I am writing this on Sunday, July 27.

What a busy week:

• Monday – Columbia Trail hike.
• Tuesday – Yoga.
• Wednesday – The threat of rain made us blow off the outdoor concert. We went out for pizza and had an Amazon Prime Streaming evening. I definitely do not recommend the series “Deadwood”.
• Thursday – Financial Planning Seminar.
• Amazon Prime Streaming Evening. The series “Rome” is not as bad as Deadwood, but how do they manage to make it all seem so boring? I’m glad we haven’t been paying for HBO all these years.
• Saturday – Outdoor concert.
• Sunday – Columbia Trail hike.

Besides all that, the contractor came back and put the trim on the deck. He worked Thursday and Friday. I cleaned the deck Saturday. Now it’s all done. We like the new deck quite a bit, but I find it has one disadvantage. I didn’t used to care very much what the birds dropped on the deck.

The trash men didn’t put the recycle bins back where they found them. A neighbor decided he had been given our recycle bin, which is much nicer than the standard neighborhood bin. I looked at where the leftover bin was, took a guess, knocked on the door, and got our bin back. Today I got some paint and some stencils and painted our street address on our bins.

Most of you probably know this, but in case you don’t, “Aunti Dani” has given herself the challenge of hiking the 100 mile wilderness (part of the Appalachian Trail in Maine) in 10 days. She’s hiking with a friend, and using a GPS tracking device. If I have it figured out correctly, she made 5 miles yesterday, and left camp early this morning. Way cool, Dani!

See Saw

Sometimes the grumpy old men are just right. You see here a Columbia playground. These are sprinkled around the city on the walking paths. This is a nice one, but boy did they ever butcher the See-Saw. The See-Saw is one of our civilization’s great inventions. Plant two posts in the ground. Run an iron pipe between them. Notch a beam and sit it on the pole. Because we are adults and need a sense of order, there is generally a platform on each end with notches for the legs that kids can use as a seat. A T-handle for the hands provides the finishing touch. It’s very simple. Very Cheap.

And it’s a load of fun. Kids start by dutifully sitting properly in the seat and going up and down. Then they start leaning back to hold the partner in the air. After holding a partner in the air for 3 hours (in 6-year old time), one can suddenly lean in, give a push, and give that other kid a good “bump”. After a couple of those, the other kid will let the beam bounce on the ground and give the kid in the air a bigger “bump”. Or even a good double-jiggle. Can the kid in the air stay in his seat? When this gets old, kids can play with leverage, sitting on the beam and moving in and out. Or a third kid can stand on the beam in the middle and throw the game against the odd-man-out, who generally changes unpredictably every so often. Or a bunch of kids can sit / stand at various places along the beam. Or one kid can walk on the See-Saw, using it as a movable balance beam.

The See-Saw in the picture is 100 times better looking than the old fashioned kind. It’s 1,000 times more expensive. No T-handle on this one — each child has ergonomically correct hand holds. And it’s no fun at all, because the springs and design don’t even permit a mild bump. It even has foot rests! Every person my age knows that you can’t even think of using foot rests on a See-Saw. You never know when the other kid will jump off. You’ll have to think fast to catch yourself, and your feet better darn well be at the ready.

When Robert Fulghum wrote “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”, did he talk about See-Saws? If not, he should have, because See-Saws offer lessons in fairness (the world is not), how to negotiate when you are at a disadvantage (i.e. when the other kid is heavier), how to turn a disadvantage into an advantage (by thinking outside the box), and many other lessons every child should learn before they are 8 years old. None of which is provided by the beautiful abomination on this Columbia playground.

Is the world going to Hell? Are modern kids not developing character? Do today’s kids prefer to play computer games instead of going outside? To understand the root causes behind these important issues, look no further than the modern playground. Grandparents of the world, unite!

We’re off to look at one of the neighborhood open houses, then it will be time for my power nap. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Sunday, 7/20. There is one pic.

After all the excitement lately, we were shooting for a quiet week. The weather has been much cooler than normal lately, often coupled with low humidity. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to enjoy the weather on the road all that much. My sore back refused to cooperate. However, I did get a few shorter rides in.

They started a program to encourage walking in Howard County. They published a small, free booklet with 16 walks in it. Each walk is on paved trails, usually about 2 miles long. Walk enough trails and you can collect a small prize. To prove you’ve walked the trail, they mounted a post on each trail. The post has a metal plate with raised letters. The book has the address of the walk’s starting point, a map of the trail, and a space to do a crayon rubbing of the post. It’s a fun thing to do. So far, Danita and I have done 5 trails. Three more and we get a prize. (Probably a cheap foam sleeve for a Coke can, but hey! a prize is a prize.) We’ve seen parts of Columbia we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Rouse Rock

The strangest thing we’ve seen so far is “Rouse Rock”. The late James Rouse was the CEO of the company that developed Columbia. He had the opportunity to design a city from scratch. He implemented a lot of novel ideas, like a mixture of light industry, retail, and housing in each neighborhood. A mix of different income levels in each neighborhood. Lots of green space (including the walking trails). Etc. This rock was given to Rouse for his forward-looking ideas and vision. I swear, I am not making this up.

