Down and out on a Sunday.

My Arduino Uno is sitting on my desktop in the Secret Underground Lair. It mocks me, sitting there connected to the PC with a 1M USB cable, it's onboard LCD flashing amber every second per its programming. And I am responsible for the programming. Tomorrow, though, all of that changes. Tomorrow is the scheduled arrival of "official" Arduino bases, and another Arduino. Jennifer will be getting my current Arduino, and I will be getting the new Arduino. Why, one might wonder... why indeed?

Because, Mr. T's Arduino has an Atmel 328 chip in a DIP configuration, whilst my current one is in an SMT package. I'm hoping to be 100% compatible with his board as we journey through the programming adventure together.

So, Sunday....

The weekend officially began for me around 0600 on Saturday morning, as it usually does. I got a decent amount of sleep before Jennifer, Mr. T and I headed off to The Bridge Community Church later that afternoon.We came home and Jennifer made tamales. They were incredible- and they are gone.

Sunday rolled around. When I woke up, my head felt like a balloon. Sinuses were off the scale in mucus output. I felt (*bleh*). I felt so (*bleh*) that I drank copious amounts of water for around eight hours. Kenji, our black and white tuxedo snowshoe cat, hung out with me for the better part of the day (he likes TV and he likes human presence while watching or listening to TV). I watched three complete football games. Not only is this unheard of- it is unprecedented. I was a couch potato- this is also unheard of.

That's how crummy and run down I felt.

The good news is that most of that seems to have passed. The bad news is that the weekend turned out to pretty much be a complete wash. That is, all of my plans were for naught. I had planned on a good walk, cutting the grass, fixing Jennifer's computer, and some quality "alone" time with my spouse.

None of these things happened.

It's now almost 0200, and I'm feeling much better, but my weekend is essentially over. Monday promises to be an adventure- Kenji and Kaley have their first visit with the veterinarian. Joy. 

The Monday recap- almost time to get ready for work. The cats survived their visit to the vet. It turns out that Dr. Chris is also a huge Lego fan, so much Lego discussion occurred while the cats were being poked and prodded. The new Arduino arrived along with the bases. I mounted the base to my old board first, and gave it to Jennifer. Then, Mr. T and I mounted the other two. I tested my new board out, and the amber LED started blinking immediately... I guess Arduino tests boards out with the blink program. So, for me to test it, I would need another program. The serial monitor program is the perfect sketch (program) for testing the Arduino for a couple of reasons. First, it's short- only two lines. Secondly, it tests two way communication with the board: write the program, compile, and upload. Then, open the serial monitor, and you should have a short message... this is the Arduino equivalent of "Hello, world."

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.