The weather has been mostly lousy — cool and wet. But we had a couple of nice days early in the week. Tuesday was the nicest — sunny and 85. Danita and I drove the bikes down to Patapsco Park and rode a mostly paved trail to the Bode Dam. Because it was election day, schools were closed. There were plenty of other people out there enjoying the park with us. We had a good time. When we got back to the car, we split up. Danita drove her bike home and I rode mine up Ilchester Hill. Yep, I can still do it.

The neighborhood’s office computers are driving me nuts. I had been letting them go for quite a while. Once I started looking at them, I saw one thing after another. I’ll be going over this afternoon to get a couple of concentrated hours on one vexing issue. There is at least one more issue. The rest should be standard clean-up. It will take several weeks, but only because I don’t want to change too many things at once. We’re looking to see if we can find a helpful professional company to make things work better.

Obnoxious Old Keyboard with Nexus 7 tablet

I wrote some time ago about a tablet / keyboard that was portable enough to fit in a cargo pocket and powerful enough to do anything that’s done on the Internet. The tablet has proved itself. On the other hand, the keyboard has proved itself to be a damned nuisance. I like this keyboard because it doubles as a case. It becomes part of the tablet and the two fit into one pocket. I can even type standing up without a table. I hold the tablet/keyboard in one hand and type with the other. (I know there’s a screen keyboard, but for whatever reason I have not been able to learn to type on it.) Unfortunately, the keyboard is rapidly dying. In the mean time, it ignores key strokes, gives out 6 letters for one keystroke, and in general exhibits extremely obnoxious behaviors. All the other Nexus 7 solutions seem to source the same cheap keyboard.

New not-quite-as-portable keyboard

I found a folding portable Bluetooth keyboard that will arrive this weekend. It has many good points. I have high hopes for it’s longevity and reliability. Typing will be better. Keys are larger, and all the keys are there. (I won’t have to use any multi-press functions to get characters like an apostrophe.) I will still be able to use my tablet as a mini-PC. But the world of mini-keyboards isn’t perfect. The new keyboard is not specifically made for my tablet. It doesn’t double as a case.  It’s a 3-piece solution that takes a few seconds to set up. It will require two of my precious pockets. And it’s just not as portable. I guess the world isn’t perfect yet.

We had planned to attend a dance recital at UMBC last night, but at the last minute we decided to blow it off. We are looking forward to neighborhood concert and deserts this evening.

Next Sunday is Mother’s Day. Danita and I will spend Mother’s day with Julia this year. Bryon’s first communion is Saturday, and there will be a big family party afterwards. I know I will have a good time at the party, because the Reed family is very nice and because we will have great food. Danita is catering the affair. We are driving to Staunton, VA Wednesday afternoon. We stay overnight in Staunton and attend Shakespeare’s “Henry the Fifth”. at the Blackfriars Theatere. Thursday we will drive to NC and visit the grocery store. Friday, Danita will cook all day while the Reeds are at work and the kids are at school. We’ll come home on Monday. It’s nice that we have time to spend a couple of extra days with the Reeds.

That’s enough for this week. I hope everybody is doing well.

As you can see from the title, today is a very special day for Elizabeth. Have a very special day, Liz.

This was a quiet week. We we went to a concert at UMBC last Saturday. We heard a cello – piano duo. The Shostakovitch was a little out there. The Prokofiev was rather screechy. But the Rachmaninoff was very nice.

The big thing for me this week is that it’s my turn to buy bagels for Men’s club tomorrow morning. The computers in the clubhouse need some attention. Other than that, we’re in the middle of two quiet weeks in a row. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are some pics this week, including Danita on her new bicycle.

Snow on Apr 9

It has been a busy week, but let’s start with a discussion of the weather. Which included snow. In April. I don’t recall that we have ever had snow this late in the year. If you click this picture, you can easily see the large snowflakes against the background of the black street. The snow didn’t stick to the pavement, or even to the grass. But we did have a thin coating on the deck. Highs should get up into the 80s next week.

Snow also accumulated on our old car (2007 Honda Accord). Snow was able to accumulate on the car because the car was outside the garage. The car was outside the garage because there isn’t enough room for 2 cars and 2 bikes inside the garage. So of course the car had to go outside. I bought this car 7 years ago when I was making smart cards. Two companies merged and they closed the plant in Owings Mills. I was driving to the  other plant 3 days a week, which was north of Philadelphia. It was an insanely luxurious car by our standards at the time, yet with it’s 4-banger engine and manual transmission it got great gas mileage. It did a fabulous job over the years. With only 113,000 miles, it still runs perfectly. But now the door seal around the driver’s door leaks. And sometimes the heater gets stuck on full heat (usually in the summer time). We seldom drive it. Sometimes it sits so long the battery goes dead. It was certainly not going to be driven while we we will be in Pipe Spring for 3 months later on this year. Eventually, seals and gaskets would start going bad. It was time to get rid of the car. So I took it to Car Max. We didn’t get a great price, but we got a fair price. From the time I pulled out of the driveway, the entire sale took less than 4 hours. That includes returning the tags and cancelling the insurance. It was a good car, and almost certainly my last “stick shift”.

Biker Grandma

I’ve been trying to add several features to our community website. They include a directory of residents, automatic Emails for new bits and for important announcements, better access to residents’ information for our board, etc. I expected to get everything up and running by early this year. But the board has continually delayed over political issues. With the snow birds back from FL, and with a shiny new privacy policy in place, I thought we were finally set to go. But at a meeting Monday, the board decided to wait while they address an issue over Email addresses. My guess is that they’ll delay so long that we’ll be into our travels, and the features will be added by early next year.

