I am writing this on Sunday, Feb 22. There is one pic. (But it’s not all that compelling.)

What a great weekend. Good weather rolled in Thursday, with warm temperatures and sunny skies. We had a day of rain Friday, but the sun came back and it’s been warm all the way through Sunday. I’ve been enjoying making myself dead tired looking for my “bike legs”. We have two SOCA parties. We had a Happy Hour on Friday. The good weather means lots of folks turned out. The food was pretty good. This evening, we have an international Pot Luck dinner. We also had a very special breakfast with Mark this morning. We went to a new restaurant near Mark’s apartment — Carma’s Café. Mark seems to be doing fine.

We’re having homeowner fun. With all the snow melt, the sump pump has been running a lot. I unplugged the main pump to test the backup. The backup doesn’t work. I haven’t decided what to do about that. We installed a new, high quality main pump when we moved in. I might decide to gamble for a while. I guess the moral of this story is, “If you don’t want to know your backup doesn’t work, don’t test it.”

Our other issue is with the deck. Because our house is on the “outer loop”, the ground drops away from our house in the back. We have a walk-out garden level (also known as a basement) and a nice deck on the main level. The way the condo rules are written, the deck belongs to Danita and me. Just because the association doesn’t own the deck doesn’t mean they don’t feel they have the right to restrict changes to the deck. So we have to maintain the deck, but we can’t change the deck without approval. I wouldn’t care too much about this if the deck were OK. (Did you notice the clever use of subjunctive case to create an aura of foreshadowing?) Our deck has two problems.

Decks are not supposed to be level. They are supposed to slant away from the house at 1/4″ per foot. This helps prevent water pooling. Unfortunately, carpenters like things to be square and didn’t think about water pooling. Our deck is perfectly level. Plenty of pooling is causing the floor boards to curl up.

These deck supports were properly prepped and painted less than 2 years ago.

The outside edge of the deck is supported by a massive horizontal beam and large vertical uprights. These are made of pressure treated lumber which easily survives the weather. But pressure treated lumber doesn’t look pretty, so the builder enclosed these with painted trim boards. Unfortunately, the massive horizontal beam is trimmed out on both sides and the bottom, which makes a pretty good water trough. Water collects in the trough, slowly drizzling down the vertical support uprights.  Because of our building’s orientation, there is never any direct sunlight to help dry things out. The trim boards absorb this water, which is why paint won’t stick for more than a year. Poorly painted trim board looks ugly. The constant exposure to water can lead to problems that go beyond the cosmetic.

I’ve been talking to contractors to see what we can do. I’m doing my best to find changes that have a small impact on how the deck looks. It’s not going to be cheap. And I’m going to have to ask for approval from the Kendal 1 association. Then the SOCA association. then the Long Wood neighborhood association. It’s like rubbing salt in a wound. Three times.

Well the temperature is near 60 and there’s no chance of rain. It’s time for a ride, to work up my appetite for the Pot Luck dinner. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I’m writing this on Sunday, 2/16. There is 1 pic, from our Circle dinner last weekend.

Going clockwise from lower left: Bill Bauman, Mike Bertch, Danita, me, Rose Bertch, Tina Bauman, Teggan Bauman, Donna and Tony  Sochurek

We’re going to England! I’m not sure whether we will be visiting the United Kingdom, or England and Scotland. (Scotland is voting on an independence proposal.) But we’re going. We’ve been talking about visiting London for years. We finally realized there’s no reason not to go now. When we decided to go to Alaska, it took us months to figure out what we wanted to do. This trip happened quite easily. Danita and I both looked at some possibilities. Danita outlined the trip; I made the reservations. Here’s our itinerary. (“BA” is British Air.)

It’s too early to buy train tickets. (Schedules for June aren’t posted yet.) But it’s not too early to reserve rooms. I selected 3 possible rooms for each city. Then Danita reviewed them and gave her input. When I went back to make the actual reservations, some of our choices were no longer available. For one of the rooms, the web site warned there were only two rooms left. While I was entering our reservation, the screen flashed and said there was only one room left. I was amazed. But we have great rooms, all “near the action”. Other than London, we are staying in Guest Houses (that’s English for Bed & Breakfasts). I would say they are all reasonably priced, but we’re still suffering from the sticker shock of how expensive things are in the UK. A fancy tea in London can cost £40. Each. We won’t be going to that tea.

