It’s sad news for our cell phone plans. We have been using a prepaid AT&T service. The minutes roll over. Over the years, we had each built up well over $300 in unused minutes. It’s all funny money, of course, as has been proved in the last few weeks. AT&T and another prepaid service (I forget which one) both require a phone sold by the carrier. The excuse they give is the shutting down their old 3G service, but that can’t be the true reason. Danita, I, and at a few of our neighbors all have 4G LTE phones that don’t qualify for prepaid service. AT&T will end all prepaid service on non-AT&T phones in February. For whatever reason, my phone has been blocked frequently even though the deadline is months away. I switched myself to Google Fi. I’ll switch Danita in February. Her existing phone is older and doesn’t support Fi, so she’ll be getting a new phone.

This is a busy and fun time of year. Friday we did our traditional Christmas shopping at Bob Evans for breakfast. It turned out that we couldn’t actually shop at Bob Evans because their WiFi service wasn’t working. I tried using my Fi to set up a hot spot for Danita’s laptop. It didn’t work, so we did our shopping at home after breakfast. Later, I figured out that I missed the step of authenticating myself when requesting hot spot service. Some of our gifts are drop shipped. All of the gifts being delivered to our house should arrive by the end of the day today.

We don’t exactly go overboard with Christmas decorations, but Danita usually sets up the Christmas tree in the basement. We haven’t been able to do that yet. All the construction repairs for the year are complete, but the painting isn’t done. The painter said he would be in last Thursday and hasn’t shown up since. Besides the repairs, we ordered two new doors. (Water rolling through the doors into the basement wall was the major cause of our rotting.) The door in our bedroom is replaced, but the door in our living room is not replaced. The doors arrived last week, but they look different in some way I don’t understand. Everything will come to a grinding halt while the condo board agonizes over what to do. I’m hoping they go ahead with the doors and all interior work can be done before Christmas. It takes the crew a day to swap doors and a second day to do the finish and trim. Then it’s a few days for the painter. If this comes to pass, they will be done until spring. When temperatures warm up, they will return to install stone on the outside of the basement wall.

We had a lot of neighborhood activities scheduled this week. We had three food trucks, two of which actually showed up. We weren’t warned the third truck wouldn’t come, so we did an impromptu dinner at Jason’s sandwich shop. We had clubhouse decorating day, which Danita attended. She got free pizza and cookies. This week we have a Meet and Greet and also a Mix & Mingle. The former is wine and cheese. The latter is wine and dinner.

Our Nissan Leaf had the 12 volt battery die again. Fortunately, it died while parked in our garage, so it was only a minor inconvenience. I took the car to the dealer. They claim there’s nothing wrong. They have one mechanic trained on electric cars. I have an appointment to discuss this with him in person Tuesday.

Danita’s taking physical therapy for her knee. She was very sore after her first appointment. The therapist was more gentle the second time. She only had a little discomfort.

Wow! Lots of news in one week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Mark, Jiajia, and Mira came down for Thanksgiving. Ed, Lynne, Pete and his girls joined us for dinner. We included the Reeds via Zoom. We had a minor problem with the kitchen faucet. The handle came off in my hand. I wasn’t able to get a new part until Friday, but we got by with a special “two thumb push” on the guts of the faucet. Danita did a wonderful job as usual. In addition to the traditional meal with all the trimmings, Danita made quiche, 4-cheese Mac and Cheese, Cinnamon bread, scones and more. We all managed to add several pounds in a couple of days. This week Danita is having “no new foods from the kitchen” week. Between leftovers, food trucks, and a ridiculous give-away at Panera, it will be over a week before Danita has to cook a full meal. There’s pictures on the website.

House construction has gone well. They repaired all the wood rot. They had to remove the basement door and window for a day. The county inspector gave his blessing. Now the plywood is up and Tyvek is hung.The door from our bedroom to the deck has been replaced with a new one. The rumor is that the door from the living room to the deck will arrive this week. They won’t be able to replace the stonework until spring. Temperatures have to be consistently above 45 degrees. For now, we’re enjoying several days of no construction noise.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had a very interesting “Lunch and Learn” at our neighborhood this week. A new resident used to be the captain of ocean-going vessels. He commanded the largest and fastest cargo ships in the world. The first ship he captained was a livestock carrier. They shipped 150,000 sheep from Australia to the Middle East for religious sacrifices. It was a several day journey. Inevitably about 100 sheep would die every day. These had to be thrown overboard. That guaranteed sharks would follow the ship. In spite of the sharks, his was the safest ship in the world. The stink ensured no pirates would try to board. When they arrived in port, the waring countries would never try to attack the ship, because the sheep were considered sacred. The guy is a natural story teller. It is quite an entertaining presentation.

Friday the construction crew wanted to install a new door and also start repairs on our basement window. Unfortunately, they waited until Friday morning to make their request. I was literally backing out of the driveway to take Mom to an appointment with her retina specialist. Danita was leaving within the half hour to attend her Aunt Mia’s funeral. It’s supposed to rain tonight. If the rain ends fairly early tomorrow, they might start tomorrow. If not, staring Tuesday will be iffy, with Mira planning to arrive Wednesday afternoon. (We’ll allow her parents to stay also.) We’ll have to wait and see whether the work will be done before Thanksgiving. They have to cut through drywall to get the basement window out. There’s lots of white dust everywhere when they are done. There’s a couple of construction pics below.

