I am writing this on Friday, Jan 31. There are no pics.

Is there a time when you should not tip a waitress? I have read that it is poor form not to tip. They say bad food is the kitchen’s fault. Slow service is the management’s fault (for not having enough wait staff). Last night was the first time in memory I didn’t tip. We went to Ruby Tuesday at 9071 Snowden River Pkwy, Columbia, MD 21046. (Just to keep the record straight.) The restaurant was cold. When our waitress came to take our order, I told her I was cold. She said the heat was already all the way up, she had been cold all night. I didn’t find that very helpful. While waiting for the food, I got colder. I put my jacket on. Then I put my hat on. For whatever reason, I just couldn’t warm up. On my third complaint, our waitress said they had decided to close this section because it was too cold. “Thanks”, I said. Just before we got the check, the manager came over. He offered to re-seat us. (After we were done eating). He said the section was now closed. (Still not very helpful.) He said next time, let them know when we sit down and they will re-seat us. By now, Danita and I were both pretty unhappy. The last comment from the manager convinced me not to leave a tip. We had complained when we first sat down, and several other times. The manager told me the waitress had done nothing until the meal was over. I wonder if the waitress and the manager think we were unreasonable. I doubt we’ll find out, because we won’t be going back any time real soon.

On a much brighter note, we’re going to Florida. (There might be pictures next week.) Danita has a meeting at work this morning, so we booked an afternoon flight down. We’re returning Tuesday.

We’re going down to visit Mom and Glen of course. We’re looking forward to seeing them. Just to show how hip Mom is, she has already set up a Super Bowl party. Normally I would say it’s also quite nice to escape some cold and lousy weather. Lord knows it’s been cold enough this year. There are news articles about ships getting stuck in the ice in the bay. But as it happens, we are heading into a warm spell. Baltimore temperatures will be near 50 while we are in Florida. Not to worry. It will be cold again by Tuesday, along with a little freezing rain.

Wednesday I have a doctor’s appointment. Also on Wednesday evening I *don’t* have my second class. They cancelled my class due to low enrollment. They were very good about cancelling the class promptly and letting me know in a timely manner. But I haven’t heard about the refund yet. I guess that can wait until next week.

I’ve also been busy with issues at the clubhouse. Issue 1: Our assistant is pretty good at entering residents in our database by now. The only thing I’m doing is keeping an eye on recent entries. Issue 2: I found several people who have passes but aren’t in the database. We think these are folks who move in, receive passes at settlement, and don’t register with the clubhouse. I wrote a new report in the database to help the staff quickly find and manage this issue. I generated the list of affected residents and helped the assistant get started on getting these folks registered. Issue 3: The program I used to back up one of the computers hasn’t been working since our new assistant started. I’ve been trying to fix the program and doing backups manually. Last week, I gave up on the old program. I found another program, got comments from everybody concerned about such things, installed the new program, and updated our IT documentation. I thought everything was all squared away. I stopped into the clubhouse yesterday to say hi, only to learned about Issue 4: they needed to move one of the computers. This involved crawling on the floor, routing wires around furniture, and such. This while they were fretting about decorations for the Super Bowl party. Now everything at the clubhouse is squared away. I’m certain of it, because I’m not stopping in again until next week.

Well, I’ve been getting pretty good at cold weather riding (as long as the streets are clear of snow & ice, of course). I can get a short ride in before flight time. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, 1/26. There are no pics.

What a great week. It started with a 3-day weekend that stretched into 4 1/2 days. Snow started about 9 Tuesday morning. That left just enough time for me to gas up the car and pick up a prescription. The snow matched the forecast — about 8″, ending around midnight. UMBC was closed. Danita was forced to stay home. Lunch was homemade, of course. Tomato leak soup and onion triangles. Dinner was pasta with a tomato/onion/spinach/bacon topping. Sometime during this frantically busy day, Danita found time to make orange cream scones for breakfast Wednesday. During circle Monday evening, we discussed New Year resolutions. Mine was to lose 10 pounds. I haven’t make much progress on that one so far.