Cruising Along

Besides all that, we finished planning for all the trips we’ll be taking this year. We decided we won’t have problems getting around St. Petersburg because everything we want to see is an easy walk from out hotel. However, we are going to need help in Moscow. It’s a sprawling city. I found a website “toursbylocals”. Through them we found a local guide that will get us around town for the three days we are there. The cost very reasonable, especially compared to traditional companies that offer tourist services. I have a feeling we’ll be using toursbylocals again over the coming years. After we’re back from Russia, we’ll be hosting the grand kids for a week. We have both indoor and outdoor activities planned for each day. Shortly after that, we’ll be leaving for Pipe Spring. We are giving ourselves 3 weeks to drive out, taking our time to see the sights and hike the trails as we go. We have every sight, trail, and hotel mapped out.

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

There is one pic this week.

Danita’s application for Emeritus status was approved by the president of UMBC. She received the letter this week. She is quite pleased.

As well as things are going in general, sometimes specific events don’t click. Danita and I went out to dinner Thursday as we usually do. I wanted this dinner to be a special one. I booked a table at Baldwin’s Station, our favorite restaurant. I wanted to surprise Danita with flowers. I found a way to order flowers without her knowing. But the dinner didn’t work. The day was cold and rainy. Traffic was terrible. The room we were seated in was cold. And the flowers weren’t there. The food was very good, but we were so cold we didn’t even consider desert. We went home early and watched some TV.

Flowers

Friday was as unexpected as Thursday, but it was unexpectedly nice. Friday was Danita’s day to work this week. She attended a great seminar Friday morning. (about science and art, and other interdisciplinary activities.) Mid-morning, I received an apology from the florist. When they transcribed the order into the computer, they entered the wrong day. They delivered the flowers to our house. So I was able to surprise Danita after all. Friday evening we had a neighborhood party. These are always fun because the grouches and nay-sayers stay home. Everybody who comes is out to have a good time.

We’re getting a nice bonus from Panera for Danita’s first month of retirement. There’s a Panera a little over a mile away. We usually have breakfast out Sundays. The third Sunday is counting Sunday for me. We need a predictably quick breakfast. So we usually go to Panera on third Sundays. In April, folks who have their loyalty card can get one free bagel every day in April. We’re using it as a Bagel BOGO. So far, we’re walking through the flavors Panera offers. Every morning, one of us drives to Panera and gets two bagels to go. We bring them home and eat them with our own toaster, spreads, and coffee. Total cost: $1.27. That’s a bargain in anybody’s book.

We haven’t prepared food at home for two days. Breakfast is Panera bagels. Thursday I had lunch with Tony Chaprnka and Danita had leftovers. Thursday night was our night out. Friday morning was more Panera bagels. Danita had lunch as part of her seminar and I rode to the grocery store and brought home a salad. And Friday night was the neighborhood party. We’re living large here in Columbia.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

Thursday was Danita’s last day at work. But she’s not retired just yet. She opted to take vacation and stay on the payroll for 2 more months. The financial advantage is that we get cheaper medical insurance for the two months. When her bosses figured that out that Danita was on payroll, they talked her into doing Email every day and coming in one day a week. She won’t take vacation when she works, but she’ll continue working part time. It might be a nice transition. The stress level should be less, because the bosses finally announced how they will proceed moving forward. They will promote Mary (one of the women that works for Danita) and hire a new entry-level person. It’s a reasonable plan. Here’s hoping everything works out smoothly.

Danita got a very generous REI gift card at her retirement. This was very nice, because it made it easy for her to go ahead an buy a bike. She got a “Townie”. Here’s a link that shows the bike. Her bike is blue, which isn’t a color shown on the website.

https://www.rei.com/product/851142/electra-townie-7d-step-through-womens-bike-2015

The bike suits her very well. I don’t have a picture yet. We’ve had bad weather and were able to ride only once. I would have taken a picture, but I had accidentally set some option on my camera that precluded my getting a shot. I finally got the camera straightened out, so there should be a picture by next week.

So far, retirement feels like a very relaxed 3-day weekend. For our dinner-out Thursday we got pizza. Then we came home and had a private party. (With wine.) Saturday we went to a concert at UMBC. We heard the Chiara String Quartet. The quartet is comprised of excellent musicians. Unfortunately, they wanted to broaden our horizons somewhat more than we want our horizons broadened. They played a piece based on Andean folk music (by Gabriela Lena Frank), and a piece based on Eastern European folk music (by Bartok). “Based on” was used very loosely. These pieces were both quite modern, discordant, and lacking in any peaceful or beautiful music. Fortunately, the third piece was a Brahms string quartet.

Today, we went to Miss Shirley’s for an extraordinarily good breakfast. We’re going to a special mass with Circle this afternoon, which will be followed by a dinner.

Over a year ago, I wrote about the Patapsco river valley. A century ago, it was a major industrial area, thanks to the beginnings of the B & O railroad. Among other things, it produced some of the finest flour available. Today, it is a very undeveloped park. One can walk along the path of the first US railroad and see parts of the foundations of some of the factories, including stone that is grooved from the original B & O rails. The last vestige of it’s industrial past is the Bode dam, which was one of the first hydroelectric dams and was very innovative for it’s day. I wrote about how the Patapsco Park personnel planned to remove the dam, which would bring the are from natural to industrial and back to natural in a little over a century. The park service announced they are in the final stages of the dam removal. By the end of the year, the only thing left should be a concrete bench. The river should be back to it’s pre-industrial state about two years after that. You can read the article here.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/catonsville/ph-ca-at-bloede-dam-patapsco-0316-20160322-story.html

I hope this finds everybody doing well.