Right after I got out of bed this morning, I heard a distinct “ding” coming from somewhere in the house. A few seconds later, it happened again; I finally figured out that it was the house alarm telling me that the battery in the bedroom motion detector was low. No problem – I had another battery in hand (much to my surprise, since it’s an odd battery type).

I thought it would also be a good time to check the status of the Raspberry Pi that connected the alarm to my home automation system. I couldn’t connect to its web server – and I couldn’t connect to it by ssh. So after Shabbat services, I unhooked it from the alarm and tried to read its SD card. No dice – the file system was corrupted.

I found another SD card and installed the newest version of the software; it booted and worked on the network, so all I had to do was connect it back to the alarm panel. When I gave it power, nothing happened – no flashing lights, no nothing.

I disconnected it and powered it up again – nothing. So I dug out another Raspberry Pi, put in the SD card, and all was well. Until I plugged it back into the alarm. The alarm started beeping randomly, and the Raspberry Pi didn’t boot up. So I disconnected it and the alarm stopped beeping; the Raspberry Pi seems dead.

I’m running out of Raspberry Pis! And ideas. At least the alarm is working, even if I can’t control it from my phone for now.

On a brighter note, I got a note from Chase saying that my credit for the failed webcam is now permanent. At least there was one happy ending today!

It’s wine season again; today, we drove up to Burrell School Winery to pick up the summer shipment. We usually go up on the Friday before the pick-up party to avoid the crowds; that might not have been necessary this time, but we did it anyway. Even though they always say the wines are ready to drink (and they are), I always put them away for a year or more (unless we run out, of course!). This shipment included their Merlot, which we always enjoy – the notes claim it’ll be good through 2037 (not a typo). I don’t plan to wait that long.

Dinner was a new recipe for the first time this week; we made Pasta with Mint, Basil, and Fresh Mozzarella from Melissa Clark at the New York Times. Sadly, we haven’t gotten any basil from our garden this year, so we used basil from Lundardi’s. Comments on the recipe (I read them in advance for a change) strongly suggested buffalo mozzarella from Italy, so we used that, too.

The hardest part of the recipe was digging out the blender and cleaning it; we don’t use it very often. This recipe might encourage us to keep it more accessible!