Danita and I had a great time on our little 3-day jaunt. It was so much fun to get out and about a little. Now we’re in a modified quarantine. We wear masks whenever we leave the house. That means no eating in restaurants. We’re scheduled for a COVID test tomorrow. So far, if we have COVID, we are symptom-free.

We have Verizon FIOS internet service. It’s great service, fast and reliable. At $45/month, it’s not crazy expensive. This month the cost went up $5. I called Verizon. They couldn’t decrease the price, but they could double our speed (to 200 Mbps) and upgrade our ONT (Optical Network Adaptor) at no cost. I decided if we had to pay the extra money, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have the faster service. The tech arrived on time. That’s when I learned we weren’t actually getting an upgraded ONT. In the past, our ONT converted our internet from fiber-optic to coax. A modem connected to our coax converted it to Ethernet. Verizon was going to bypass the coax and take Ethernet directly from the ONT. Fortunately, our house wiring allowed us to do this, but it meant I had to rearrange our Ethernet wiring. I also had to move some heavy furniture to give access to the wall plates. The tech did his job and left. It took him an hour to do what is normally a 2-hour job. That left me with the task of making a modification to the wiring in the house. After over an hour of frustrating failure, traipsing up and down two flights of stairs, I realized I had to put an Ethernet connector on a cable. That’s when I learned that it is much harder for me to put a connector on an Ethernet cable than it was 3 years ago. No matter how much light I had, I simply couldn’t see well enough to do the job. It took over three hours with two major “frustration breaks”. I got the job done before dinner, but it took a good chunk of the day. In addition, I hurt my back. I’m still in pain, but my back seems to be responding well to rest. Hopefully, I’ll be able to put the furniture back in place in a couple of days. All in all, a job that would have taken an hour when I was younger took a day. On the good side, I was surprised to find our latency went from 15 msec to 7 msec. That’s quite an improvement.

JAMM (Jiajia, Mark, and Mira) are coming for a 3-day visit, and we’re upping our game to be prepared. Besides the COVID precautions, we put coves in all the unused power outlets. I also got cabinet locks to keep Mira out of danger. I went with latches that require a magnet to open the cabinet door. I chose them because after JAMM leaves, we can reconfigure the latches to leave the cabinets unlocked. It sounds pretty slick, but when the package arrived, I noticed they have a video to explain how to install them. We’ll see how this goes.

Things are going very slowly on the maintenance front. The Leaf is still at the dealer. It seems our car has a problem that is unique. Lucky us. Nobody has come up with a way to install the new door to the deck. The old door is still in place, but all the framing was removed in preparation for the door swap. The new door is sitting on the deck, tied to the old door with a strap. The entire area is covered with a blue tarp to protect the new door from the weather. My joke is that I can’t take a nap on the couch because, as everybody knows, blue light disrupts sleep. The construction crew “sealed” the old door with blue painter’s tape. It’s a most unusual “accent wall”. The vertical blinds have been sitting on our couch for the last week. There’s no other place in the house to put them. The construction foreman promised to re-install the blinds before Christmas if they can’t install the new door by then.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We toured the Winterthur property in the morning yesterday. The house has 94,000 square feet on 10,000 acres of land. The house tour was nice. Afterwards, we visited exhibits of china, etc. Danita found it more interesting than I did. After a trolley ride around the property, we ate our packed lunch on a bench near the Winterthur parking lot. After we finished lunch, we found a heated picnic building. We could have had the building to ourselves.

For our afternoon adventure, we visited the Delaware Art museum. I enjoyed the art for a while. I learned about the Pre-Raphaelite artists in England. They developed about the same time as the Impressionists in France. There was a way cool painting of Macbeth by Schoonover. Then I went to the café and enjoyed some coffee. Here’s a shot of their Chihuly Bridge.

At the end of the day, we took an hour ride on the Delaware & Western Railroad. It was fun. There were plenty of excited families. Many of the houses with back yards abutting the rail line put up elaborate light displays. Several residents came out to wave. Here’s a shot of our rail car.

We had a blast yesterday. We started out at the Brandywine Art Museum. Most of their collection is painted by the Wythe family, but they had some other art also. They also have a large and elaborate train garden — much more so than the firehouse gardens in Baltimore.

After checking into our hotel and eating lunch, we went to Longwood Gardens. There was a good sized crowd. As I should have guessed, the night time pictures came out blurred.

We just got back from a wonderful show. The Baltimore Symphony played “Nutcracker” while an acrobatic team did their thing. The acrobatics were terrific. They even followed the Nutcracker story. We felt comfortable going. All attendees had to show proof of vaccination, and we used our N-95 masks. It was a delightful show. The symphony hall was nicely decorated for the holidays.

The construction crew were going to install the new door to the deck last week, but the door manufacturer made a change. Nobody is sure how to install the door. An expert is supposed to come in tomorrow. In the mean time, our Leaf gave up the ghost. We had it towed to the dealer. We will pick it up Friday because …

We’re taking a trip. Several weeks ago, we decided to take a short trip to the Longwood Gardens area. As usual, we planned ahead, made reservations, etc. Since we did that, the COVID case rate has gone up, and Omicron is adding additional uncertainty. Being mindful that Mira will visit for a few days at Christmas, plus we both visit parents weekly, we decided to still go on the trip but change some of our plans. We will get carry-out and eat in our hotel room. Whenever we’re inside, we’ll be wearing N-95 masks. We have an appointment to get a Covid test when we get back, and we have a couple of home test kits that we will use just before Christmas. We’re looking forward to a few days away from home, being (careful) tourists.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

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.