Fab day.

As usual, Saturday is cleaning day. Got up early and whipped through the place. Took care of Buddy Tip Toe and met his various requirements. Did laundry. Ran to gas station for air and gas, bank stop for cash, out to see daughter, stop to get mom's signature for her tax forms, bread, check bro's house, home.

Paid all the bills on the desk. For the weekend at least, I am free and clear of financial burdens.

Paying those bills put me in the near vicinity of that damn little Arduino board. I looked at my latest circuit in a kind of restrained awe. It is such an interesting, flexible machine.

In the latest version, I have a small, white plastic cube about the size of a quarter-inch-thick stamp. When plugged into the Arduino board and wired correctly, this little gadget captures the humidity and temperature of its environment. The program that I uploaded to the Arduino processor polls that little gadget (DHT22 sensor) and then sends said information to my laptop which acts as a terminal.

Earlier today I got the idea to see if I could wire up a couple of LEDs and rewrite the control program to turn on a white light if the temperature went over 70 degrees and a green one if the temp fell below 69. It works great. 

The control program I uploaded to the board's processor is written in a programming language called "C" (there is also a C++ which is a more advanced version of the original C). So I am being exposed to c programming again. A skill I developed years ago. So I am catching on how this board works and am modifying the programs to meet my own objectives. For instance, this time I took the original circuit and added additional hardware (LEDs, wires, resistors) and then modified the original program to add control routines for the hardware. 

Programming in C was many years ago and I wanted to brush up on it. Ergo, I have enrolled in an online Programming in C course. 

I'm whipped. Did a couple of lessons in C but had to learn how to use complicated Xcode programming environment. (An program that helps you create other programs.) Time to eat then read a magazine or two.