Leaf-Out!

Most of my cycling is done on the road. But I also ride paved trails where I need them to cross major highways. That has been a challenge this week. In places there are so many leaves on the ground that I can’t see where the pavement is. I just slow down and aim for the center of the trail. It’s kind of like a winter white-out, but in the fall and with leaves. My other issue lately has been my back and neck. My body isn’t as flexible as it used to be. In the last few weeks, I’ve been getting pains in my neck and upper back. I’ve found some relief in doing “yogling” (yoga cycling). I stretch my head out and keep a straight line from my sitz bones to the top of my head. But I don’t close my eyes, say ooom, or put my hands together at the center of my chest.

Bud is turning 90. We’re having a small shindig this afternoon. It will be Ed, Lynne, Danita, and me in Bud’s apartment. Lynn and Gene will participate by Zoom, as will Rick and Suzy. Bud asked his neighbor to attend, but the neighbor declined due to Covid concerns. Tuesday we’ll take Bud to an oral surgeon to have two teeth extracted. I won’t be welcome in the waiting room. I’ll bring plenty of reading material.

A lot of our Zooms are ended or ending. The Fitzgerald and Hemingway class is done, as is the Maryland Music class. We have our last Jazz class this week. Other Zooms are picking up the slack. There are several presentations about Baltimore architecture, Day of the Dead traditions, and art topics. The Walters Art Museum had a wonderful presentation on transparent enamels. Plus we start a class about Mystery Novels under 200 pages. Danita found so many Zooms that I don’t watch them all. I missed two yesterday, trying to figure out where the pavement is that gets me over US 29.

Our neighborhood finally got our door security software moved to the new computer. That meant I was clear to do the last computer swap. I did that Saturday. The new computer is installed, but it took so long that I didn’t get everything done. One issue is that the monitor is so old that it doesn’t have an HDMI port. The computer offers only HDMI. I am lending my monitor to the neighborhood for now.

Another interesting development was the outdoor WiFi. The question was whether we can use existing security camera wiring to get an Ethernet signal outdoors. It took many hours of poking around to figure out what the security folks do. (They are habitually secretive.) Eventually I was able to figure out how our existing security camera wiring works, how to use that wiring for an Ethernet signal, and that the solution costs several hundred dollars. I suspect we’ll be looking for a cheap way to run an Ethernet cable through the wall. It took a year to do the computer swap. We’ll see how long it takes to install the poolside WiFi.

That’s it for us. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

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