The trail with Rouse Rock goes around Wilde Lake, which includes one of the oldest and richest areas of Columbia. Many of the houses are easily worth more than a million dollars. A few of the houses are right on the lake, complete with private docks. In this area, the trail has to follow a residential street on the other side of the houses. I found this amazing for several reasons. “Wild Lake” is small for a lake. Some might call it a very large pond. The trail that circumnavigates the lake is less than 2 miles. The largest boat you would want to take out would be a canoe. That hardly requires a dock. The next amazing thing was that many of these very expensive houses with a private dock had car ports, not garages. They were very nice, but they were still just car ports. The last amazing thing is that the lake stank. There was lots of decaying plant growth. The water was so bad that even the ducks and geese won’t stay there. That *has* to be a downer — build a million dollar house on the lake, then it turns out the lake stinks. I’m glad I’m not that rich.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet. We had a neighborhood party last night. The room was packed. We had a pot luck dinner and a guy who sang Beetles songs. In a little while, we’ll leave to go to a free concert in Catonsville. We’re taking a picnic dinner.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I am writing this on Monday, 7/14.

New Boooks

We spent the weekend at Julia’s. We went down Thursday because we needed an extra day. Of course, there were new books. Brian got his first Encyclopedia Brown books. Danita found a set of 4 books in a box, each with 10 mysteries. Brian got a little overwhelmed, thinking he had 4 books with 10 chapters each. Jul got everything cleared up, but it took a couple of days. Elizabeth got a book without words. It was quite clever, how it managed to tell a clear story without using any words.

New Bike

The Reeds are in their new house and house warming presents were in order. The old house had a driveway with a killer hill. Wheeled toys for the kids were not permitted for safety reasons. The new house is on level ground, making it an obvious opportunity for the kids. Elizabeth wanted a scooter. Brian wanted a bike. It’s easy enough to order a scooter on Amazon. But a bike has to fit the child. We took them out Friday to get really cool helmets, then a bike that fit Brian. Brian took to it right away. Elizabeth decided she wasn’t ready to ride the scooter, so we set it aside until she’s ready.

Peace and Meditation Bench

The new house has a way-cool screened porch. A porch needs an outdoor table and chair set. We all went out Saturday morning to pick one out. It wasn’t as simple as we thought it would be. In the afternoon, Jul and Pat went to some more places while we took the kids to the Reed Gold Mine. I’m not very interested in going into mines, so E escorted me around the mine while Danita and B went through it. Then we went on the trail which included a working stamping mill and other neat stuff, like peace and meditation benches.

New Patio Chairs

When we got back, Jul and Pat had decided on their patio set, so Pat and I went out to pick it up. Pat and I assembled the 6 chairs, 2 ottomans, and side table Saturday evening. It was getting a little late, so we waited until after church Sunday to assemble the table. I spent some time relaxing on the porch. I can say from personal experience that the chairs are quite comfortable.

Belk’s Department Store at the Museum

Sunday afternoon we took the kids and the Levine Museum of the New South. Julia hadn’t been there yet and came along. I lucked out big time. The museum was free for the day, plus they validated my parking ticket so we got free parking. The museum presented the history of the Charlotte area from the Civil War to the present day. The topics were presented in such a bland, non-controversial way that it sometimes took me several minutes to figure out what they were trying to say. The funniest moment was at an exhibit that was a sample of a typical house for a textile factory worker in 1918. It had a wood stove, an ice box, etc. They had a video display near the front porch to play some personal stories from the time. E said “This is where they could watch their TV.”

At Reed Mine Stamping Plant

The only down-side to the trip was my body, which was pretty sore by Sunday. Everything was sore, but especially my back. Was it the time in the car? A change in diet? Or just one of those things? I seem to be doing a little better. Whatever’s left tomorrow should be chased away by our Yoga class.

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Fun in a Flat Back Yard

At Reed Stamping Plant

I am writing this on Saturday, July 5.

Mark & Danita

Somebody hit Danita’s car, and they didn’t leave a note. The damage was to the rear quarter-panel on the passenger side. She didn’t notice the damage until she got home. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but it’s big enough that the person who hit her had to know what they did. We feel a little disgusted at whoever did the damage. We called the insurance company last week, took the car into the body shop last Monday. While it was there, we got a few other bumps an bruises fixed. We got it back Thursday afternoon. The car looks good. It turns out that it’s pretty easy for us to live with one car these days.

I wrote a book. It’s titled “Riding in Traffic Safely”. I’ve been playing around with it for well over a year. I thought E-Publishing the book would be easy. It’s not. There’s a web site called “Smashwords” that distributes E-Books to just about every outlet except Amazon. They use a program they call “Meat Grinder” to generate all the various formats required (E-Pub, Apple iBook, etc.) It’s pretty easy for fiction. Just submit a Word document, making sure all the formatting is defined by styles. Unfortunately, it gets more tedious for non-fiction. All references (table of contents, footnotes, etc.) have to be entered and linked by hand. Figures, pictures, text boxes, etc all require extra work. It’s not very exciting.

Waiting for Fireworks

Here’s something that’s more exciting. Mark made it back from Saudi Arabia. He came over for the 4th. Danita made pulled-pork, then we went to the Columbia fire works. We got there a little earlier this year and found a great spot. It was an amazing show — the best they’ve had so far. We used one of the Bob Evans BOGOs to take Mark out to breakfast before returning him to Hopkins earlier today.

I’m still riding. Sometime last week I rolled through 20,000 miles.That’s a lot of hours on the bike.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.