Not a lot happened this week, other than furniture assembly. I managed to put 4 dowel pins in the wrong holes. I had to drill them out, which went well. I found myself offering half my kingdom for a dowel pin. The big-box hardware store has countless square feet, but doesn’t dowel pins in the sell the size I need. I could order them online, but wasn’t sure how they are measured. (Don’t laugh — 2 x 4 timber is actually 1.5 x 3.5.) I bought a bag of the wrong size dowel pins to make sure I knew how to measure dowel pins in the table kit so I could order new dowel pins that would fit in the table.

I ordered a variety box of 270 from Amazon. The box contained pins the right diameter, but they were too long. I needed a dremel tool to shorten them and chamfer the  edge. After recovering from my mistake, I found a hole that was not drilled correctly (fixed with my drill), a dowel pin that was the wrong size (already had that covered), and a leaf that wouldn’t sit flat because fitting blocks were the wrong size (my new small hand circular saw came to the rescue). All in all, I needed some tools that weren’t on the recommended list. If anybody needs dowel pins, let me know. I have plenty in a variety of sizes.

The chairs didn’t have any factory defects, but one chair had obviously been returned. The chair had an extra layer of shrink-wrap, and the hardware bag had a hole in it. That would have been OK, except the previous owner had managed to cross-thread three bolts. I called Ikea to see if they could send me some bolts, but they have an unusually high volume of calls. Regrettably, they can’t take mine. Click. So we have an excellent table and three chairs. Ikea has a generous return policy, but it requires a trip to College Park and I’m not in the mood to be on the road this close to Christmas. I’ll return it next year.

Christmas traffic is as angsty as ever in this high-stress holiday season. Thursday, we went to Bowman’s Restaurant in Baltimore for a Circle lunch. (It was one of the few times we have been in Bowman’s that wasn’t a funeral. That place seems to be the official funeral restaurant of the Hartka family.) Somebody got so frustrated they started honking their horn in the Harbor Tunnel because traffic was moving slowly. It’s certainly angsty enough to keep me off my bike until after Christmas. Better to stay home, assemble furniture, and replace the bike chain.

Speaking of bike chains, I think I’ll replace mine now.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

All our Christmas stuff is received and wrapped (thanks to Danita). The house is decorated (thanks to Danita, again). Well, there is one small thing that is delayed or lost. We’ll get that squared away (Danita again!).

We went to a wonderful show at the Meyerhoff yesterday afternoon. The Baltimore Symphony played Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker while Troupe Vertigo did a cirque acrobatic show loosely modeled after the ballet. We had very good seats. The cirque was incredibly good. The troupe has a website with some pics and a video, but it does not even begin to do them justice.

Our self-Christmas present this year is a new kitchen table and chairs. We’ve been using the same table we had in the breakfast room of our house in Kingsville. The old table is very long in the tooth. The legs are pigeon-toed. Some of the finish has warn off. Chair fabric is hopelessly stained. Back in Kingsville, our breakfast room wouldn’t comfortably take a normal 3 ft x 5 ft table, so we had that old table custom made to 3 ft x 4 ft. We moved it to Columbia because our house can’t comfortably fit a standard 3 ft x 5 ft table. (Sound familiar?) Expandable tables less than 5 ft long are hard to find. our new table is from Ikea. Here’s a sign that we’re getting older. Instead of tying boxes to the top of our car, we paid to have the table delivered to our home. It should arrive tomorrow. Then I get the pleasure of assembling it myself.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The Christmas shopping is done. Some of the gifts have already arrived. Wrapping paper is purchased. Let the holidays begin.

We attended an interesting presentation at the Walter’s Art Museum last Sunday. Eric Cline talked about the collapse of bronze age civilizations In 1177 B.C. He has some interesting ideas. His book on the subject is available, but I think we got the general idea.

