There are a couple of pics this week.

The big news for Danita was work – work – work. Unfortunately, she got sick Wednesday. She was feeling pretty bad. She stayed home from work and backed out of having dinner with Bud. (There’s no sense to take a risk of getting him sick.) She wasn’t better Thursday, but she was back to work. She was also sick but worked Friday. She seems to finally be getting over whatever she had.

Mom & Glenn at Okeeheelee Park

While Danita was working and being sick, I visited Mom & Glen. When I got up Tuesday morning, I received an Email that my flight was cancelled. All other flights to West Palm Beach were full. So I called Southwest. They offered to reroute me through Ft. Lauderdale. It took away from time with Mom on Monday and Friday, and it meant a 45 mile drive in FL. On the bright side, the rental car in Ft. Lauderdale was $100 cheaper than the same care in W Palm Beach. I was surprised.

Birds at Okeeheelee Park were quite bold

I arrived in plenty of time to attend the play “7 Brides for 7 Brothers” at the Century Village theater as Mom’s guest. Wednesday we went to Okeeheelee Park and took a walk. The weather was quite pleasant. There was plenty of wildlife to see. Thursday we went to the Havana restaurant for dinner at lunch time. The food was quite good. Friday wasn’t quite as successful. We went to Sarah’s Kitchen for breakfast. The food was great, but it was so noisy Glen couldn’t hear us talking. On the way back, we stopped at Ocean Reef Park. There were a few picnic tables around the parking lot. There was a sandy path to the beach, but Mom and Glen can’t walk on the sand very well. I walked out to the beach and saw some nice tables, chairs, and umbrellas. I thought that was much nicer than the parking area. Then I saw the sign — this was a private area for the hotel next door. I had planned to leave Mom’s about 12:30, but I started feeling nervous and decided I would rather wait an extra hour in the airport than take the chance of getting caught up in traffic on I-95.

Mom & Glen at Ocean Reef Park

Besides our trips, we spent time going over Mom’s new computer setup and how to get things done. Mom did quite well. Mom wanted a new Wi-Fi printer. With color printing. With a scanner. With a copier. (These are called all-in-one printers). I figured we were in for a bruising, but that’s what she wanted. So we went to Best Buy and picked out an HP Envy. When we got home and I started working with the printer, I was impressed. HP has always made great printers. But in the past, all the options required to make a printer do all these functions made for a confusing set of configuration screens. Then use of the multi-function printers was made complicated by confusing buttons marked with obscure symbols. But this printer is actually a snap to set up and easy to use. Here’s an example. Mom wanted to see how the double-sided printing worked. We found a 2-page document. The printer printed the first page, then sucked the page back inside, then printed the second page on the other side of the paper. It couldn’t possibly be any easier than that. Exampe #2. Mom wanted to scan a document. We had to follow a menu. In every case, the first option was the one we wanted. When we were done, the File Explorer screen opened on Mom’s computer to show her where her scan file was. Every time I wanted to do something, no matter how obscure, I was able to get to it right away with one press of the graphic control panel. It’s an amazing amount of functionality for less than $100.

All good things must end. I came home Friday to move from the high 80s to below freezing. Today (Saturday) is the Church dinner. Danita and I will be servers. It’s going to be a long dinner — from 4 to 8. If we survive that, we’ll go to a SOCA party Sunday.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are some pics this week.

Cherry Trees at the Park

Last week was pretty exciting. We started seriously thinking about what we’ll take to China. The warning was that there are times we will have to carry our own baggage, possibly on uneven steps without handrails. The mantra is “travel light”. We reluctantly admitted that the day hike backpacks we got for England are too large for China. I found my China backpack. Danita’s still thinking about it. We had our last Tai Chi class Wednesday. We managed not to fall in class. We’re hoping to duplicate that in China.

Suspension Bridge was the Favorite

Thursday we went to the National Aquarium for a lecture titled “Looking Through a Lense”. Doug Allen is world famous for his nature photography and films. He specializes in underwater filming at the North and South poles. It was an amazing presentation.

Friday we drove down to Jul’s. Unbelievably, there was snow in our area. It was scheduled to start early in the morning. We left at 4:45 AM to beat the snow. It worked. I don’t know when the snow actually started, but we had nothing more than rain. Columbia ended up with 2 inches of snow. We made it down safe and sound. Saturday was a beautiful day. We took the grandkids to a park and had a great time. Sunday we saw Cinderella and had some ice cream. We no longer have more stamina than Bryon, but Elizabeth was sound asleep by the time we got back Sunday.

River was Inviting but Too Cold

We’ll be driving back to Columbia tomorrow. Our big constraint is that we have to be at the breakfast IHOP at 8:40 AM so I can check into my flight for Florida. I should have just enough time in Columbia to repack my bag for the next trip.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week. Friday we are leaving to visit the Reeds, so look for some pics from that. The day after we get back, I am flying down to Florida to visit Mom. We’ll see when all this stuff gets posted.

