Maryland put us in the 1C category for getting COVID vaccinations (65 and older). Some facilities have been giving 1C shots for several weeks. Danita was checking all the sites daily. I would hear that a site had appointments available, only to find that either the website was not responding, or the reservations were no longer available. Monday, I got a message that the Colts football stadium has appointments available. Of course the website was not responding. But there was a number one could call if they weren’t able to use the internet. I decided that included me (my screen was frozen after all) and used the call-in number. I waited 20 minutes, then was connected to a very helpful person who got Danita and me appointments for this weekend. We were delighted. We were talking about visiting friends, eating in restaurants, and traveling. Even scheduling my colonoscopy sounded upbeat. Euphoria was rolling out of our ears and getting in the carpet. Until Tuesday morning, when Danita got her Email confirmation. And I did not.

What did that mean? Did I have an appointment? Was I required to have the confirmation before getting the shot? The phones were not manned all day Tuesday. Or Wednesday. I was in a massive funk. (Emotions are not logical.) Thursday they opened the phones. I talked to a very helpful woman who corrected my Email address. That sounded good, but I still didn’t have a confirmation. 23 hours later, the confirmation Email finally arrived. There was no more euphoria, but the tension level dropped precipitously.

Now both Danita and I have our first shots. Our second shots are scheduled for March 22.

The football stadium is one of Maryland’s mass vaccination sites. They’re doing a soft start — 500 vaccinations a day. They are gearing up to do 10,000 a day. The facility shows it. They have spent tons of money on computers, iPads, carts, people, and every other thing you can think of. Being a football venue, there is plenty of free parking and more bathrooms than they could possibly need. They even bought cute little white busses to shuttle people who are mobility challenged. Everybody is being as pleasant and helpful as possible. If you show up without an appointment, many sites send you home. This site gives you the option of standing in a long line and getting an appointment. That way everybody comes home with something. Several people in our neighborhood drove 45 minutes to another mass vaccination site at 6 Flags near DC. A few drove an hour to Waldorf. The Colts stadium is an ideal venue for us. It’s just 20 miles away, right off I-95 on the south side of Baltimore. It’s as good an outcome as we could possibly want.

There’s nothing else nearly as interesting. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We got a nice day in our normally sloppy weather early last week. I went for a ride on my trike. I was slogging up a steep hill. The road was wet from snow melt. The tire started to slide. If this happens on a bike, I put my foot down. Once my foot is planted, I can use the brakes to hold the bike still. I never use the brakes first, because if I stop moving, I fall over. So I put my foot down. I didn’t even think about it. But I sure did regret it. The problem is, on a recumbent trike my back-side is 2 feet off the ground, and my feet are in front of me, not below me. It’s impossible to generate any meaningful force.

Gravity can be an awesome thing. If a trike is determinedly going backwards down a hill, it forces the pedals to rotate backwards. Neither pedals nor shins have conflict-avoiding behaviors. The bike was fine. I, however, spent the next several days staying indoors and wearing shorts. Today it was sunny and a balmy 35. Perfect for a ride. This time all was well.

The other thing I’ve been doing is adding features to my budget database and making the code more robust. One of the things I like about working on the database is that it requires my undivided attention. These days, my mind mostly wanders a fog of memories, daydreams, and snatches of old songs. It’s nice to have an activity that forces me to focus for a few hours.

There’s not a lot else going on. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There’s not a lot to report this week. I did taxes. Jul’s COVID turned out to be a mild case. Danita is in PT for her sore shoulder.

We had a coating of ice starting late Friday and going on through a lot of Saturday. Fortunately, the Friday food truck was here. Most of the ice melted today. We expect today’s food truck arrive in a little while. I even got a bike ride in today. I wouldn’t have taken a two-wheeler out, but a trike doesn’t fall over if there’s a small slick spot. As it turned out, the roads were fine.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It used to be we could go over to the clubhouse and get free coffee. Then the clubhouse was COVID-closed. No troubles, we dug out the Mr. Coffee. That was fine, until it stopped working. Normally, I just re-seat the valve, but this time the valve had disappeared. We looked everywhere. I can’t imagine where it went. But it was gone for good. I loved that Mr. Coffee. It had one on-off switch and one green light. What more can one ask for?

Again, no troubles. A quick trip to Amazon found that they still make the same Mr. Coffee. In the mean time, we put our one-cup brewer in service. The next day, I found that Amazon shipped our new Mr. Coffee by USPS. And that same day, we discovered the one-cup brewer was leaking. That called for another trip to Amazon. We were definitely getting into a serious shortage situation.

All’s well that ends well. The USPS came through and delivered our new Mr. Coffee on time. The new one-cup brewer came in two days later. I was amazed that the old carafe fit in the new Mr. Coffee perfectly. How many times have you heard of people who had to buy a whole new coffee maker because it was cheaper than replacing a broken carafe? Now you know somebody with a spare carafe.

We had a spate of good weather this week — three days in a row of temperatures above freezing and no precip. One of the wheels on my new bike started squeaking. I was convinced a bearing wasn’t lubed. As soon as I got home I called the shop. They said it would be no trouble, just bring it in. Danita and I loaded the bike into the Leaf, only to realize I had to charge the car first. (It’s a bit of a drive to the shop.) All’s well that ends well again. It turned out to be a minor adjustment. The forecast is for a week of sloppy weather. I won’t be worrying about bikes for a while.

If you think this is what old folks do for excitement, I’m about to prove you wrong. Next weekend, we have neighborhood food trucks on Friday and Sunday. The Sunday truck has the key-lime pie in a jar. It tastes grand.

On the bad side, Jul thinks she has COVID. Here’s hoping it’s a mild case. Danita and I hope Jul has an easy recovery, and that everybody else is staying well.

