA. I smiled and showed him my horde of toilet paper using my laptop camera. This got a laugh.

I have some more short deadlines and the folks assigned to help me work in India. It looks like I may work India hours today. I will get up at 1AM and see if they can get started.

Lunch I ordered from BJ’s Brewhouse. I had spice soba noodles and chicken, and I ordered a full rack of ribs for Susie to share. I had this delivered supporting our local drivers and restaurants. I tried to do Red Robin, but they could not deliver to me today. Not sure what happened there.

After work, I started back on my supercapacitor circuit. Pololu parts were delivered by the USA Postal Service. I was able to make the wireless and boost regulator work. The new part works perfectly, cutting off when there is not enough power to get 3.3V. I could not get the supercapacitor working before the migraine stopped me. Closer.

I found in my unstarted models the fictional Seaview submarine. This is from a 1960s show, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, that I still watch once in a while. This might be my shell for that submarine I want to make with all of these electronics.

The theme songs for this show was a classic: Theme Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. All the Irwin Allen TV shows had amazing themes. And none is as crazy at this one: Lost in Space Original Theme.

I did get a Python-based microcontroller to run off the breadboard circuit. I have to rearrange the supercapacitor placement in the circuit to get enough power to the microcontroller. I will also need more voltage to run a small motor and servo.

Right about then everything stopped for the migraine. I will try to work this over the weekend.

While trying to recover from the migraine, we held a practice meeting for church. More Zoom video conferences. We wanted to work music into our Sunday video worship service. The church now meets on Sunday in small Zoom meetings. Multiple groups meet on Sunday, with everyone offered one to attend. We will now have a pause where each of us online will mute and play music on a supplied link. The local play does not have the distortion. Our church music director, Howard, is supplying the links. We will then unmute and continue. We give this a try this Sunday.

Today the stock market was all over the map. There is now a huge move into bonds with so many companies now issues debt to keep going. The days of stock buy-backs and companies keep no reserved cash appear to be over. The Fed and Central Banks have put in so much money into the markets you can almost hear Wall Street singing, Good Times Are Here Again, even fiscal conservatives. I heard one bond trading saying, “bubbles are fun on the way up–there will be a lot of fun.” My 401K is showing a -14% return YTD. This is not really that bad, last year was +27% growth for the year.

Despite the headache, for the stock market and bubble bond market: Mr. Blue Sky

It is reported that there are more than nine-hundred sixty deaths attributed to the virus here in the USA. This is less than the day before, but that could be a reporting issue, but let’s hope for a further reduction in deaths on Friday for the USA.

The hymn for today is We Shall Overcome.

 

Just a short note today.

I managed to get my wireless recharge circuit to work tonight. I started that after work. I have some induction coil recharging devices I purchased from Adafruit. Adafruit is a DIY supply shop based in NYC and building machines to help with the emergency now. I came up with an idea to use the supercapacitors to be wirelessly recharged instead of LiPo batteries. I picked up an old fashioned wire meter device a few years ago from a Hong Kong-based company, it was on discount, and that looks really funny connected by alligator jumpers to a modern looking supercapacitor and copper coils for wireless charging.

I believe the boost regulators are being delivered from Pololu, one of the best sources for DIY robot parts, on Thursday. I plan to attach those on the other side of the supercapacitor. That should get me a stable 3.3V, and I should be able to run a small Python device and run some basic LEDs tricks from the device. I think I will keep the needle meter, so retro! Wireless pretty lights!

So today’s song is I Robot.

Today was another work day in video meetings on and off all day. More panic as resource issues continue, and deadlines are not changed. We are slowly aligning to solutions, and I think we can deliver late, but not fatally late. Panic and meetings, endless, will continue.

I ordered from Happy Panda for my lunch. I got an appetizer of crab and cream cheese stuffed wontons for Susie. I had it delivered to support our local drivers. You pay with a credit card on delivery for Happy Panda, ugh. Today was the first time I washed a credit card and my hands!

I took a walk after work closed out. More people were out. We all passed each other with lots of space, but we all smiled at each other, and I said I was happy to see them. Most folks responded in kind.

I made tacos for dinner.

The stock market started to crash again. This time the sales of equities are flight-to-treasuries not so much to US dollars, better. The market is seeing bankruptcies beginning at the 2008 pace already. Liquidity issues that remain, and there are many, are mostly imbalances in The Fed and Central Bank interventions. Bonds are starting to sell again as good quality bonds are going at a discount. Some new issues of debt are actually overselling!

Yesterday the number of those slain by the virus in the USA jumped more than 200 people while I was writing the summary to 900 death. Today, more than a thousand people fell to the virus in the USA.

Hymn today: On Eagle’s Wings.