This being the Sunday before Memorial Day, it is the day of the Parkton Cup Invitational, and Danita and I have scored a coveted invitation! Mark and Jiajia are in town to prepare the US physics high-schoolers for the international physics competition and were able to spend the afternoon with us. Here’s a pic. There are some more on the website.

Danita is still experiencing her mysterious pains. She seems to be doing a little better. She’s able to do most of the things she normally does. Her next doctor appointment is in two weeks.

The big news in Columbia is the tornado that struck last week. It touched down in Clarksville and followed Rte 32 to Columbia, a distance of about 10 miles. There were trees and branches down all over the area. Some very dramatic damage occurred within 5 miles of us. If you go to the website, you will see a picture of the tornado cloud near the Columbia Mall, and a picture of a tree that cut through a house like a knife through butter. Fortunately, there was only one injury, which was not life threatening. You can see some interesting pics on the website.

After all the bike riding I’ve done, I thought I had seen it all. But I had three special challenges this week. The first was a machine that created huge clouds of dust. It was supposed to be a street cleaner, but in this case it was only creating dust. It drove slower than a bike, but not slow enough for me to pass. So I just hung back and endured the dust as best I could. The second was a squirrel. Squirrels can be quite dangerous to bikers. They can get caught up in the spokes of a wheel, spin around, and hit the fork. When that happens the spokes experience a sudden force in a direction they are not designed to handle. The end result is a ruined wheel and an immediate transition from vertical to horizontal for the cyclist. Squirrels are nothing new for me, but this one was at the entrance to an intersection. There was a lot of “interesting” traffic absorbing my attention. When I finally noticed the squirrel at the last moment, it seemed to me it was running much slower than squirrels normally run. Fortunately it was just fast enough to prevent a close encounter of the first kind. The third and most distressing unusual encounter was a tractor in a field. (Yes, there are farms in western Howard County.) Normally this is not a problem, but in this case, the tractor was upwind. And it had a huge tank filled with an unknown liquid with a large boom on the back spraying the field, and everything else that was downwind. One spot on the boom was leaking an evil-looking foam, like some strange rabid monster foaming at the mouth. The farmer was well separated from the spray. I was riding up hill. Going faster to pass sooner was no more of an option than holding my breath. It was a tough week for biking!

I hope everybody has an excellent Memorial Day holiday.

Last Sunday Addie and Susanne had their first communion and their baptism. We went up to Ed’s house for the ceremony and party. The priest at Ed & Lynne’s church is being reassigned to our church starting July 1. It was fun to get a preview of how he conducts mass. As their retirement project, Ed and Lynne laid a new hardwood floor in their family room. They re-used some Brazilian Cherry. They also replaced the big old wood stove hearth with a much smaller quartz hearth. It was a lot of work, but it came out beautiful.

Danita was going over to Riderwood twice a week because of Bud’s doctor appointments. That’s finally over, but the doctor appointments have been replaced with PT appointments. Danita’s pills haven’t improved her mysterious pains. She’s approaching this as a long term project. She’ll be getting some blood work done, and she is also going to start PT. Danita’s been able to get gentle exercise in the pool the last couple of days. She finds it helps quite a bit.

Mom’s looking forward to getting her house fixed. We’re told they will design the kitchen this week, and will also start fixing the master bedroom. Mom went to talk the Century Village real estate office about what improvements would do the most to increase the value of her house. The results she got were quite surprising (to me, anyway). People who buy in Century Village don’t mind having press board kitchen cabinets, as long as they aren’t 30 years old. The improvement they find most desirable is tile floors throughout the house (including the bedrooms).

Friday morning was “Bike to Work” day. I don’t work, so I don’t commute to work. But everybody who bikes was invited. They had food to eat and swag bags. Friday afternoon, we had a Circle dinner at the Bauman’s. We have our first warm days of the year. The high today was 85. I went for a ride this afternoon. My poor body was so used to riding in cool weather, it couldn’t quite get the sweat engine cranked up. I’m sure tomorrow’s ride will be better.

I would write more, but it’s getting to be time for our neighborhood party. We have a concert with wine and cheese, followed by deserts. It’s a tough life, but somebody has to live it.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We’re having a lot of rain. I finally got 3 days in a row without rain and put a second coat of paint on the porch.

Danita is feeling a little better, but she has low energy and still has pains in the morning & evening. She goes back to the doctor Wednesday. She’s continuing to visit Bud twice a week because of his doctor appointments. So Danita is quite busy.

Mom’s house reconstruction has finally started. She signed a contract Friday. The kitchen designer is the next step.

We had a neighborhood party Friday. This morning, we went to the Preakness balloon ascension at the Howard County Fair Grounds. They are planning to have all-day activities with rides and junk food galore. We got there about sunrise. They spent about 45 minutes dithering about the weather. They decided to set up the first balloon, which is used for tethered flights, and see how things went. Things went well, and about 10 or 12 balloon trucks drove out onto the field and started launching. The idea is to launch balloons one at a time, so the first is safely clears before the second starts inflating. Unfortunately, shortly after the second balloon inflated, the wind picked up and they shut everything down. It must have been frustrating for the balloon folks.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

No big crowds this year

Muddy Midway

Safety Tip: Keep the flame away from the fabric

First Balloon

Second Balloon

There have been lots of doctors appointments for Danita. She started suffering from mysterious pains two weeks ago. The doctor gave her some pills. So far, the results have been somewhat less than miraculous. Bud had two doctors appointments last week. He has mohs surgery coming up on Monday. We finished up this week with a colonoscopy for Danita yesterday. Who ever knew that staying healthy is so hard? I think we’ll be enjoying our neighborhood party this evening.

I’m typing this note on my brand new Microsoft Surface Go. I thought I was more-or-less keeping up on what modern computers can do. Boy was I ever wrong. In looking at small travel computers, I learned that one can by a laptop dock that will simultaneously charge the computer (up to 45 watts), provide video for two external monitors, add 5 USB ports, plus throw in a 1 Gbps Ethernet port. The doc works on most laptops through a USB 2 or USB c port.But wait, there’s more! The laptop can send or receive video for one external monitor wirelessly. I had no idea. I won’t be buying any docks for my Go. The mission of this computer is to run Windows on a platform that is as small and portable as possible. I’m quite pleased with my selection.

In the mean time, I have some issues to work out. Danita and I use Dropbox to share files, especially about travel. Dropbox decided to limit their free plan to synching files to no more than 3 devices. We have 5 (my two computers, my phone, and Danita’s phone). We have an Office 365 subscription which gives us a huge space on Microsoft OneDrive for free, but Microsoft stores those files in the clear (not encrypted). They scan the files for nasties and Intellectual Property violations (i.e. stolen movies). We don’t have deep dark secrets, but I find that kind of creepy. Plus it would include detailed travel plans. If anybody has suggestions, let me know.

Mom has been waiting since Christmas to get her house fixed. The problem is her insurance. The insurance situation in Florida is well known, but her insurance company is supposed to be one of the worst. We might have good news. The contractor she selected cut a deal for 150 of their clients last week. Now that the deal is cut, we have to wait for the money to start flowing. It seems like genuine progress to me. Time will tell.

I’ll close this with a tip I picked up from “King Lear”, a movie on Amazon Prime with my favorite bad guy, Anthony Hopkins. “Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.” That’s good advice from an ancient master.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.