We had lots of Zoom seminars this week. The funniest one was a seminar about Beethoven’s 9th symphony. It featured the conductor of the Johns Hopkins Orchestra and the acting manager of the local classical music station. Both have impeccable music backgrounds. But I found their presentation so far fetched as to be humorous. They were talking about specific musical phrases and associating them to specific events such as the creation of the universe. There’s no doubt Beethoven had a large vision and high ambitions, but somehow I think he probably good a good chuckle out of this detailed analysis. Who knows? Maybe they’re right. To me, there is no physical meaning. I enjoy the music.

This is the holiday season, but severely lacking in holiday activities. It strikes home as we go through days with traditional activities that aren’t going to happen this year. In spite of our self-imposed restrictions, we’re doing what we can. Notably, we had ginger snap cookies and port wine cheese after dinner last night. This is extremely noteworthy because it portends a dinner of sour beef and buttons. For dinner tonight! Woo-Hoo! One recipe makes a lot of food. We plan to freeze leftovers and enjoy multiple dinners.

A new bagel restaurant is doing a soft opening. We had their omelet and bagel breakfast this morning. It was pretty good.

I’ve written a couple of times about neck and upper back pain from bike riding. After spending weeks looking at options, I decided to get a recumbent tricycle. I literally considered every recumbent trike sold in the US. Many of these are outrageously expensive. I selected the Hase Trigo. It has a good reputation. It’s expensive but half to third the price of many others. It has a very tall seat for recumbent. That makes for good visibility. There’s nothing in stock, but a shipment is due in December. For now, I plan to keep both bikes. I have some rides I like to take that the trike might not work for.

That’s it for this week. I hope everybody is doing well.