We’re into winter weather. Thursday and Friday it was cloudy, temperatures were near freezing, and winds were 20 to 40 MPH. That’s enough to turn me into a slug, staying indoors and doing nothing. Yesterday was nice, Temperatures were still near freezing but the wind was mild and it was sunny. I got a great ride in. That’s good because today it’s snowing. The ground was above freezing, so after 5 hours of snow it’s only now beginning to stick on the street. Danita teases me about shoveling snow when I don’t have to, but there’s not much of an alternative for getting some exercise.

We had a nice Zoom with Mark, Jiajia, and Mira this morning.

I think I finished my budget database. It has all the features I want and no known bugs. I even wrote a user guide. I wonder what I’m going to do for the next several days until the streets clear?

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

My new trike has been at the bike shop for several weeks. It got held up because the manufacturer left a bag of parts out of the box. Then they shipped the parts USPS. It took over two weeks for the parts to arrive. I consider myself lucky to get the parts so “fast”. The trike is a fun ride, but I’m even slower on the trike than I am on the bike. That’s OK. I’m retired, and have time to ride the trike. Before today, I was staying close enough that I could walk home if necessary. I ordered some bike stuff that came in today. That lets me carry water, tools, etc. Now if I get a flat, I can fix it and ride home. I took my first real ride today. It was a 14 mile circular route with moderate hills. Everything worked just fine.

I’m also still working on my budget database. I’m finding and fixing little bugs and adding features. It’s a tremendous amount of fun. I forgot how much I enjoy doing software development. If I tried doing it for pay, I would be fired within a week. I’m that slow. But I chug along, get things done, and have a very good time doing it.

That’s the news. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Ryn came up from Virginia for a quick visit. It was cool and cloudy. We shared an excellent lunch in the garage, with the door partially opened for everybody’s safety. I got plenty of pictures, but somehow every last one had Ryn with her eyes closed.

Both Bud and Mom are scheduled to receiver their first COVID vaccine shots next week. That’s a good thing for us all.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Wednesday, Danita and I “tunneled” from home to Mark & Jiajia’s. There was no stopping. Windows were closed. Danita brought 10 home-made frozen dinners. Mark and Jiajia were very appreciative.

We had a nice visit and enjoyed a very nice lunch — Danita’s shrimp salad with fruit salad, chips, and sinfully rich brownies. After we were all relaxed and contented, Mira woke up and we had a photo shoot. Then we “tunneled” home. It was a great visit.

We have big news this week. Mark and Jiajia had their baby Mira somewhere around 9 PM on December 31. Mira was 7 pounds, 6 ounces. Everybody is healthy. Mira has some jaundice, so they are still in the hospital. They expect to go home this afternoon. We hope to visit them soon. There’s a good chance there might be a picture or two next week.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We started the week off with a bang. We had Christmas Zoom concerts two nights in a row. The first was a baroque concert. They suggested enjoying cookies and hot chocolate with the concert. We didn’t buy their concert pack, but we did get some Oreos and make a nice cup of hot mocha. The other concert had each musician playing or singing in their own home. I don’t know how they kept everybody synchronized. Even the children chorus did quite well. Their last number was a jazz piece with irregular rhythms. I could tell they had a little trouble with that one. But overall, it was a great concert.

Sunday was neighborhood luminary night. Folks were invited to make luminaries and put them out from 6 to 7. Danita made several. It was fun walking around the neighborhood. Here’s a picture of the Jones with their luminaries.

Mom has been cooking meals that Mark and JiaJia can heat up after the baby comes. These are our favorite recipes that feed a family. Danita and I ate a little bit and froze the rest. Mark and Jiajia picked really good recipes. Danita and I have been eating really well.

Christmas day we had a small zoom with just Mark, Jiajia, and the Reeds. That was fun. One of our gifts was a 6-month subscription to “The Great Courses”. These are lecture courses. Most of them are 24 lectures, so we got started right away. We picked out 10 courses to watch together, plus we both have a few courses that just one of us is interested in. Five days a week at 9:00, Danita and I watch two lectures. In 6 months when we’re all done, we should have had our vaccination and we should be able to get out more. So far, the lectures have been excellent.

I also built a database this week. I use Quicken for our budget. Quicken has become quite cumbersome for what I need these days. It wants me to store data in the cloud, which I’m reluctant to do. Every time I start Quicken, the connection to the cloud account has to time out. I want to review accounts daily. It’s extra work to do that without the cloud storage. I decided I could build a database that I can use for our budget. The basic database is done. I will be using both Quicken and the database until I’m confident everything is working well. Then I’ll add some features. The cool thing is that I can make the database work exactly the way I want. I had to spend a lot of time looking things up. I forgot all the details of syntax and formatting. But it’s been a lot of fun. I haven’t done work like this in years.

My new bike has been delayed. Plus the dealer doesn’t usually stock the configuration I want. I want to test ride before putting down a hefty deposit. The dealer had one of the first bikes made by this manufacturer with the configuration I want in his warehouse. We agreed I would use that as the test ride. I rode it this week and it’s exactly what I expected. I put the deposit down. The dealer said I could take the old bike home and ride it while waiting for the new bike. I was pleased to find the bike fit in our car, so I took it home. Unfortunately, really old bikes develop issues. The chain was too loose. I fixed that (imperfectly). Then I found that one of the wheels was reluctant to turn — the brake was rubbing against the wheel. I started looking at that when I noticed one of the tires had gone flat. I hadn’t ridden even 5 miles. At this point, I decided I was getting a friendly message from my guardian angel about the wisdom of riding this very old bike. The bike’s in the garage waiting for the new bike to come in. One good thing is that I verified the new bike will fit in the garage.

That’s the news from Columbia. I hope everybody had a pleasant Christmas