Tuesday evening I attended our security committee’s presentation about camera doorbells such as the Ring doorbell. Our large clubhouse room can seat about 130 or so. We had a standing room only turnout. The presentation presented a lot of enthusiasm. I think I may be the only person who attended and won’t be buying a camera doorbell. I’m thinking about Orwell’s “1984”. In the novel. citizens were spied on by the Big Brother government. One of Orwell;s genius ideas is that the government got people to pay for and install the spy devices, by including them in things people wanted. Do you want a wall-size TV? It’s expensive, but you can have it. It comes complete with cameras and microphones. We’ve outdone Orwell by quite a bit. We carry cell phones with microphones and GPS. If we leave home without our phone, it’s no problem. Fitbits record our location and heart rate. We have smart speakers that listen to what we say. The Ring doorbells automatically make their video available to the police. Now I can’t walk down the street without multiple cameras recording me. I admit the government might not be using this stuff to spy on us. But it wouldn’t be very hard.

I bought an advance copy of Turbo Tax. There are significant changes this year. I am not sure I understand all of them. An advance copy should let me estimate 2018 taxes and help me decide what to do to optimize myself for 2019. Unfortunately, the interesting part of Turbo Tax is not available. They warn that because of the massive changes, it is not likely to be available before mid-January. At least I don’t feel so bad about being confused about some of the tax changes this year.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We were scheduled to visit Royal Caribbean’s private island. Unfortunately, winds were high and the water choppy. This is a stop where they have to shuttle us on small boats. The weather didn’t permit safe operation. Instead of 2 days at see, we will have 3. The stock of books on my Kindle is limited, and I can read only so much a day. I decided to pay an outrageous price for a day of Internet.

Fortunately, our cruise became much less weird. Many people stayed on the ship in Miami. Royal Caribbean tours are expensive. Some find the abundance of hawking, loud environment, and crowded port area overwhelming. Fortunately for me, I am married to Danita. She found a free trolly that would take us from the port to the Vizcaya Museum. Even though we already knew about the trolly, getting to it was not trivial. My phone with a pre-loaded Miami map and GPS capability helped us get through the tourist traps. We found the trolly stop, and met two port employees who was planning to take the trolly. All this wasn’t quite enough. They changed the trolly route. The sign for the old stop hadn’t been taken down. Even some trolly drivers were confused. We just missed a trolly that stopped at the old (incorrect) stop. We finally got everything figured out and found ourselves on the way to our destination.

The Vizcaya Museum is one of the houses built by the ultra rich during the guilded age just as WW I was starting in Europe. The owner was the principle of Harvester International, at the time the 4th largest company in the US. Following the practice of the day, he built a house where each room was decorated in a different period, frequently using genuine artifacts. One room was fashioned after an Italian villa built in the designated period. By this I mean the found a villa they liked and purchased a room. They took down all the wall coverings, moldings, doors, etc. They cut them up into pieces and shipped them to the US. The room stayed in storage until the house was built, with one room exactly matching the dimensions of the villa room. Then they reassembled everything in the new room. Another example is in the Renesassance room. They built an enclosure to hide the pipes of an organ, with two doors for access in case of maintenance. To decorate the doors, they bought a genuine Renessance painting, cut it in half, and used each half of the painting to cover one of the doors. All this for one of the owner’s 4 houses, which were each used 3 months a year. We had a delightful time.

The next (and last) stop was in Nassau. The tourist hawking is unbelievable. Fortunately, our experience in Miami helped us stay strong. The rule is, don’t make eye contact with anybody within a half mile of the port. Danita and I walked around a little bit, then went back to the ship for lunch. I went out in the afternoon to try my hand at snorkeling. This was my first experience snorkeling, so I chose one of the trips available through Royal Caribbean. I figured that an operator that allowed their insane guests to get injured wouldn’t be associated with Royal Caribbean very long. I was more right than I knew. We started with a ride on a catamaran. When we arrived at our reef, they asked if anybody had had heart problems, no matter how long ago. I was the only one. Before long I found myself below decks, answering questions and signing waivers.And I was informed that wearing a floatation vest was not an option.

