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

Even without the parties or the prospects of seeing family in person, it’s starting to feel a little like the holidays. Danita put up decorations a couple of weeks ago. Radio music has been seasonal. We even got some genuine winter weather. It was about an inch of mostly ice. Streets are clear throughout the area. (Clear enough for safe driving, not clear enough for a bike.) Sidewalks in our neighborhood are clear, making it easy to take walks. We have 5 condos, each on its own loop. I call the neighborhood walk a “5 leaf clover” walk. Temperatures are staying near freezing, so Columbia trails are impassable.

I thought I would have my new bike by now. I don’t. It’s going to be a lot longer and quite a bit harder than I thought. That’s OK. Long bike rides are problematic this time of year.

And that is all the news that’s fit to print. I hope this finds everyone doing well.

This week our lives included the best Zoom we have ever seen, and the worst. The best was about insect diversity in Costa Rica. It’s from Road Scholar. This was a free presentation, so I’m passing it on. The presenter is a delightful person, very entertaining, and knows a lot about insects. I promise you will be entertained and you will learn a lot if you watch it. The recording is on the web through Dec 23. Here’s the link.

https://roadscholar.zoom.us/rec/share/WlUBEmLkpjE7Pnoxgx04sypnqOaqyZlwL1Lp9VorKfb05VOHPH2fkBe22N50eDE1.5EX2PypnMQ0DQn31

The worst was a presentation from Peabody about medieval music. Music was performed on instruments of the time. The performer had very good technique, but the music didn’t sound musical. I certainly hope that medieval people had better music than this.

The rest of the week was pretty standard. We had our last Detective Novella class Thursday. COVID is still running rampant after the Thanksgiving holiday. Many counties in Maryland are closing indoor dining. Some are also closing outdoor dining. That doesn’t affect us. Carry out is still allowed. We’ll be having a Bob Evans breakfast Sunday. Our neighborhood is bringing a seafood food truck Sunday. This is the truck that offers Key Lime pie in a jar. It tastes a lot better than it sounds.

We’ve enjoyed some very mild weather the last few days. Highs have been near 60, with sunny skies and mild wind. It’s perfect for outdoor activities, such as bicycling!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.