We are very excited about this trip. Our list of things to do and see is longer than we can possibly accomplish in the time we allotted. We plan to have a blast.

The next thing I will work on is communications. I want to see if I can get a British phone plan for June. This will let us make local calls at reasonable prices. We also have to get Onion cards (for mass transit in London), and tickets to performances, and in general spend a bunch more money. But we’ll wait until we pay for the plane tickets and hotel rooms before adding more to the charge card.

It was much more fun writing about England than it would have been writing about doing taxes. (The only thing left is to receive the refund deposit.) We’ve also had some wintery weather. We had 18″ of snow Wednesday night. We had another 2″ of ice Thursday night. We were supposed to get several more inches again Friday night, but that got delayed, then petered out into not much of anything. UMBC was closed Thursday and Friday. It wasn’t hard to spend a few days at home together. None of our utilities were interrupted. We had continuous access to hours of movies, music, TV, and books. I found a reference to a book I decided I wanted to read, and had a copy of it on my Kindle in less than 2 minutes. Most of that time was spent walking upstairs to my computer. I spent much of my time reading an old-fashioned paper book, “The name of war : King Philip’s War and the origins of American identity” by Jill Lapore. (Our library’s E-book collection is still limited. Many interesting books are available only in paper.) The reading is dry, but the author gets a lot out of very little documentation. She’s careful to lay out the boundaries of her knowledge. She’s very good at explaining our attitudes towards the Indians, how those attitudes shifted over two centuries, and how those attitudes interacted with how Indians were treated during our history up to the 1800s.

Our SOCA party Friday evening was cancelled. Snow continues to flit and drift through the forecast. We have a BSO concert this afternoon. Danita found a great deal at Bare Bones, so a dinner of ribs could be in our immediate future.

We’re approaching the time of year when I start counting down the days until spring. Baseball is starting up. Temperatures are starting to climb. It’s easy to get ahead of Mother Nature. But we often get one last snow as late as mid-March, which is why I say “Beware the Ides of March”.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sat, 2/8. There is one pic.

Dad’s Flag

There’s been plenty of excitement here in MD, even not counting the trip to WPB. First item: Bud sold his house last Friday. Settlement went fine.

We put Dad’s flag up the SOCA flag pole. When it reaches the end of its life, it will be disposed of appropriately. The man in charge of flags is a retired Army General. I trust he knows about such things.

Danita and her colleagues interviewed the last candidate for the Science Director position. These interviews have been hard on her because the whiners and complainers feel free to come out to whine and complain in public about everything that is wrong in her research group.

I’ve agreed to give a session on computer security for SOCA residents. I will offer one session during the day, and one in the evening. Sessions will be March 7 and 10.

I read an interesting book.– “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” by Griffin. It discusses the history of modern Ping-Pong. One man, Ivor Montagu, defined the game and helped Communist China use it to gain world-wide respect and formal relations at the UN and with the US.

Personal Note: the US recognition of China was a major factor that helped Nixon end the Vietnam War just weeks after I took my pre-induction physical. After that, I took a 6-week vacation to drive around the US. When I came back, I met Danita.

The most interesting part of Griffin’s story was how China wanted to use the “Great Leap Forward” to become an overnight economic world power. Their effort resulted in a major famine that killed more Chinese than the Japanese did during WW II. Later, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, in part to get rid of Chinese leaders who criticized his Great Leap Forward. As many as 45 million Chinese died in that.

Griffin is very skilled at tying world events together. However, it’s best to take him with a grain of salt. For example, there was a Russian “botanist” Lysenko who came up with some very bad ideas for improving farm productivity. For example, he said seeds are like Communist comrades. Planting them close together will let them support each other and increase yields. Lysenko was a peasant with no scientific training. His ideas were pure bunk. But Lenin liked his politics, and he became Russia’s chief botanist. When China wanted to double farm production for their Great Leap Forward, they implemented Lysenko’s methods across the country. Griffin says these methods reduced yields and were the major factor in the famine. It’s just one example of Griffin’s very interesting stories. But other references I consulted indicate that while Lysenko certainly didn’t help the situation, it was a minor factor that made things a little worse than they already were. Whatever the imperfections of the book,  I learned a lot about historical events that spanned the globe and occurred just before and during my life time.