I wasn’t the only person with no experience snorkeling. One gentleman went down the ladder, immediately came back up, and threw himself on the deck as if he had escaped death by the narrowest of options. A healthy young lady immediately swallowed some sea water and got sick. An athletic young man with his own gear quickly gave up because his mask leaked. It took me 3 tries to get going. The first time I slipped off the ladder before I was ready and had to pull myself back up. The second time one of my flippers came off after one kick. I was offered smaller flippers but decided to free swim (without flippers). Third time was the charm. I swam around looking at fish, coral, and underwater fins. The wind picked up, the water became choppy, and I took on a little sea water. I surfaced, looked around, and was amazed at how far I was from the ship. I decided I had done really well for my first snorkeling and headed back to the boat. I had to surface frequently and adjust my direction. I was out for 10 minutes or so out of a 1-hour swim. But I felt satisfied and successful.

We have 3 at-sea days to return to take a 2-day tip back to Baltimore. But their berth in Baltimore is for Saturday, so we won’t be home early. The crew has been great. It’s not possible to offer more food, and the options for offering more entertainment are limited, but they’re doing what they can to make our extra sea day pleasant.

I hope this finds everybody doing well. I’ll be checking Email tomorrow morning. We’ll be home Saturday.

Days 2 – Saturday – Charleston

The first day of our cruise was “at sea” and uneventful. The second day was in Charleston, SC and was the only port where we had specific plans. We had tickets for the 9:00 tour of Fort Sumter. We had taken Bud around the ship Friday. We needed an early breakfast Saturday. Bud decided to sleep in. So we gave Bud directions to breakfast and went to bed. Saturday, we got our early breakfast and headed out to the Fort Sumter visitor center. The combination of light rain, high tide, and a full moon flooded the Charleston waterfront. We had to go some blocks out of the way to bypass the floods. We made it to the shuttle boat in time. We took a very foggy boat ride out what “they” said is rhe fort. Unfortunately, while we were on the water, Bud slept in. All day. When we got back tp the ship and were ready for dinner, we woke Bud up. He had slept all of Friday night and all of Saturday.

As it turned out, while he was sleeping, we were missing our tour. The high tide had also flooded the the fort. We got a very foggy boat ride out, waited a half hour while the rangers confirmed the fort was flooded, called HQ, and got permission to send us back, and then got the boat ride back. Was it strange that it was so foggy we couldn’t confirm where the boat actually went? Did we see the outside Ft. Sumter, or was it  and all as fake as the moon landing and the round Earth? Bud recovered himself for dinner. We got this picture of a Coast Guard boat escorting us out of Charleston. I’m not sure what makes Charleston so threatening. Is possible this wasn’t just an escort? I noted that just as I took this pic, the “Coast Guard” ship stopped following us. My theory is that they saw me taking a picture and knew they were “burned”. Perhaps “they” drugged Bud. And maybe “they” will pick us up and arrest us at a future port. This may be my last message to the free world.

Port Canaveral

It’s Sunday. Royal Caribbean is not offering any Sunday services. Is it possible the cruise line is an evil entity trying to entrap us? Evidence is circumstantial, and I hesitate to mention the possibility … yet … I’ll tell the story and let you decide.

This time we got Bud to breakfast and got him comfortably seated in a public area of the ship. Then we walked off onto the dock. We wanted to go the Manatee Reserve. We walked all over, running into tall fences and locked gates. There is no way out of the Port Canaveral terminal, other than to purchase a $60 round trip (for two) transport. I’m not joking. We walked all the way to the terminal exit. The only way out is a long causeway that leads directly onto I-95. We were not planning to tell anybody about *them*. We only wanted to walk to the manatee reserve. It’s just like the old paranoid distopian TV show “Escape”.

I have photographic evidence … the flood and fog … the escort boat … I wish I could transfer the evidence from mt camera to the web.

What will happen when we go to Miami? Will we be permitted to send more messages? If we don’t return, find my camera. The evidence is rhere.

We had our first snow last Thursday. It was an inch or two of wet snow. The streets were completely clear by the end of the next day. This has been the rainiest day on record for Baltimore — and that’s with 6 more weeks to go.

