We started our month’s adventure with some time in Florida. We got to Mom’s place just after 5 PM Wednesday exactly as planed. There was lots for me to do. When the construction started on her apartment last year, I moved her computer, printer, and phones out of her bedroom. As a result, the only phones that worked were the two cordless phones. Mom told lots of stories about cables that used to be under the carpet but are now strung across the floor and cable connections that didn’t work. Or maybe she didn’t, but that’s what I heard. For some reason I don’t understand, a workman drilled a hole in her wall to run a coax from the porch to the living room. (So far as I can figure out, the cable we were already using was working fine.) I had no idea how much would be involved in getting things working again. I decoded to pack a separate suitcase with drills, cables, connector tools, cable staples, etc. Thank you Southwest for your policy of two free bags. I can’t imagine why TSA felt they had to inspect that suitcase. ;-) I decided to assess the wiring Monday evening in case I had to order something.

When we got there, I found all the wiring to be fine. I spent a few hours futzing around furniture and organizing cable, but by the end of the day all phones, computers, printers, and cables were in good working order and reasonably neat. I didn’t need as single tool. I spent several hours Thursday and Friday futzing with various things and even found a use for some of the tools. I was pleasantly surprised that Mom felt comfortable E-filing her income taxes, which saved us some time and effort in organizing paperwork for mailing. I was looking forward to cruising through Saturday when a very strange gremlin showed up. We were going through Mom’s important papers. I decided to re-scan her I-bonds. The scanner scanned the first page, then the printer stopped working. The printing and scanning functions worked fine. The network functions worked fine. But the driver could’t locate the printer. Reboots, updates, re-installs, Google searches, and every other trick I could come up with did not help. So I hooked the printer up to Mom’s laptop with a USB cable. (Can you guess the only cable I didn’t bring with me? Fortunately, we found the USB cable that came with the printer.) It works fine, but Mom doesn’t feel comfortable unplugging and plugging in the USB cable. She can only use her laptop at her desk. That’s mostly what she does anyway, so it’s not a major hardship. But it sure is puzzling.

We had time for some fun stuff also. We went to Pete’s Place for breakfast Friday. We went to the WPB Green Market for breakfast Saturday.

We left for Ft. Lauderdale Sunday. We had some extra time and visited the Bonnet House. The property had three owners. One was a person who knew how to turn swamps into useful land by draining swamps. He made his fortune buying swamps in Chicago and selling waterfront property. He made his second fortune in Florida. The Bonnet house is on an island with one of the highest elevations in the area — a full 15 feet above sea level — and was surrounded by swamps. The other owner was the son of a very wealthy man who owned a Chicago wholesale hardware business. (His wife was the third owner.) He decided he wanted to be an artist. I don’t know that his art competes with the greats, but he was perhaps the most commercially successful artist ever. His first commission was painting glass windows to look like stained glass, for which he earned almost $2 million in today’s money. He continued to talk his way into equally lucrative commissions for the next 15 years or more. The story is that everything he did lasted a lifetime. It’s easy to believe. We walked on cement floors faux painted to look like marble. The floors looked as good as ever, in spite of heavy tourist traffic.The house was built with plenty of reinforced concrete with excellent water management. It has not been damaged by hurricanes and has never flooded. The art we saw was whimsical. The better art we saw was purchased or made by his friends. It was a delightful tour.

It’s time to switch the phones to international mode and get on the boat. I hope this finds everybody doing well.