We’re having a bleak weekend. The temperature is a little below freezing. It’s cloudy and we have possible snow. The clubhouse is closed for the weekend while they do a major cleaning of the floor. There are no SOCA parties. I found there’s a bike swap in Carroll County Sunday, but I can’t go to that because it conflicts with a Circle concert and dinner. The concert and dinner are fine, but it kind of snuck up on me. On the bright side, since Danita couldn’t get her clubhouse coffee, we decided the only reasonable alternative was to go out for breakfast this morning. We went to Eggspectations. It’s $5 – $10 more than our normal  breakfast places. But the food is good.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Tuesday, Feb 4. If you go to the web site, you will find a couple of pics of Mom and Glen.

The trip to West Palm Beach was such an epic journey that it grabs the headlines two weeks in a row. Our trip down was completely uneventful. Both flights were on time. The rental car was as advertised. Everything happened as planned, arriving at Mom’s place late on Friday.

We had a nice rhythm to our days. We had an activity in the morning and a second activity in the evening. We had perfect weather, highs in the 80s and rain only at night after we got home. In the afternoon, Danita and I went to the clubhouse to use the internet while Mom and Glen took their naps. Saturday Mom, Danita, and I visited the Green Market. This is a series of vendor tents in downtown W Palm Beach. We toured the vendors, walked up the main street, and viewed the yachts in the harbor. As a bonus, we got free parking, thanks to Mom & Glen’s insider knowledge.

Ann Norton Sculpture Garden

Sunday all four of us visited the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden. This is quite an unusual attraction. The Nortons bought three adjacent lots in a high-end development right off the river. Ann built her sculptures in the back yard. The surrounding houses are still residences. When entering the sculpture garden, it feels exactly like entering a private residence. The only thing marking the house as a public attraction is a small cardboard sign they put in the lawn when they open in the morning, and take up when they close. They have a rotating art exhibit in the house, the sculptures in the back yard, and the studio building. Besides the sculptures, the yard is filled with many different varieties of palm trees. The area is well shaded. We had a nice breeze. Parts of the yard had a great view of the river. Sunday evening, we watched the TV commercials while the Seahawks trounced the Broncos in the Super Bowl.

Grassy Waters Preserve

Monday, the four of us went to iHop for breakfast, then up to the Grassy Waters Preserve. It’s quite an interesting area, with miles of pristine wetlands. The area is filled with Cyprus trees. My first impression was that the trees had all died, because they look scrawny and their leaves had dropped for the winter. It turns out the Cyprus trees are small because the area’s water comes only from rain. This makes for few nutrients, but excellent water quality. We were also surprised to see almost no wildlife. But as the naturalist explained, the wildlife has plenty of room to spread out in the area. We see more wildlife in the community ponds because they are forced to concentrate themselves in the small area where they can live. Monday evening, we saw the movie “2 Guns”. We enjoyed the movie immensely, and were quite surprised to see a few people leaving early.

Tuesday we stopped at McDonald’s for a carry-out breakfast. We took our breakfast to Mounts Botanical Gardens, where we enjoyed eating in the gazebo, surrounded by beautiful gardens. Afterwards, we strolled through the rest of the gardens.

Of course, there was tons of food. Mom made so much food, half of it stayed in the freezer. We simply couldn’t eat everything she prepared. We had lasagna, chicken and dumpling soup, sausage and onion hoagies, pork tenderloin, and  snacks too numerous to mention.

Our flight home had lots of empty seats. Danita and I enjoyed an entire row to ourselves. There was plenty of bad weather up north, but we were fortunate to return on the day between the two winter storms. We had no trouble, but folks connecting to flights further north were out of luck.

We had a wonderful time. Thanks to Mom and Glen for being such wonderful hosts.