We spent a lot of time this week planning trips, including most of Thursday. Our Italy trip ends at Morocco, the closest airport is in Niece. Getting flights from Baltimore to Rome, then Niece back to Baltimore wasn’t working well for us. We finally decided to fly out of JFK. We’ll drive to NY the day before, stay at a hotel near the airport, then park our car at the hotel. We were able to grab Economy Plus seats for crossing the Atlantic for a reasonable price. Both flights have a connection in Europe. Our connecting flights will be economy steerage, but their only an hour or two long. We also spent quite a bit of time planning hotels and such for our Texas Tour in March.

We had our neighborhood Thanksgiving party Saturday evening. We’re looking forward to a members only night at the aquarium tomorrow.

We will leave for our Thanksgiving cruise with Bud on Thursday (Thanksgiving day). In addition to the normal cruise activities, we’re looking forward to a tour of Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC. I’m going on a snorkeling trip when we get to the Caribbean. (Danita isn’t going because she can’t see without her glasses.)

The cheapest internet plan on this ship is $150, which I think is outrageous. So we aren’t getting it. We should be able to find free WiFi when we dock at some ports. But there are “at sea days” and a day at the company island where we won’t have internet access. We’ll have our cell phones, but they may not work at sea either. If there’s an emergency, you can contact us through Royal Caribbean’s emergency contact number. You will have to pay for the call with a credit card. The fee is $8/minute, with a maximum of 10 minutes. The number is 888-724-7447. Or you can send an Email and we’ll see it in a day or three.

I hope this finds everybody doing well,

The dishwasher is installed and it is wonderfully quiet. It even shines a light on the floor while it’s running so you don’t accidentally open it while it’s running. Bud’s suit will be ready tomorrow. Danita will pick it up and take it to Bud’s Wednesday. She’s hoping it will fit well, and  she won’t have to take Bud back to Jos. Banks to have more adjustments made. But what I’m really tickled about is our internet service. After our home phone number was ported to Ooma, I went on the internet and saw a deal for new customers — 100 MBPS for $45/month for 2 years (new customers only). I called Verizon and asked for the deal. The service rep was shocked that I asked, but she checked and decided she could give it to me. Our speed is twice as fast. We don’t notice that because we don’t need the additional speed. But I’m completely tickled by having the price for “triple play” cut almost in half. Simple minds are easily entertained, I guess.

So I’m saying we’re caught up. But it’s not really true. I usually wash the deck and porch in the fall, and I didn’t make it this year. I have no choice but to give up for the year. We had our first frost last night.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The trees started their fall colors about the time we got home. The peak of this year’s colors was Friday. It was warm, cloudy, and humid. The colors were vibrant, with may views of yellow against red and green. Friday night, a strong front came through with quite a squall. It spawned a small tornado that took down a 50-foot wall at an Amazon warehouse, and a second small tornado that pulled some roofs of in Carrol County. Needless to say, plenty of leaves also came down. But the colors still look pretty good today.

We were scheduled to attend a neighborhood party this weekend, but it was cancelled due to lack of interest. We volunteered at a Church dinner. It was pretty much a disaster. There weren’t enough dining room volunteers. We were running around trying to plug holes and put out fires. Attendance was higher than anticipated. They ran out of dinners. They ran out of salads. They ran out of deserts. They ran out of order pads. (We didn’t have paper to write the orders on.) They even ran out of trash bags. As soon as the last of the crowd was settled, Danita and I left and went to Jason’s Deli for our dinner. Needless to say, we didn’t make a dinner donation.

We’re getting closer to catching up from our vacation. Our Verizon contract for internet, phone, and TV expires 11/29. They want to raise our monthly fee from $92 to $125. That includes more bandwidth, but we don’t put any strain on our existing 50 mbps service. I plan to switch Verizon to internet only. I purchased an Ooma internet telephone device. It’s set up and working. I have started the process of porting our home phone number. I also purchased an antenna pre-amp because one of the UHF stations Danita likes to watch doesn’t come in very well without it. I did some tests with the pre-amp, and found it to be an excellent device at what I thought was a very reasonable price.