I had a dental appointment early Tuesday morning. There wasn’t much chance that was going to happen. Barbara from the dental office called to reschedule. Danita answered the phone. The first thing I said was to complement Barbara on her quick thinking — her having called and got my wife, quickly pretending she was from my dentist office.  It took a few beats before she figured out I was insinuating she was my girl friend. She thought that was so funny she had a hard time getting the appointment rescheduled. The women who run that office continuously amaze me. I am one of many patients. But while Barbara and I were joking around, the woman who does billing figured out who I was, knew what I was coming for, and asked Barbara to ask me to make sure and bring my “EOB”. I didn’t know what my “EOB” was. (It really doesn’t matter what it was, and it would take too long to explain.) This triggered several soto voice exchanges while we shared our confidential information about my “EOB”. It turns out I didn’t have my “EOB”. But I was forgiven in exchange for providing several minutes of entertainment.

We spent most of Tuesday reading and relaxing. When we lived in Kingsville on days like this, we used to have an “all day fire”. This was very nice, but it involved trudging out to the wood pile in the snow, using a wheelbarrow to haul the wood into the garden shed (after inflating the wheelbarrow tire),  hauling arm loads of wood into the living room, and dropping wood chips all over the garage / laundry room / kitchen / hall / living room floors. That was followed by cleaning up the next day. Plus all the effort of acquiring and preparing the woodpile during the previous summer. It may not be quite as impressive to have a gas fire. But it sure is a lot easier to walk across the living room and flip a switch.

Yoga was cancelled Tuesday evening. That left us free for a full-fledged snow emergency. (THIS IS NOT A DRILL). Danita went back to work at Noon Wednesday, and the fun was over. We had such a good time, it took me days before I started feeling cabin fever. It’s been quite cold since the snow. Most days, it’s 10 or 20 degrees warmer in Talkeetna, Alaska than it is here.

The snow that’s still on the streets is enough to keep my bike indoors. It’s a good opportunity to do some repairs. I’ve worn out my gears. When I press the pedals hard, the chain skips. I received the last of the parts I need Saturday. My bike’s in the basement warming up. I’ll be trying to effect repairs tomorrow. In the mean time, we have a neighborhood dinner party in a little while. I have to go — it is definitely not a good idea to arrive late!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, Jan 19. There are no pics.

It’s a three day weekend, which is always nice. The weather has been mixed, but I was able to get a couple of rides in. One thing for sure this time of the year, there’s no danger of having to drink warm water on a ride.

We didn’t have anything planned for Friday. But there was 30% of snow showers in the evening, plus another 30% of snow showers late at night, plus a 30% chance the forecast was wrong. That adds up to a 90% chance of snow. We had our traditional snow emergency party. Fortunately, there were several clumps of snow on the deck when we got up Saturday. Saturday Danita went to a neighborhood Bingo. People brought their own “white elephant” prizes. Danita won a package of 18 glue sticks. Fortunately, Lynne teaches kindergarten. We’re pretty sure she can use them.

Tonight, our condo has a pot luck dinner. We are planning to have Circle Monday, but there is some flu running around, so we’ll have to wait and see about that.

Some of the condos have a party every month. This is the first party our condo has had since we moved in. We have an awful lot of government. Below Howard County, there is the Columbia Association. That is divided into five communities — ours is Long Reach. Then there’s or neighborhood organization, Snowden Overlook. Finally, Snowden Overlook is divided into 5 condo associations. Ours is Kendall 1, with a little less than 80 houses. Apparently, before we moved here, the president of Kendall 1 was conflict habituated. There were royal battles. At one point, all the Kendall 1 officers except the president resigned. Their idea was that this would force the president out. But the president appointed interim replacement officers. Some residents sought an opinion from a lawyer, who said the president was within her rights. I’m not sure how, but somehow after that there was a wholesale replacement of Kendall 1 officers. Well, I obviously heard only one side of this story, but it’s interesting none the less. Whatever happened, it seems to have had an impact on our condo association. Since we moved in, we’ve had a laid-back condo association, and one that is  not very active socially. Also, our condo is relatively lax in enforcing restrictions on lawn ornaments, wind chimes, and minor exterior modifications.

