Here are (almost) a dozen pics from Danita’s UMBC retirement party.

Hrabowski is the president of UMBC. Karl is the VP of research. Belay is the director of JCET. Jan is the director of GPHI. Belay and Jan both work for Karl; both are Danita’s boss. Ray is retired. He used to be director and is the person who hired Danita. Mary works for Danita and organized the party.

With Hrabowski

With Hrabowski

Mary Remarks

Hrabowski Remarks

Hrabowski Remarks

Karl Remarks

Belay Remarks

Jan Remarks

Ray Remarks

Presents Presentation

Danita Remarks

This one’s all about the pics. Here they are.

Easter Bread

Addie, Joe, Rebecca, Pete

Toni’s Dad, Mark

Toni, Joe

Suzanne, Addie

Mark, Bud, Danita

Plalying the Ball Game

Getting the Egg Hut Picture

Some Eggs are Easy

Some Eggs are Hard

Sweeping the Grounds for Eggs

All Over but the Counting

There were lots of things going on this week, but it was a quiet week for us. It was almost like being in the eye of a hurricane. Spending Monday driving back from NC made this a short work week. Our anniversary was Wednesday. We went out for hamburgers and desert. The hamburgers were great, but the desert place we tried had a long line, so we gave up on that. Our Thursday dinner out was pulled pork at Mission BBQ.

Danita took Friday off, as she does every Good Friday. She promptly had an emergency at work, and spent an hour on Email. The rest of the day was pleasant. Danita spent a lot of time cooking this weekend.

Danita’s retirement is rapidly approaching. She will need her own computer. I thought the Microsoft Surface 3 might be small enough to be her portable reader and capable enough to be her computer. We went out to look at it Friday morning. She didn’t like it, so we’ll look around some more.

It’s just nice having a 3-day weekend together. Tomorrow is Easter. Ed and Lynne are hosting the Easter party. If I remember my camera, there will likely be a few pics next week.

That’s it for this week. I hope everybody has an enjoyable Easter week.

We started the week with a savory pie for dinner on pie day (3/14). We left for NC Friday morning. We got in a little late and got caught up in rush-hour traffic. We arrived a little late but in good shape. Bryon had soccer games Saturday and Sunday. We didn’t have any big adventures, but we did get to see the movie Zootopia. It was a lot fun and everybody had a good time. We came back on Monday with no incidents or even heavy traffic. The visit is really about the pics, so here they are.

Pi Day Dinner

Bryon in the Soccer Game

Bryon in the Soccer Game

Liz Being Liz

Liz Playing Restaurant Waitress

Bryon playing restaurant chef

Screen Time on Bryon’s tablet

There are no pics this week.

Danita’s stress level is quite high. Retiring is a big change for her, of course. She’s only had two jobs, and she’s had this one for 16 years. It’s also a big change for her subordinates. These are people she cares about. She’s hired all of them. She’s worked with them for quite a long time. They had a staff meeting Tuesday. After several months of knowing Danita is leaving, the center directors presented their plans for how the organization will move forward. And they blew it. They still don’t know what they want to do. Some of the things they have started just don’t make sense. When asked (several times by several different staff), the directors gave non-answer answers. There was angst rolling on the floor Tuesday afternoon. Friday Danita had a clean-up party. The office staff go through paper files, sorting everything into Keep / Discard / Shred. This is basically an all-day party, so things were a little better going into the weekend. That’s good because it made our Friday evening neighborhood party more enjoyable. Besides the Friday party, we also hada Circle dinner party yesterday and a BSO concert today.

Next week is spring break for the university. Danita will work during spring break, swapping those days to take a couple of days off for our road trip. One of the things Danita will work while alone in the office is her application for emeritus status. It’s unusual for administrators to get emeritus status, but she was the acting center director for JCET and was recognized as Presidential Award winner one year. There is precedence for administrators to get emeritus status at UMBC. She has a pretty good chance.

The road trip should be fun. We’re going to see Jul, Pat, and the grand kids. We’re leaving Friday the 18th and returning Monday the 21. There just might be some pics next week.

It seems so banal to write about the weather week after week, but our weather continues to be so — un-banal. After our dusting of snow last week, we switched to unheard of warm temperatures. We had two days in the 80s, crushing all previous records for high temperature. The forecast is for temperatures to drop a little, but stay well above normal. It makes for great bike riding, and it’s nice to be able to open the house up during the day.

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

First Bonus – Last Weekend Outing

Weary Herakles

A “Weekend Outing” is an outing one could do any time, but it is done on the weekend because that’s the time that doesn’t conflict with work. An example is visiting an exhibit at an art museum. Our trip to the National Gallery of Art in DC to see “Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World”. The exhibit will be closing soon, and we went to see it Sunday. We got there just as the museum opened. We saw all the art, but didn’t linger. By the time we were done at 1, the gallery was quite crowded. It will probably be our last weekend outing, because the gallery would certainly be less crowded on a week day.