I’ve been invited to give a cyber security luncheon talk at one of the churches in January. They have a group of 30 or so people attend. They meet every other month, alternating sacred and secular topics. I attended their meeting this month to see how the sessions go. It’s a nice group of people. I learned a lot about lay leaders in the Catholic Church. I saw how their meetings flow. And I found out what I have to bring to connect to their AV system.

We went to a very good presentation on ancient Chinese art. It was our kind of event. Attendees had to demonstrate vaccination. Every other row was closed. There were two empty seats between parties. Douglas Dillon of the Metropolitan Museum of Art gave the presentation, based on a book he wrote. He started with examples of calligraphy as art, then went on to show the importance of brush work in Chinese art. He demonstrated several scrolls. He tied art into the politics of the time. Douglas has a Ph. D. I’m sure he could have thrown in lots of jargon. He kept it at the layman’s level. It was a safe and interesting time.

We had a neighborhood party yesterday, but the food truck for tonight cancelled due to weather. (Wuss!) Our neighbors and we will do a Jason’s Deli run and have our own private food truck party.

Danita wanted to go back to volunteering at the county food bank. She didn’t want to work with clients, many of whom might not be vaccinated. So she volunteered to spend two hours sorting food. She was in a large warehouse with the door open most of the time. There were only a couple of workers in the warehouse. Keeping a safe distance was pretty easy.

I have been enjoying my bike, but missing the opportunity to take it to the store when I buy stuff. I finally figured out a way to get my pannier bags mounted to the bike. Considering I had only a rough idea of a plan and didn’t really know what I was doing, it came out well. Here’s a pic. I had intended in trimming the vertical bars to size, but in looking at them, they seemed to cry out for flags.

Construction on our house is moving smoothly. The fake stone is attached to plywood. To fix the rotten wood, they had to remove the stone. Our plywood was so rotted that most of it fell apart. For whatever reason, our house had more rot than most. That’s surprising, since there were no water stains or other visible indications of trouble. It’s a good thing we’re getting the repairs done.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

It’s been another quiet week. Temperatures have been dropping below freezing the last few nights. The fall leaf colors are past their peak. Trails are sometimes covered in layers of leaves. There were no parties or food trucks.

We had one fatality in the house last week. The blades in our blender froze. That blender has been around for a good long while. I’m sure all three kids made smoothies with that blender. It’s too bad. The motor still works and the glass is in perfect condition. But the seal has been leaky for decades. We decided it was time to say goodbye to the old blender. Danita is trying to pick a new one.

I rode down to the Patapsco River the other day. They have two temporary bridges over tributaries that have been in place since the Ellicott City flooding a couple of years ago. The last big rain we had moved them substantially. One bridge was made of heavy wooden timbers. It looked like the timbers basically floated on the swollen waters, letting the water push them downstream. I had to dismount and carry my bike. The bike is ungainly and 40 pounds. Who says bicycling doesn’t provide an upper-body workout? I’m looking forward to standard time. It’s substantially cooler before 10:00, so I’ve been starting rides later in the morning. Beginning next week, I’ll be staring rides an hour earlier.

Construction on our house hasn’t started yet. The foreman said he thinks they will probably start sometime this coming week. On Thanksgiving, the upstairs will be fine. We will still have the old doors to the upper deck in place. New doors will definitely be installed after Thanksgiving. The upper deck itself will probably be finished. The basement should be done, but there is a possibility of plastic sheeting and/or unfinished construction on the exterior wall. There’s a decent chance the downstairs porch won’t be put back together. If there is any construction downstairs, we might close off the basement on Thanksgiving day. That’s not much of a disruption. The repairs to the house are one more thing to be thankful for.

There’s not much to report this week. Mom had two doctor appointments. The Korean food truck was good. Danita and I both had spicy pork Bibimbap – a rice bowl with meat and vegies. We enjoyed it. Friday we had a wine and snack night instead of going to the neighborhood party. The good news is that the number of new COVID cases in Howard County has dropped. The board re-opened the clubhouse for eating. We’ll be attending future parties now that they can be indoors.

They are doing construction on the Jones’ house next door. Taking the stone down was a very noisy process. I’m sure it will be even more noisy when they start doing it on our house. They removed a few boards from our downstairs porch to give them access to the entire back wall. Here’s a pic.

It’s been a quiet week. I usually take a day off riding on the weekend. I decided to take off Saturday on the theory that forecasters could forecast the weather a day ahead. Bad move. I’ll still get a shorter ride in today.

We had the Greek food truck yesterday (very good Gryros). We have a Korean food truck coming Wednesday. We haven’t had this food truck before, but guess what? They feature grilled meat. Suprise! Anyway it’s an excuse to have dinner with other adults. There’s a neighborhood party Friday (bad hamburgers and good conversation). We won’t be going. They’re still doing these outdoors, due to the number of new COVID cases. We have an outdoor area with heaters, but it’s not large enough, so they’ll be using an outdoor area without heaters. The forecast is for 50s and showers. We have to pay in advance. It doesn’t sound like a ton of fun.

