Tuesday, Moeke's birthday

content/blog/wk5day2.md

@@ -1,7 +1,85 @@
 ---
-title: "Week 5, Tuesday:"
+title: "Week 5, Tuesday: Moeke"
 date: 2024-08-27T21:55:00+02:00
-draft: true
 ---
 
 {{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/beatport-nora.png" alt="Credit: Beatport, Youtube" >}}
+
+In the morning, Marina joins me downstairs where I am having my morning coffee - the task at hand is
+to blow up birthday balloons and sign Moeke's card. Marina made a really fancy one (she scrapbooks
+and makes port- and birthday cards that _Hallmark_ would be jealous of. This one for Moeke is
+elaborate, as it folds open in two different ways. We both sign the card -- Quinn did so before
+leaving for work this morning -- and I blow up baloons while Marina inflats the _Happy Birthday_
+sequence. We hang it up while Nicole and JPH are shopping at _Media Markt_, possibly for a birthday
+gift?
+
+Upon their return I find that yes, earbuds is the gift this year - and I help Moeke install them on
+her iPad and find a charger for them. We then have a brunch with tasty sandwiches and (for me at
+least) boiled eggs and ham. We spend some time just talking and planning the rest of the week.
+Tomorrow we have a dinner at _R&ouml;ssli_, our local restaurant in Br&uuml;ttisellen, and I'll be
+doing the Equinexit so I explain to the family a bit what all of that means. 
+
+After lunch, the parents sit outside in the yard reading a book, and I seek a less hot spot in the
+basement.  A delivery came in the mail today - a few new/different RS485 USB readers from
+Aliexpress. I plug one in and connect it to one of those modbus Ammeters I got earlier. Booyah -
+works on the first attempt:
+
+
+```
+pim@summer:~ $ for i in 8 24 40; do mbpoll -b 9600 -P none -0 -a 1 -t 4 -r $i -c 1 -l 100 /dev/ttyUSB0; done
+[8]:    203
+[24]:   500
+[40]:   1000
+```
+
+Noice! This shows register 8, which is "Current through Coil A, in units of 0.01A", so 2.03A, and
+register 24, which is "Frequency through Coil A, in units of 0.1Hz", so 50Hz, and finally register
+40, which is "Current Transformer winding count on Coil A", which is 1:1000. Seems to be in working
+order! I play around with the current, going from 10W to 50W to 400W, and it's all within reasonable
+distance of my digital ammeter. Progress! I pasted it here mostly so that I don't forget the
+`mbpoll` arguments I used to get this to finally work :)
+
+Moeke wants to eat chilly con carne for her birthday - well okay then! Marina also whips up a batch
+of beef tomatoes with buffalo _Burrata_ and a vinaigrette, which we munch on as a starter. The
+chilli tastes great, and I put some of the hotsauce (garlic and habanero paste, really) on it, which
+is nice. I eat a little bit too much - as do my tablemates it seems - so after dinner we take a
+short walk to the _floof chickens_, once again they are nowhere to be found, so we make a detour to
+a second chicken coop in the neighborhood, but the chickens there are also already inside. Did we
+really eat all the chickens?!
+
+On the way back from the walk we pass by an old mansion called _Landheim Br&uuml;ttisellen_, which
+is 150 years old. They have a cute cart being pulled by a number, and I notice that the wooden
+statue of the person in the cart has a cellphon in their hand. Cute detail. We also bump into a
+neighborhood kitty who wants to be petted; but she's a bit of a fickle one because she wants to be
+petted except she does not want you to pet her. She comes closer, hangs out, and the moment you
+reach out she will back off a few meters. But, I snuck in a little petting anyway. Cuz that's how I
+roll.
+
+At home, we watched somewhat of a lame SciFi romcom, called _Moonshot_, from 2022, featuring Cole
+Sprouse alongside Lana Condor. The storyline is super lame, but luckily the acting is too, so we end
+up just hanging out on the couch watching it and taking it as-is. I think maybe _Stowaway_ would be
+a better plot around the same theme, but hey. You win some, and you lose some.
+
+Tomorrow morning I will bike to Equinix to clear out IP-Max's rack. I decide not to have that
+proverbial nightcap, and fall asleep pretty quickly. I think I'm entering the state of mind where
+things don't have to go quick and fast - perhaps I've decompressed to the point where I can enjoy
+the little things, and as well the _Dolce far niente_ (Italian: softly doing nothing). I mean, if
+the highlight of the day was eating chilly and petting a grey cat on our cul-de-sac, then I think
+I'm pretty _zen_ for the moment.
+
+## Pictures of the Day
+
+{{< gallery-category >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0847.JPG" caption="Marina and I inflate (and later blow up) several balloons for Moeke and Pepe, whose birthday is two days apart." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0849.JPG" caption="The ammeter is reading 2.03A while the digital current meter says 1.87A, I'll calibrate each one once I have a running firmware, but this is good progress!" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0856.JPG" caption="The ESP32 microcontroller is reading the ammeter, great success!" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0857.JPG" caption="The starter tonight is a beautiful buratta with beefy tomatoes and peppery rocket salad" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0858.JPG" caption="The mains tonight is a bowl of chilly con carne, which really does hit the spot" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0859.JPG" caption="The backup chicken coop (eg. floof no. 2) also reveals no chickens today." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0860.JPG" caption="Our local Landesheim turns 150 years old this month. So much culture in such a tiny village!" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0862.JPG" caption="The kitty wants to be petted, except she does not want you to pet her." >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-08-27/IMG_0863.JPG" caption="Cole Sprouse also has a kitty (a stowaway just like him)" >}}
+{{< /gallery-category >}}
+
+{{< gallery-modal >}}
+{{< gallery-script >}}