Today is Pi Day. π = 3.14159265359 (approximately). Since today is 3/14/15, the date matches Pi when truncated to 5 digits. Or you can wait until 9:26:53 AM and match Pi to 10 digits. We decided to match just the 5 digits. We went to the Double T diner for breakfast and had pie for dessert. But we had a moment of silence at 9:26:53. At least, I’m pretty sure we did. It’s pretty quiet around here without kids. Some people say this good of a match for Pi only happens once a century. But to my way of thinking, 3/14/16 matches Pi when *rounded* to 5 digits, and it’s a lot closer to the actual value of Pi. So I’m sure we’ll be doing something extra special for Pi day next year.

Danita and I had our Hepatitis A shots in preparation for our China trip. I took to mine without trouble. Danita’s arm was sore for a couple of days. She took her shot in the left arm. That was unfortunate because she usually sleeps on her left side. I’m still waiting for my float switch to come in so I can set the sump alarm. Aparently it’s being shipped direct from China. We’ve had a lot of snow melt and quite a bit of rain starting late last night to boot. The ground is saturated, and our sump pump is kicking off every 2 minutes. I was able to determine the exact height I want the float switch. So things should move along quickly once the part comes in.

We had a SOCA party last night. It was such good fun, we’re having another one tomorrow. Tomorrow’s party is our St. Patrick’s Day dinner.

The weather’s improving and I’m getting some good rides in. I have some training to do, but I’m pleased with what I’ve done this week.

The ladies in the office decided to rearrange their office furniture. They don’t tend to think of the networking equipment as being very important, so they laid it on the floor. Unfortunately, that disturbed some of the connections and their network stopped working. They sent me Email, text, and phone call. For some reason, I didn’t hear my phone ring. I didn’t answer them for over an hour, when I reached my ride destination of Glenwood. It’s two more hours to get back home, and I wasn’t skipping lunch. Fixing the network wasn’t hard, but the equipment was still on the floor. I told them they had to do something to get it off the floor, and they ordered a file cabinet. It’s supposed to be in this week. We’ll see if it gets in before I start my grand travels.

Mom’s computer problems might be on-going, but mine are done. Lappy arrived about 9:30 Monday morning, and this time everything was working fine. It took me little time to get everything set up on Lappy; and to get the new HP Stream computer hooked up to use with the TV. I was pretty happy. I didn’t want to pay for an Microsoft Office license for the Stream, so I was using LibreOffice. It’s supposed to be a great package and compatible with Microsoft Office files. I found it was full of bugs. While it could read and write Office formats, there were plenty of differences. When I got Lappy back, I completely re-started one Word document because it was too hard to fix all the formatting problems.

Besides all the travel that starts next week, we’re looking forward to a presentation at the National Aquarium. An underwater wildlife photographer will be making a presentation. It should be fun.

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

There are no pics this week.

We got slammed. The ice storm that was supposed to start late Sunday started early Sunday. We weren’t able to meet Mark for breakfast. Then it got cold again. We had single-digit temperatures. Thursday, we got another 8″ of snow. At least Danita got her snow day. UMBC announced Wednesday that they would close the campus Thursday. It looks like that was the end of winter. The temperature got over 40 today. Snow is melting. The forecast is for temps above freezing from now on. We’ll try that breakfast with Mark again tomorrow.

The cold temperatures didn’t bother us so much this time, because the furnace was fixed Monday. The furnace people brought 3 trucks and three techs. It was all done in one afternoon. Tuesday we started getting an occasional really bad screeching sound. A furnace tech came and solved the problem with a little oil.

We’ve been preparing our house for our trip to China. We had a backup sump pump installed. This runs off water pressure. Since we’re on county water, we can now pump the sump even if power fails. When we go to China, we are required to turn the water to the house off. So we installed a new line to connect the backup sump before the water shutoff valve. It took two guys all day one day, but it’s installed and working. I’m working on an alarm to let me know when the main pump fails. I had an alarm, but the sensor is getting wet with water sloshing around in the sump well and making alarms even when the pump is working. I ordered a float switch to replace the water sensor. Everything should be set in a few days. I also installed more security cameras. We have the house covered. If anybody breaks in, their picture will be in my Email. I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress this week.

Unfortunately, we didn’t quite clear the decks. Lappy came back from HP. I ordered my computer with 2 disk drives. The second disk drive wasn’t working. I called the repair facility. The guy said the second disk wasn’t in the computer. He didn’t call me back; then we got that snow. While I was waiting for them to reopen, I took the computer apart and verified the 2nd disk is still there. I got hold of them Friday. They agreed to take the computer back and fix the disk. Maybe when I get Lappy next week everything will be working.

We’re looking forward to a BSO concert tomorrow afternoon.

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