There is one pic this week.

I had a very strange experience Wednesday. I came down the stairs and walked toward the kitchen. Right behind me, I heard a crash. I turned around and found a window drape on the floor. There’s a window above our front door. Just a few seconds earlier, the drape had been above that window, up near the ceiling, 20 feet above the floor. You can see Mark holding the fallen drape in the pic. I got out the binoculars. The screw was still in the wall. A plastic collar broke. Now we have a phillips-head screw visible on one side of the window, and a wooden drapery rod holder on the other. The drape and it’s wooden rod didn’t weigh much. There was never any danger. But just for a second, I felt like I was in one of those B-horror movies where the chandelier falls and just misses me because I made an unpredictable move. With the drape 20 feet high, it’s for sure nobody has been disturbing the drape. Who knows? Maybe there are poltergeists.

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving. There were six — Bud, Mark, Ed, and Lynne joined us for dinner. Danita took Wednesday off to cook because she has always done that. But she admitted it wasn’t really necessary this year, because the dinner was so small.

One of our family traditions ended this year. Ever since the kids were all in school, Danita and I took off the first Friday in December for Christmas shopping. Danita would have suggestions for everybody’s presents. We went out to breakfast as early as we could and reviewed the list. Then we hit the streets to buy all the stuff. (Or as much of it as we could.) It worked out well. The stores weren’t too crowded, and we had the whole day to shop without kids. When school was out, we would pick the kids up and go out to dinner. The kids didn’t even know all their Christmas presents were in the trunk as we drove to dinner.

This year, Danita didn’t want to take another day of vacation. She had missed two days from having her cold, and was behind at work. Her suggestions were ready, so we did our Christmas shopping Saturday. We went to Bob Evans for an early breakfast. We reviewed the list and bought almost all the stuff. Crowded stores weren’t an issue, because we bought everything on-line. I had my laptop with me, and we bought everything while sitting at the breakfast table. We were totally done well before 9 AM. Everything should be delivered by mid-week. And … we ate breakfast out 2 days in a row. (We don’t skip Sunday breakfast out justs because we went out Saturday!)

Last week I was concerned because only one person from the web posting class was posting on our web site. I am pleased to announce that our web posters are all busy posting away.

Today we saw the James Bond movie Spectre. We went to an 11:30 AM show, as usual for us. The movie has been playing for several weeks. We expected the theater to be almost empty. We were quite surprised to find the theater full. It wasn’t packed, but it was full. The movie was great fun.

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

There is one pic this week.

Fallen Drape

I had a very strange experience Wednesday. I came down the stairs and walked toward the kitchen. Right behind me, I heard a crash. I turned around and found a window drape on the floor. There’s a window above our front door. Just a few seconds earlier, the drape had been above that window, up near the ceiling, 20 feet above the floor. You can see Mark holding the fallen drape in the pic. I got out the binoculars. The screw was still in the wall. A plastic collar broke. Now we have a phillips-head screw visible on one side of the window, and a wooden drapery rod holder on the other. The drape and it’s wooden rod didn’t weigh much. There was never any danger. But just for a second, I felt like I was in one of those B-horror movies where the chandelier falls and just misses me because I made an unpredictable move. With the drape 20 feet high, it’s for sure nobody has been disturbing the drape. Who knows? Maybe there are poltergeists.

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving. There were six — Bud, Mark, Ed, and Lynne joined us for dinner. Danita took Wednesday off to cook because she has always done that. But she admitted it wasn’t really necessary this year, because the dinner was so small.

One of our family traditions ended this year. Ever since the kids were all in school, Danita and I took off the first Friday in December for Christmas shopping. Danita would have suggestions for everybody’s presents. We went out to breakfast as early as we could and reviewed the list. Then we hit the streets to buy all the stuff. (Or as much of it as we could.) It worked out well. The stores weren’t too crowded, and we had the whole day to shop without kids. When school was out, we would pick the kids up and go out to dinner. The kids didn’t even know all their Christmas presents were in the trunk as we drove to dinner.

This year, Danita didn’t want to take another day of vacation. She had missed two days from having her cold, and was behind at work. Her suggestions were ready, so we did our Christmas shopping Saturday. We went to Bob Evans for an early breakfast. We reviewed the list and bought almost all the stuff. Crowded stores weren’t an issue, because we bought everything on-line. I had my laptop with me, and we bought everything while sitting at the breakfast table. We were totally done well before 9 AM. Everything should be delivered by mid-week. And … we ate breakfast out 2 days in a row. (We don’t skip Sunday breakfast out justs because we went out Saturday!)

Last week I was concerned because only one person from the web posting class was posting on our web site. I am pleased to announce that our web posters are all busy posting away.

Today we saw the James Bond movie Spectre. We went to an 11:30 AM show, as usual for us. The movie has been playing for several weeks. We expected the theater to be almost empty. We were quite surprised to find the theater full. It wasn’t packed, but it was full. The movie was great fun.

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

There are no pics this week.

