We had a delightful anniversary. We went into DC to enjoy an Van Gogh immersive experience. They had reproductions of many of his paintings along side interpretations of the art and important events in his life. Then we went into a huge room where themes based on some of his work were projected on all four walls and the floor. One of the themes was a river. The projected the flowing water on the floor. It was disorienting and hard to walk, but also quite interesting. We stopped at a deli for lunch afterwards. Thanks for the tip, Lynne.

One of our residents organizes a “Lunch and Learn”. A resident discusses their profession, personal history, or other aspect of their life. This month we had Bob. Every three years, our houses are appraised. The appraisal and the tax rate determines our property taxes. If we disagree with the appraisal, we can ask for a review. If we don’t like the results of the review, we can appeal to the county appeal court. Bob is one of three judges on the Howard County real property appeal court. He is an entertaining speaker and, of course, highly knowledgeable about property assessments. He told us exactly how to appeal our appraisal, some likely arguments we could use to get a lower evaluation, what documentation we would need, and how to get that documentation. Unfortunately, he gave this talk a few months after our appraisal. We will have a chance to appeal our next appraisal, which will be in three years.

Mom got a quite unusual letter from Chase Bank. They said there had been no activity in one of her accounts for a long time. If she doesn’t take action by April 4, they will turn the money over to the state of Maryland under the abandoned account law. I found this quite surprising because the account is a CD. One does not expect transactions on a CD account. Mom signed and mailed the letter stating this was her account. A week later, I called the bank. They said they couldn’t see whether the letter had been received or whether it was considered a correct response. Both Mom and I have to visit a bank branch. (So much for the Power of Attorney.) When we arrived, the person we had an appointment with wasn’t there. The replacement didn’t know that one can’t add a deposit to a CD. After two hours, we had done nothing and learned nothing. Except I forgot to feed the meter, and got away with it. Actually, my beautiful wife explained that if I pop the handicap tag, I don’t have to pay for parking — it’s the Maryland law!

We had a wonderful dinner with at the Sochurek’s Sunday afternoon. Life can be very good.

I hope everybody is doing well.

We just wrapped a wonderful weekend with Jiajia, Mark and Mira. We had a little rain, but mostly the weather was grand. Our highlight activity was a visit to the National Zoo. Mira learned the difference between a tiger and a lion! Grandma joined us for breakfast brunch this morning. Other things happened this week, but who cares about that stuff? There’s more pics on the web page.

We’re having a mix of rain and wet snow today. The temperature is near freezing and dropping. The low will be 17. Fortunately the precipitation is tapering off. It looks like the roads and sidewalks will remain clear. Still, it’s nasty, sloppy weather which makes it a great day to stay inside.

We went to a BSO concert last Sunday. Neither of us enjoyed the first half very much. The second half was much better. We have another concert tomorrow. The BSO usually has a contemporary piece, which we sometimes like but more often find not very pleasing. But with Beethoven and Shostakovich on the bill, the concert should be a good one.

My phone has become unreliable. It works most of the time, but sometimes it stops working. I use the phone as my bike GPS. It usually starts acting up after an hour or so of riding. The symptoms are varied. The phone is less than 2 years old. I’m disappointed in the phone’s longevity. Trying to get it fixed does not seem to be wise. I replaced it with a Pixel 5a. The phone came in yesterday. I’ve been using my stay home time to master some of the improvements changes Google has made over the last two years, plus the customizations they put in their Pixel phones. Now Danita and I both have Pixel 5a phones.

I use Google Authenticator for two-factor authentication at some web sites. The process of changing phones made me realize my authenticator keys aren’t backed up. That means if my phone suddenly died, I wouldn’t be able to access those sites. I was quite surprised that Google doesn’t support backing up the authentication keys because it opens the possibility of a hacker getting to them. I see their point, but I think loosing access to the sites is the more important issue. I was able to back up the keys by taking a picture of the bar code used to transfer keys between phones. I was able to upload the keys from the photos and confirmed they work.

Danita and I ordered a Pickle Ball set. Our neighborhood has a Pickle Ball court near the swimming pool. We got our first game in yesterday. The weather was sunny and warm (near 60). We are far from proficient, but it was fun to move our bodies around and do something different.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Both the ophthalmologist and Zenni were most helpful with Mom’s glasses. The Ophthalmologist confirmed the glasses were made to his prescription. He noted that one eye had a significant difference between his prescription and Mom’s old backup glasses. He suggested we try getting glasses half way between the old and new. I returned the glasses to Zenni, who gave us a full credit towards a new pair of glasses. We ordered new glasses yesterday before her retina specialist’s appointment. They should arrive in a couple of weeks.

Work on our house is continuing. The upper wall and deck are done. The lower back wall of our house was stone. The new stone is up. This is faux stone that has no structural function. The faux stone is made from spun cement, shaped and colored to look like stone. There are several layers involved in the stone wall. They start with a cement and chicken wire layer (just like ferrocement). After that sets for a couple of weeks, they glue each stone to the wall with more cement. After the cement sets, they come back and put in the mortar. The next step for our unit is to put up the mortar. It feels like we’re coming to the end of the construction on our unit. They still think they will be done with the entire neighborhood this spring.

We have a very steep hill behind our house. It’s on the north side, so the house blocks the sun. It’s extremely muddy and slippery. The construction crew has a hard time moving themselves and their material to the back of the house. Several of our neighbor “lookey loos” walked behind the house only to fall in the mud. The board felt compelled to issue a warning. Whatever “they” say about old people being wise is continuously being proved wrong by example. It’s going to be a tough job restoring the grass when construction is done.

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