Our condo is comprised of all houses on Endless Ocean Way, which is a loop. We are divided into “inies” and “outies”. Those who live on the outside of the loop all have views of trees, which are there because of wetland areas. In other words, all our back lots are rather steep hills down to some kind of stream. We all have walk-out basements and decks high above the ground. We “outies” have issues because paint won’t stick well to the materials used to trim the deck posts. We get no help from the condo because decks, porches, and driveways belong to the unit owner, not the association. Those who live on the inside of the loop all back into each other’s units. The builder did a lot to maximize privacy, but of course those living on the inside loop have less of it. The “inies” also all share an issue with rain water. The all have a patio behind their unit, with access from the main floor or the basement, via a stairwell. Apparently, the builder did not do a very good job of providing rain water egress. They have some areas that are pretty wet, and they all rely on their sump pumps to keep their basements dry. A couple have had their sump pumps fail, which resulted in a flooded basement. There has been discussion about the importance of keeping the stairwell drain clear. Most “outies” have sump pumps that never run. Danita and I, and a couple of units near us, are the exception. I suppose there is an underground stream that runs near our unit. We are “outies” who have the issues of both “outies” and “inies”. Anyway, it will be interesting to see who shows at the pot luck Sunday. Hopefully, we’ll pick up some folks who don’t often attend social events.

That’s it for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, Jan 12. There are no pics.

This has been the week of Argh.

We had Argh weather. First we had snow. Then we had quite warm with rain and heavy snow melt (which caused dense fog). Then we had more rain and very high winds. By Tuesday I was getting cabin fever. The sun was out. But the temperature at 6:30 AM was -1. I rode my bike on the rollers in the morning. It was very unsatisfying. I needed milk. Wegmans is just 10 minutes by bike. And by mid-day the temperature was up to 8, with the wind down to 15 MPH. Normally, that isn’t very inviting. But after a week in the house, it was good enough. The ride was quite cold. 10 minutes of exposure at one time was plenty. But it was a lot more fun than riding rollers in the basement. Here’s some trivia for you. The biggest effect of wind wind on a winter ride is the additional effort required when riding into the wind. With the bike going 10 to 20 MPH, an additional 15 MPH wind doesn’t add to the wind chill all that much. The weather was wet Wednesday, but I got a very pleasant ride in Thursday, with nominal wind and 35 degree temperature. Then it got wet again.

Computers have been Argh. Our new office assistant has been having troubles using the database. I re-did the data entry screens. We’ll see if this is an improvement for her. In poking around, I found we have issued several security passes to residents who aren’t in the database. Fortunately, we know who holds the passes. I could only find a dozen or so missing residents. The community president and I exchanged several E-mails. I suggested a change in office procedures which I don’t think will be very popular with our staff. Lou has been very supportive. It looks like we caught this before it became a big problem, and we should be able to resolve it in a few weeks. To help the staff, I am writing a new program to let them quickly know whether a resident is in the database.

Then the backup program for the assistant’s computer stopped working. I have contacted tech support twice. So far, it’s not working yet. In the mean time, I manually do a backup daily. (Well, almost daily.)

Then I added some new entries to my very long list of passwords. I have a program that keeps my passwords encrypted on my PC and phone. I was synching my phone to the PC when the synch program stopped working. I reset my computer and turned off the phone, only to find the phone wouldn’t turn on again. My favorite solution to that problem is to pull the battery from the phone. (Guaranteed to reset everything.) But this phone has a battery that cannot be removed by the user. A quick web search gave the *almost correct* procedure to force the phone to completely reset and start up. A rather longer search found the error in the procedure I found earlier. After I got my phone running, I had to remove the program and data file from my phone and re-install it before everything was synched up and working.