Every year I delay heating season as long as I reasonably can. My stretch goal is to delay heating season until Thanksgiving. This year, I came closer than ever before. Highs were staying in the 60s, sometimes close to 70. But Friday somebody “threw the switch”. Temperatures dropped 15 degrees. And they are continuing to drop another 5 degrees every day. Our forecasted high Monday is in the low 40s. After that, it should warm a little. I think the heat will stay on until spring.

I saw my cardiologist Wednesday. He told me there wasn’t a need to continue visiting every year. I should come back in 2 years. That sounds like good news to me.

My website posting class concluded Wednesday. Four of my five students did well, but three of them stopped one step short of being able to post. I’m not sure exactly what their reasons are, or whether they intend to post. I wrote a SurveyMonkey, and only two students responded.

Back on Nov 3, I proposed adding a login capability to our website, along with moving our records of pool pass numbers, license plate numbers, and other such information to the web site’s database. Without bothering to read what I wrote, some of our board members started hollering about privacy. So I’ll be doing a demonstration of the proposal Dec 14. It takes a long time to get things done around here.

Danita has her Thanksgiving menu all planned. She decided to go to the grocery store first thing this morning, before it gets crowded. A side benefit is that we had Wegman’s muffins for breakfast this morning when she got back home. Yum. Our social event this weekend is the neighborhood Thanksgiving dinner tonight. They closed the registration two weeks ago when they hit 98 attendees. It’s going to be a very cozy clubhouse at dinner tonight.

I’m still recovering from my cold. Danita got the cold Wednesday. She ended up staying home from work Thursday and Friday. With her home all day, it felt like practice for her retirement.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There is one pic this week.

A technology vision fulfilled. HP Jornada 720 (circa 2000) next to Nexus 7 tablet + keyboard (The Jornada still works — remember dial-up?)

I told you about replacing a ridiculously expensive smart phone with an inexpensive flip phone and an expensive tablet (but not ridiculously expensive). The keyboard for the tablet came in. I couldn’t be more pleased with the result. A tablet won’t run Windows programs, but there are a large number of things it can do. A big limitation can be the web. When modern websites figure out they are talking to a tablet, they “dumb down” the screens, which means one can’t do everything on the website they could do if they had a computer. This tablet has a very high definition screen, and I set it up to request full desktop pages. I haven’t yet found any web-based activity I can’t do on the tablet. Microsoft offers free versions of Office (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint) that can do a lot. There are plenty of things I use my computer for that the tablet can’t replace. But I can do the other 80% anywhere there’s WiFi, from a device that fits in my pocket. In all the ways that matter, this is more useful to me than a ridiculously expensive smartphone.

We will have an active weekend. We had a neighborhood party last night. They showed a movie afterwards, an action flick. I got bored and left early. Danita enjoyed it and watched the whole thing. Maybe I was feeling the effects of having picked up a mild cold (yuck). I had to get up in the middle of the night and take over-the-counter nighttime knockout medicine. My head still feels groggy from the side effects. Tomorrow we have Circle at the Bertches. Sunday we have a BSO concert.

Other than that, things are just running along. There’s no unusual drama for Danita at work. My web site posting class will wrap up Wednesday. The next step to get a decision about adding a resident directory to our web site will be a demo at a board meeting December 14.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

We had a week of beautiful weather — warm and sunny through Wednesday. It was rainy Thursday, but Friday it was dry with highs near 80. I went out to Frederick Friday to enjoy the extraordinary weather. I can get to Frederick in less than an hour, so it’s not a long drive. Frederick County has 3 covered bridges. While Frederick County is in the foothills, much of it is basically flat.There’s several variations of a ride that goes through all 3 bridges, called “Covered Bridges Get Stoned”. I’m not sure where the name came from, because this is not an area with very many stone fences. Perhaps its because one of the bridges is on stone pilings. But the name stuck. It’s one of the more famous bike rides in the state. All of the routes go through very pretty farm country and have no major hills. Of more practical importance, all of them start at a public park with plenty of free parking and spot-a-pots. I chose a 40-mile ride. My plan was to have lunch in Emmitsburg. Unfortunately, I left my camera and money in the car. I saw lots of interesting sights, but I have no pics. And I had a delayed lunch.

I’m glad I got a lot of riding in last week. This week, we are promised highs in the 50s. There’s rain in the forecast for Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday should be nice, but I’m meeting Tony Chaprnka for lunch and I’m leading a web posting class in the afternoon. So there may not be very much riding this week.

We had our October church dinner last night. Danita and I worked as servers until the rush was over, then we enjoyed a very nice dinner. It was a fun evening. Today, we’re going to see Tom Hanks in “Bridge of Spies”. We have high hopes for this movie. The preview I saw had the coolest car — a perfect example of cars of that era.

