It’s been a good week. We started with a visit with Mark and JiaJia. Ed and Lynne joined us for lunch Sunday, then had a quick tour of the town and campus. Ed and Lynne went home. Danita and I spent the rest of the day in Lewisburg and headed back after a bang-up breakfast Monday morning. The food and camaraderie were wonderful. Mark and JiaJia have a very nice house.

We had two Chinese dinner parties — one with our condo on Thursday and one with our neighborhood on Saturday. Thankfully, Danita agreed that one Chinese dinner a week is enough. We went to the neighborhood party. They had shrimp, rice, and egg rolls. They had other stuff too, but that was enough to fill my belly. The shrimp were quite good. After dinner, we had cake and ice cream for desert.

I found that my drone fits in a bike pannier bag like a glove. I took my drone with me on a ride and stopped at a local park. One of the soccer fields was unused. I went to the center of the field and flew for 20 minutes or so. The drone is stable and easy to fly. I even got a second flight at a second location. It’s an easy walk from home, just off one of Columbia’s trails. It’s not nearly as big as a soccer field, but it’s ample.

I’ve only had one crash. The controller has these multi-use buttons. One is the flight button. If the drone is on the ground, the flight button makes it take off, get to an altitude of about 4 feet, and hover. Pretty neat. Press the button again, and the drone safely and gently lands. Amazing. Hold the button too long and it becomes an emergency stop button. I dropped it from about 6 feet onto dirt. Funny thing about drones — when the propellers stop, it falls like a brick. There was no damage. I recon’ myself more successful than the Wright Brothers. Woo-Hoo! Now all I need are dry, reasonably warm days when school is in session. Adults are sensible enough to leave me alone when I’m flying. Who knows what a parcel bored of kids would do should if they came across me.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I went to Amazon and made a purchase this week. This is noteworthy because the purchase was a rake. We live in a neighborhood where lawn service is included. They did their job. Twice. But the leaves weren’t all down when they finished the second time. I decided I didn’t care. Then I noticed we were tracking a lot of crushed leaves into the house. So I went to the local big-box hardware stores. I wanted a rake that would fold up small, so I could fit it in the garage. I would also “go small” to get around all the bushes and get into the corners.The stores didn’t have one. It took less than an hour to do the leaves. I filled one 55-gallon bag. It’s a far cry from what I used to do in Kingsville. And I’m now ready for next year.

My bike needed new brakes. I have disk brakes. New pads cost about $2 / wheel. Installing them is tricky. The labor cost to have them installed is pretty large. I could take this as an opportunity to learn a new skill, or I could be lazy and let the shop do it. I thought about it carefully for several seconds before putting the bike rack on the car. I’m glad I took it to the shop. My rear wheel rim had cracks where the spokes go through. It never happened to me before because I used to ride a touring bike, which is basically a 2-wheeled tank. I wouldn’t have noticed this until I lost a spoke. (The picture is obvious, but with normal dirt and grime, it is difficult to see.) Lucky me! The shop fixed everything on a rainy day. I was on the road before all the pavement was dry.

Danita had a genuinely yucky day this week. She had PMR arthritis. The treatment is to sledgehammer your body with prednisone, then slowly taper off while your adrenal gland re-learns what it’s supposed to do. Danita was on the last step of tapering off when she started having problems. The doc said to go back on the prednisone. Two weeks and a blood test later, the doc said her PMR arthritis had probably morphed into rheumatoid arthritis. This happens to about 1/3 of PMR patients. No cure. New drugs. And she has to taper off prednisone again. We’re grateful it’s not life threatening. But it was a serious bummer.

Our neighborhood doesn’t have any parties this weekend. But we’ll be OK. We’re going up to have dinner with Mark and JaiJai in Lewisburg. Ed & Lynne will be joining us. We’re looking forward to a fun time.

I’d like to write more, but it’s snowing. We might get a half inch or so, but better safe than sorry. I don’t want to damage my fingers typing in this weather. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had an inch of snow this week. It was quite pretty. The camera doesn’t show what the eye sees, but even in this picture you can see snowflakes frozen in time. It’s even prettier for us because we don’t have to go out if we don’t want to. So why am I crazy frustrated?

It all started with Christmas. Danita and I heard Bryon would like a drone. I thought drones were multi-thousand dollar devices, but Danita found a palm-sized drone with a very reasonable price and excellent reviews. Brian had fun flying it inside and was having pretty good success — until it got tangled with Elizabeth’s hair. Still, it looked like a lot of fun. I got the itch and bought myself one. When I tried to fly it, it skittered across the room like a demented crab until it encountered a wall. Then it buzzed against the wall like a manic woodpecker while I tried to find the “off” button. After several “flights”, I got highly miffed and sent it back.

But I was still hooked. Surely a better drone would be easier to fly. I found another drone, larger and only mildly outrageous in cost. It is stabilized by a 6-axis gyro, and also stabilized with GPS. It comes with a one-button launch and another button guaranteed to land it where it took off. Great. But I bought it at the wrong time of year for sure. It’s a lot bigger and could be a hazard indoors. Plus, GPS stabilization only works outdoors. So now I need a day that’s dry, not super cold, with low winds and no snow on the ground. We don’t get a lot of those this time of year. And we have our 5-week trip starting in mid-February. Plus, this being Columbia, there aren’t a lot of wide-open spaces for a beginner pilot to safely experiment. There are some soccer fields that aren’t used during school hours. Hopefully, I’ll get to try it before school’s out.

I’m not really all that frustrated. Plenty of things are great. For example, if Danita has lots of leftover ham from the holidays, she might be inspired to make a ham and swiss loaf for dinner. Tres bon!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We really enjoyed the holidays. It was fun having so much company and having time with each other. Now everybody has gone home. Today is Epiphany, which is traditionally the last day of Christmas. We’re getting back into our normal schedule. It feels relaxing and comfortable.

Our parish had a family dinner Friday. It was the steak tips menu, which is quite popular. Danita and I volunteered to be servers, as usual. Attendance was good and the flow of people was steady. It was a great dinner. At the end of the evening, there was plenty of food left for the volunteers.

We got back into our habit of a nice breakfast before Church. This being the first Sunday, we went to Bob Evans. It may not really be farm fresh, but it does taste good. And we took biscuits home. It will be ham sandwiches on Bob Evans biscuits for lunch. Woo-hoo!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

At Fort McHenry on a beautiful day.

Hot Pot Dinner

Open House