Note: There are no pictures this week.
Whew! The craziness started Wednesday. We had carpet cleaners coming in. We’ve never had wall-to-wall carpet before. It turns out that no matter how much you vacuum, and even if you don’t have munchkins running around, after a while the carpet just gets dirty. While we had them in, we also had them clean the bathroom tile floors professionally. Two young men showed up at the appointed time and did a wonderful job cleaning the carpet. Unfortunately, the tile floor didn’t turn out quite as well as the carpet, which is why a supervisor is visiting tomorrow morning (Monday). They have been very friendly about the tile floors so far. I think things will end up turning out fine. When the cleaners were done, it the weather outside was beautiful. So I got a nice little ride in and as well as getting the carpet cleaned.
The forecast Thursday morning said the morning would be dry, followed by rain in the afternoon. I took a bike ride in the morning. We had a shower. Then we had a heavy shower. When that turned into a small T-storm, I headed for shelter. An abandoned factory had a large porch with a roof. This was a huge, rambling factory. The original main building was built with lots of cement and steel, so the structure was sound. But the roof had holes, there was broken glass on the floor, and graffiti on the walls everywhere. I felt like I was in a scene of a grade-B mystery story — you know, lightening, thunder, lots of rain, and surroundings that were in general just plain old spooky.
Friday was supposed to be clear in the morning and rainy in the afternoon, with a severe storm in the evening. The only problem with the forecast was, if you actually looked outside, it was already raining. It didn’t make any difference, because I had a meeting with GOC (my old employer). My old boss quit. They had nobody in the IT department. But they have to do some IT work. They called me up and asked if I was interested in contract work. After I said yes, I found out that they had connected a lot of dots. They were offering me a $10/hour position through ReServe. I object to that. I got the opportunity because of my previous job there and my knowledge of what they need. I turned down the ReServe offer, but attended the meeting anyway. We’ll see if they are willing to hire me. But the State of Maryland is not a charity organization, and trying to get me to do the work through ReServe was sneaky, and I’m not doing that. I suspect nothing will come of this. Anyway, when I got home, the weather was beautiful and I had quite a nice little ride in the afternoon. Plus I got to watch a short but intense T-storm in the evening.
Friday evening was a neighborhood “Chill & Grill”. Danita made an excellent desert, which completely disappeared. (A lot of residents don’t eat desert, so it’s unusual for a desert to disappear.)
Saturday we had perfect weather and I took my 65-mile training ride around Liberty Reservoir. I did it in 7:05 — not bad for an old man considering all the hills on this route. It was nice because I used to have to detour around some road construction. But the construction is just about done and I was able to take the regular route and stop for a snowball on the way home. When got home, Danita offered to make a picnic dinner and we went up to Catonsville for an outdoor concert.
Today (Sunday) was the very last BSO concert. This was a free bonus concert. They had a special edition of the movie “West Side Story” which had the music removed from the sound track. The symphony played the music while we watched the movie. It was kind of like symphony karaoke. I was amazed at how well the symphony stayed in perfect synch with the movie. Or maybe they were bow-synching (like singers sometimes lip-synch when performing on an outdoor TV show).
Just in case you haven’t heard, my brother Rick moved. He is released from the nursing home and got an apartment. He is now living independently.
He doesn’t have Internet service yet, but hopes to get it soon.
That’s a lot of news for one week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.