Danita had an Argh work week. They are interviewing for a director for her group. They had somebody come in this week, which took most of her time Monday and Tuesday. Then she had to go to Godard twice (which is a much longer drive). She was in Godard Friday and left promptly at 4, but had lousy and heavy traffic coming home anyway.

Fortunately, we are having two neighborhood parties this week. We had a Happy Hour Friday, and we are having a concert this evening. Plus, the weather is getting quite nice. Temperatures are climbing quickly and should be close to 50 soon, and the sun is trying to break through the clouds. It’s the best time of all — time for a ride!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, Jan 5. There are no pics this week.

We continued a relaxed holiday season, celebrating “New Years at Noon” with a dinner for circle at our house. Danita prepared an amazing meal, including mushroom strudel and short ribs. We enjoyed a reprise last night. It was just as good the second time around.

I got a couple of bike rides in. The temperature was OK Dec 31, but the winds were high and the air was damp, so I took a short ride to end the year. On New Year’s day, I joined an organized ride called “I’ve ridden every day so far this year”. This is run by a bike shop out in Mt. Airey. The temperature was around 40, the sun was shining, and the winds were low. I chose the longest course, 42 miles. I did well for me, but ended up being the last person to finish the ride. My conditioning has fallen off — this was not an easy ride. Since then, the weather has deteriorated. It looks like there will be no outdoor riding for at least a week.

Danita went back to work Thursday and I was busy running chores. Friday, we were both back at home. It started snowing Thursday evening. By Friday, we had about 6″ of snow, single-digit temperatures, and high winds. UMBC tried to open at Noon, but they couldn’t get the parking lots and walkways cleared. They were closed all day. Of course we had our snow party Thursday night, but this time Danita had her world-class spaghetti waiting in the wings. We decided that eating very good spaghetti was a better option than walking to a restaurant in the snow and bitter cold.

I signed up for a class. It’s a class in using a lathe in metal working. I was idly looking around one day and found some instructions about making a simple steam engine. I realized I know so little that I couldn’t even read the simple directions. I thought it would be nice to know more. The class is offered at Catonsville Community College. We are no longer living in Baltimore County, so the tuition would be quite expensive. But Maryland has a program where any resident can take any class at any state college tuition-free. That doesn’t make the class free. There are lab fees, student fees, … there’s even a fee for any student who registers and is out-of-county. But the class is still very inexpensive, and I should learn something about an area where I currently know absolutely nothing.

Danita’s brother Rick came from Texas for a visit. The Schmaus men (Bud, Ed, and Rick) came to our house for dinner Saturday night. Lynne didn’t come because she had a conflict. We had meatballs in red wine sauce and very fancy whipped potatoes (with spinach and cheese). It was an excellent dinner and a nice end to the holiday season.

This afternoon we have a BSO concert – Vienna waltzes. The concert got a good review in the paper. We are looking forward to it. The forecast was for freezing rain. Fortunately, temperatures were a a little higher than forecasted and there wasn’t much ice. The only trouble we had was getting ourselves from the breakfast restaurant to the car across a very slippery sidewalk this morning.

We party when it snows. We party for Super Bowl. What would we do if it snowed during the Super Bowl? We won’t find out this year, because it doesn’t snow in West Palm Beach. We’re looking forward to seeing Mom and Glen next month. I’m going to especially enjoy being out of town for the Super Bowl because the neighborhood wants to show the Super Bowl in the clubhouse. They tried this last year, and it was a disaster. The picture kept on freezing, nobody could hear the game … it was a mess. They might be headed for another disaster this year, and I won’t be here to take the blame.

Bud has good news. He has a contract to sell his house. We all think he got a good price. He’s been through the initial negotiation, house inspection, termite inspection, and just about every other requirement. The only thing left is for the buyer to get an official assessment. Closing is scheduled for January 31.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.