The construction crew is coming. Our porch and deck are cleared for action. Anticipation is building about the forthcoming demolition. I might get an unanticipated benefit. I painted the downstairs deck with oil based paint. That was a mistake that can’t be corrected. One can’t paint latex over oil. It turns out the crew will have to completely remove the deck boards. I get two benefits. First, I never figured out what keeps the deck from sliding down the hill. Now I’ll be able to see what the previous owner did. That could be good, that could be bad. We’ll see. Either way, I’ll finally know. The other thing is that the construction foreman said that when they reassemble the deck, they can put the floor boards upside down. I will be able to paint raw wood with latex paint. Yea!

Apparently our electric Leaf has been suffering from lack of attention. After we had the driver door handle fixed, the (rather expensive) 12-volt battery died. I suppose the electric heat pump, bun warmers, and other devices (all of which are electric, obviously) take their toll. The car is almost 5 years old. Then my bike decided it was also being neglected. I was going down a really cool hill when one of the brakes stopped working. I only need one brake, so everything was fine. After we got the Leaf back, I loaded the bike into the car, only to find the shop was closed for a big bicycling event. I’ll try again tomorrow. In the mean time, I’m walking to get my exercise.

The company we use to host our neighborhood web site had a webinar about website security. They convinced me I have some catching up to do. It will be a lot of work, but I’m going to spread it out, doing a little bit at a time. First, I need to draw up a list.

Other than that, everything is more or less normal. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The last couple of days have been dreary weather-wise, but is was a nice week nevertheless. Mom got her hearing aids. They made an immediate and large improvement in her hearing. We went to an audiologist off the Charlestown campus to get the discounts offered by Mom’s insurance. The audiologist we saw used to work at the Charlestown campus, so she had lots of experience working with older people. She did an excellent job in understanding Mom’s needs and offering very practical solutions. This was definitely a case where the high cost was worth it. It takes a person a long time to adjust to the hearing aid and get the full benefit. We’ll be making frequent trips to the audiologist, including one this coming Thursday.

I saw my cardiologist last week. He gave me a two-year warranty on my heart and kicked me out. ;-)

We had a neighborhood Chill ‘n Grill with bad hamburgers and good conversation. Unfortunately, they decided to put us on the covered porch downstairs near the pool. There was enough room for 50 of us to be under cover, but the noise level was much higher than it was when we were upstairs. All the concrete walls and glass windows reflected noise. Everybody was having problems hearing other people at their table. They were slow setting out the desert, so I did a little reconnoitering. I saw Pumpkin pie and either Apple or French Apple pie. They hadn’t even started cutting the pie slices, so it was obvious desert wouldn’t be served for quite a while. I’m not a lover of pumpkin pie, and neither of us are lovers of most commercial apple pie, and we just happened to have some very good ice cream in the freezer. So we left a little early and enjoyed desert by ourselves.

We got big news last week. The construction project will start working on our building this week. They basically work on two units at a time. There are 6 units in our building. We will be in the last group of two. I’m guessing they will get to us early in November and be done before Thanksgiving. They will remove stone from the back of the house and keep on going as long as they find water damage. So far, other units have had to have all the stone removed. Then they build scaffolding to support the deck, separate the deck from the house, and repair all the wood rot, including the ledger board that holds the deck to the house. Then they put everything back together using new stone. (It’s not real stone. It’s spun cement. For reasons I don’t understand, they can’t use the old stone.) Some of the rot was caused by improperly installed flashing. Other was caused by the doors to the deck leaking. Like most of our neighbors, we have taken the option to get new doors. They actually put up a plastic sheet wall 5 feet inside the house so they can do their work. We are promised a lot of noise and vibration. We are advised to clear out the work area and take pictures off the wall so they don’t dislodge themselves and fall. (Banging and falling pictures. Sounds kind of like a haunted house.) Of course most of our neighbors have already been through this process. I’m grateful the construction on our unit is likely to be done before the weather turns bad. Things should move quickly. They’ve finished most of the other buildings, so we benefit from the problems they solved repairing earlier buildings. They have one more building to do after ours. We are very lucky to have a great condo board. They have found solutions to many issues and have taken care of every detail.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We are doing our northern loop this week. Tuesday we drove to Ryn’s farm and had dinner at the farm house. Wednesday we got the two-bit farm tour and went on a short hike. Thursday we went to Bull Run for a longer hike and visited a historical museum. Friday we drove down to Mark’s, stopping at Steam Town with train and trolley museums. Saturday we took a walk along the river at Sunberry. Of course there were plenty of dinners, lunches, and ice cream treats. Tomorrow we’ll have breakfast out and head on home.

The farm Ryn lives at is doing well. Ryn is developing imaginative and effective land management techniques, based on part with goats eating brush and geese eating grass. Myra is crawling everywhere and getting into plenty of trouble.

There are some pictures on the web site. I hope this finds everybody doing well.