This week has been filled with technology challenges. I told you I couldn’t answer phone calls on my smart phone and got a flip phone. The rest of the smart phone was working, and I was counting on it staying that way. Unfortunately, it started freezing once a day. Then it started freezing twice a day. It’s pretty clear where this was going, and I count on it for my calendar, contacts, notes, password vault, and other functions. I looked around and noticed that a tablet is a *lot* cheaper than a smart phone. I don’t understand why, because a tablet has the same computer chips as a smart phone. It has a larger and much nicer display. But it’s 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost. Whatever the reason, a tablet makes sense for me. There’s plenty of Wi-Fi around. I’ve very seldom felt the need to get data over the cell phone network. I chose the Nexus 7, 2013 edition. It came in this week, and I really like it. It’s small enough to fit in my cargo pockets (4.5″ x 8″), large enough to easily do anything I want on the web, and runs all the little programs I rely on so much. My biggest problem using the tablet is the on-screen keyboard, which I have never mastered. I ordered a tiny keyboard that is supposed to clip on and double as a case to protect the screen. We’ll see how well that works when it comes in next week, but it gets pretty good reviews.

The next technology challenge was Verizon FIOS. We were getting a $20/month “Preferred Customer” discount. The discount ended last month. When I called them up, Verizon said the discount is no longer available. But I can save $10/month if I increase my bandwidth from 15 MBits to 50 MBits and sign up for a 2-year contract. I don’t understand why it’s cheaper if I triple my bandwidth, but I *really* don’t understand why it’s more expensive if I drop the TV. I took the deal because it was the cheapest thing they would offer me. Unfortunately, the deal comes with a new router. I worked on the new router most of the week, and finally had everything working again yesterday. The reviews say that some people have had problems with this router. I have 30 days to return my old router. I plan to see how things work for a couple of weeks before making any decisions.

The third technology challenge is our web site. I proposed an addition that would let residents log into the website. I had installed the changes on my computer and had a pretty good idea of how it will work. The proposal includes moving resident information from a database on our office computer to out website, with suitable controls on who sees what information. I wrote a brief description and asked for approval to move forward. I got a raft of stuff from our president about privacy of resident information. From my viewpoint, there is no change in privacy. But obviously either some people misunderstand what I’m proposing or not everybody shares my perception of the Internet. Whatever happens next, it won’t be before mid-December, when all the important people can be available to discuss this.

With snow-bird season fast approaching, it might be quite a while before we decide what to do. It might end up being over a year before we implement this. We have photographs of everybody who has a pool pass. Most of the data can be transferred to the website automatically, but the pool pass photos have to be scanned and uploaded one at a time. I want the winter season to do this while the pool is closed. I was thinking to do it this winter. But now it looks like it might be next winter.

Here’s hoping that your challenges are as minor and as easy to manage as mine, and that this finds everybody doing well.

There is one pic this week, but it’s not very essential to the post.

When does one grow up? When they’re 18? 21? 50? Retired? My next step in growing up is when Danita retires and we’re both free. And we have just figured out what we will do when we’re all grown up. We’re going to volunteer at Pipe Spring National Monument. In exchange for working 32 hours a week, we get free room and $10 / day. Our stint starts in late September and ends in early December. We’ll leave quite a bit before that. We’ll take I-70 to its end, stopping at interesting places along the way, which will certainly include Columbus, St. Louis, Denver, and Cove Fort.

I-70 sign

I-70 is interesting all in itself. Three stretches of I-70 have claims to being the first stretch of Interstate. I’m not sure all the ins and outs of being “first”, but certainly it is one of the earlier Interstates. It starts in Baltimore, where this sign gives distances to major points along the road. It ends at Cove Fort, Utah; at I-15. From there we turn left to get to Pipe Springs. We plan to arrive early enough to spend a day or two at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We want to stop there before we start our volunteer stint because it closes for the winter not long after we arrive.

Of course, I have to have things to do in the meantime. So I’ve been working on our new website. Besides running a training series for people to help post on the site, I’ve figured out a reasonable way to give every resident in our neighborhood an account so they can log into the site. The login gives them access to a neighborhood directory. Eventually, it will allow them to sign up for any of several Email services we offer.

We usually go out to dinner Thursday night. Our Daily Bread invited us to a dinner at the Engineer’s Club last Thursday, so of course we went. They had horderves served by waiters walking around, several buffet tables with a choice of four entrees, and free wine and beer. The Engineer’s Club is in the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion. This is a 19th century house in Baltimore’s Mt. Washington neighborhood. It is an amazingly luxurious place. They have their own kitchen, and the food they serve is always first-rate.

In addition, we had our neighborhood Oktoberfest dinner last night. The three german sausages and the german potato salad were the best I have had in a very long time.

Just to round off the week, we saw “The Martian” with Matt Damon today. It’s an excellent movie, and stayed very true to the book. Of course, there were lots of episodes in the book they couldn’t fit into the movie. If you see the movie and like it, it should be worthwhile to read the book.

And just to round off this note, if you click this link, you will see a quick draft of the proposed neighborhood directory for our web site. Resident Login

I hope this finds everybody doing well.