The car needs servicing. The dishwasher has to be installed. Bud ordered a suit which has to be tried on and picked up (for dinners on our upcoming cruise). The list is getting shorter.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We made it home. The cruise was quite nice. In general, I didn’t see a lot of difference between the Queen Mary and other cruises we have had. They all turn your bed down in the evening and tidy the room in the morning. They all have nice dining rooms and evening entertainment. The Queen Mary excelled at having a lot of public areas for the number of passengers. That’s a good thing, because we were all on the ship for a week with no opportunity to go ashore. And the 3:30 tea was very nice.

Transfers between London and the ship, and between the ship and Amtrak went smoothly. The train to BWI airport left on time and had only a 20 minute delay due to track work. The taxi ride from the airport was a bit of a trip. There was a disgruntled cabby earnestly expressing his dissatisfaction with an imperfect world. Fortunately, he wasn’t our driver.

There’s a lot of stuff to do getting home after a month. We’ve made progress on much of it, but for some reason I’m having trouble moving the things on my list from “started” to “done”. The dishwasher leaks and needs replacement. I selected a Bosch 300 series, visited a couple stores, and ordered one. But if I hold the order until Nov 3, I can save $230. So that’s started but not done. The fan in the bathroom that sparks when turned on was easier than I thought. I was able to wedge a ladder around the toilet and tub. Removing the fan was easy. I found a replacement fan for $120. That was pretty expensive, especially considering I could buy the entire unit new in the box for $12. So I ordered the entire unit. We’ll see if the new fan fits the old box. Started but not done. The front light for my bike is fixed. They just needed me to call them with credit card information for the $8 repair. I thought it was a very reasonable price. When it arrives, that can move that from “started” to “done”. And so it goes.

We had one issue that vaporized into thin air. I get my prescription plan from Maryland as a retiree. Last year, the legislature snuck a provision into a law that took this benefit away from all retirees. Open season started a couple of days before we returned. I was going to have to hunt through all the prescription plans and pick something out. To our great good fortune, somebody sued Maryland and had a federal judge rule that they couldn’t remove our prescription plan benefit this year. We had no idea about it because all three of the web sites I use to get local news aren’t available in Europe. (Actually, an amazing number of US web sites aren’t available in Europe.) When we picked up our mail, the insurance packet had big bold letters on the outside of the envelope indicating we could choose to keep our prescription plan this year. I did a quick web search, and sure enough, it was prominently reported. That issue went directly to “done”.

We have a neighborhood party this evening. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

When planning this trip, we decided to take a cruise to get home. Then we decided to take the Chunnel train to get from Paris to England. Then we realized we could spend a day in London if we wished. I had read the book “Longitude” by Dava Sobel and decided I would like to see the first chronometers. And that’s what we did to end our trip.

(Straddling the Prime Meridian – one foot in the East, one in the West)

It’s a compelling story. Ships can find their latitude from the stars, but they can’t find their longitude. It’s a time of great competition for lucrative trade. England offers a large prize for a solution, with the value graduated to accuracy. John Harrison invents a clock rugged and accurate enough to keep good time on a ship. Sailors can determine their local time from the sun or the stars. If they know the time in London, they can calculate their longitude. Is Harrison’s chronometer accurate enough and rugged enough? Can it be manufactured, or is it an impossibly complicated device that can’t be duplicated?

Harrison built four chronometers over several decades, named H1 – H4. H1 was a huge clock. It replaced a pendulum with 4 large masses swinging back and forth on pivots. (You can see two of the masses in the picture.) It was good, but not quite accurate enough for the maximum prize. H2 was not as accurate as H1. Harrison discovered the heavy mass on long arms can be unstable. He came up with a circular balance (used in mechanical watches today). H3 was better, but still not quite accurate enough. His last chronometer, finished after decades of work, met all the requirements. It looked like a large watch.

We got to see the original of all four chronometers. H1, H2, and H3 were running. H4 is in working order, but is wound only on special occasions.

For our last vacation activity, we saw a ballet. This was an conventional ballet, with a story and traditional dance. There was no mooning. To get from our hotel to the Royal Opera House, we took our first Uber rides.

Our cruise home starts today. We meet a shuttle at the train station, just 1/3 mile from our hotel. Once on board, we will have internet access, but it is immensely expensive. I plan to check Email once a day, but lacking a serious emergency, I won’t post our adventures.