Portrait of a Man

We have a tradition of visiting DC when the weather is very cold, very hot, or otherwise lousy. This time it was dry in 50, which is very nice compared to our norm. It was an excellent show. I didn’t take my camera, but I wish I had. When I went to steal pics off the web, I found the images to be quite small. I’m sure I could have taken better pictures with my camera.

The technical work, emotion shown, and style make all of these amazing works of art. I’m including my top 4 favorites from the show.

#4 – Weary Herakles – The technical work and emotion make this a stunning piece of art (as most of them were). This made #4 because of how it humanized a heroic icon.

Dancing Faun

#3 – Portrait of a Man – The art experts claim that nobody knows who this man is. And from the photo, one would probably agree. But seeing it in person, I couldn’t help but notice this was a dead ringer for Ted Kennedy. How did they know?

#2 – Dancing Faun. I thought this was the best piece of art in the show.

Drunk Herakles

#1 – Drunk Herakles. With or without a camera, a picture just can’t do this one justice. One has to see this in person to appreciate how the mighty Herakles is teetering on his perch. Only by using his mighty club can he avoid face-planting himself. The work is unusually complete. Even Herakles’ stone seat is original. The only thing missing is the wine glass that was originally in his right hand. (I’m thinking that was red wine.) The combination of great art and great humor made this my favorite piece.

Second Bonus – Two fun web sites

Here’s a couple of web sites I found to be interesting.

First, a video of a magnificent marble music machine. This Rube Goldberg actually makes entertaining (and good) music.

http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2016/03/03/469027281/be-amazed-by-this-marvelous-music-machine-powered-by-2000-marbles

Second, OK Go’s music video Upside Down & Inside Out. Besides being good music, the video is shot entirely in a weightless environment. The link includes a short story about the video, a link to the video itself, and a link to a “How we made it” video. It also has links to two more of their videos, including what may be the most amazing Rube Goldberg contraption of all time.

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/03/01/468682736/ok-go-weightless-science-art-and-joy

There are several pics this week, and there’s no real apparent purpose. If you look at them, you might start to think that my old camera stopped working, and I got a new one, and I wanted to play with it.

Late Winter Hurrah

After several beautiful days with temps in the 60s, we got another spate of snow. It wasn’t much. When we got up Friday, we found an inch or so on the grass and nothing on the streets or sidewalks. That’s too bad, because Danita was hoping for at least a late opening.

Danita in her office

I got this picture of Danita in her office because we went to dinner in Catonsville Thursday, followed by a concert at UMBC. UMBC has a beautiful, very high tech music concert hall. The performers were a violin – cello – piano trio performing classical music. They were very good, which was sad, because the concert was not well attended. Students in Music 303 were require to attend (they had a sign-in sheet). They were polite, but it obviously was not their normal genre of music. I think Danita and I might have been the only people in attendance who didn’t have a formal relationship with the UMBC music department. The trio definitely deserved a larger and more appreciative audience.

Smith Island Cake (PB & Chocolate flavored)

As good as the concert was, I don’t want to overlook the dinner, which was also excellent. We went to the Catonsville Gourmet Restaurant the previous week, and we liked it so much we went back on Thursday. The food was still excellent. It included my first-ever taste of Smith Island cake. This is an 8-layer cake. The cake was a little dense and heavy, with plenty of icing between the layers. It was quite good.

Count Down Chain

Danita’s time at work is getting very short. The count-down chain no longer drapes over the door. The pic was for the last day of February. Now it doesn’t even loop back up to the door frame. It just limply hangs on the wall beside the door. Next week will be the last that she works 5 days. We have a road trip planned, then there’s some time off for Easter. Her two bosses are still acting like a deer caught in the headlights. There is a real possibility that Danita will retire before they even decide on a plan for how to organize the office after she leaves. Danita doesn’t mean to be an enabler, but she did give them an out of sorts. Her last day of work is March 31. But she has so much vacation that she will stay on the payroll for two months (keeping her employee medical for those two months). She told them that if they had an emergency, she would come in for a day (and not charge vacation).

Our last bit if news is that we are going to Russia in July. I kept on hearing news that the Ruble was down because of low oil prices. I looked it up, and it is down a lot. Recent historical norms had the Ruble at 30 to the dollar. Now it is 75. So we’re flying to St. Petersburg, staying there for several days, taking a river cruise to Moscow, staying in Moscow for a few days, then coming home. It will be a 2-week trip. St. Petersburg and Moscow are reputed to be two of the most expensive cities in the world. Our hotel rooms will cost less than an equivalent room would cost in Baltimore. How can we pass up this opportunity?

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