Secret Messages from the NSA

Monday, we took B & E to the National Cryptologic Museum at the NSA. The museum is much more kid friendly since the last time we went. The hobo codes were quite popular. The other big activity was decrypting secret messages with a ring decoder. Whoever set this up was quite clever. Most of the secret messages were near the floor – kid friendly while simultaneously discouraging over-pushy parents. There are 15 secrets. The most popular station was encrypting your name with an Enigma machine. The kids enjoyed learning how to operate the machine. Elizabeth encrypted her name, and checked the result, twice!

Planet Explorer Vehicle

Today we went to Arundel Mills Mall and visited the Lego store. The kids started out just looking at the kits. About the time they were done with that, the play station opened up. They worked together to build a vehicle to explore a planet. The staff was going to assemble a new Lego display, and asked if Mark and Elizabeth wanted to volunteer to help build the display. They finished the first part together. Meanwhile, Nanna built her own “Explore a planet” vehicle.

Building the Big One

Nanna’s Vehicle

Now it’s time to go to the airport. Happy travels, Reeds. We enjoyed visiting with you!

Jul arrived Thursday. She took the kids to DC Thursday and Friday. They had a good time in spite of the tremendous heat. I was surprised at how popular the National Archives were. Both B & E were excited to visit. Jul got timed-entry tickets, which was a good thing because the line to get in was hours long. The Reeds were set to go home today, but last night E came down with a stomach virus.

Fortunately, Jul was fast with the recycle bucket. They decided it would be unwise to fly home today. Southwest is very flexible about changing flights, even on short notice, but they require that passengers pay the fare for the new flight time. Jul had the choice of going back Sunday for a hefty upgrade price, or waiting until Tuesday afternoon. She wisely decided to wait. Her total extra cost was $15. We don’t have a wood pile any more, so I’m preparing a spot for them on the back porch (LOL).

Danita and I are still going to the neighborhood dinner and concert this evening. There’s plenty of food in the house for Jul and the kids. Danita took Brian to the used book store, where he picked a book for himself and one for Elizabeth. For now, the kids prefer to watch their tablets.

Tuesday evening our condo is holding a “town hall meeting”. Our lawyer will be present. They’ll be going over the lawsuit settlement. High attendance is anticipated.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I didn’t get any pics of the pay date yesterday. The Pirate Cruise wasn’t running today. That might have been a good thing, considering the temperature got up to 95 with very high humidity. Our alternate activity was the movie “Spiderman” (whichever one is playing right now). The kids had a good time, but I decided it would not be cool to take pictures in the movie theater. So I got this snap in the Monster Golf. After that, we had snow balls from the best stand in the state.

Danita has basically recovered from her pains. She has one last PT appointment in 2 weeks, and she’s still weaning off the Prednisone. Fortunately, she avoided the side affects some people experience on Prednisone. I’m still not sleeping well, but I’ve been able to take some shorter bike rides. I am starting my PT tomorrow. I got a very early 7 AM appointment so I won’t interfere with this week’s major activity, which is the grand kids. They’ll be arriving about 3:30 today. They will be with us all week. Last year a full week was a few days too much away from home. Jul is coming up Thursday to visit and escort the kids around DC. In the mean time, we’ve thrown the “adventure” rules out the door and allowed the kids to pick their activities from a list. We’ll be visiting the  American Visionary Arts Museum Sunday, Aquarium Monday. Tuesday is a play day with Suzanne and Addie. We’ll wrap up the Baltimore activities Wednesday with a Pirate Cruise in Baltimore. We also have a stack of videos about 2 feet high, special meals, and more. We had a neighborhood party last night to help us get ready for our exciting week. We’ll have another neighborhood party Saturday to help us celebrate a fun week.

I’ve given two “classes” on cutting the cord. We have a small class, which is nice. One of the residents decided this was such a good idea that he should buy a new TV. His wife told my wife it is the most expensive free class they ever took. I’m not offering a class this week. Next week, the room isn’t available. We’ll finish up by talking about TV antennas and such the following week.

That’s it for us. I’ll probably be posting grand kid pics on the website this week, but I won’t send Emails. Some folks still have slow internet, and I’m too lazy to delete the photos. Feel free to visit the website this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Danita’s doing great. I’m still recovering. I’m sleeping in a bed, but I wake up and move around a lot, so I’m upstairs for now. I had a strange experience in Church this morning. I experienced much more pain than normal. I’m thinking that was not a message from God. I feel much better now. It must have been my posture.

We had a neighborhood party this week, but we didn’t attend. It was free hot dogs at the pool July 4. Neither Danita nor I are interested in hot dogs, especially if there’s no fried onions and peppers for toppings. In addition, it there was  a heavy rain. Those who were so desperate that they were willing to go were all huddled under the roof of the porch. That’s not our idea of fun.

Columbia had their normal fireworks show which I’m sure was spectacular. But there was still a pretty good chance of rain. So we stayed home, had some sangria, and watched a movie that was partially shot in Venice Italy.

Having skipped the party and fireworks, we decided to go the the Howard County summer theater yesterday. This is a group of amateurs that put on one production a year at one of the high schools. Without exaggeration, there had to be 100 people involved one way or another. We saw The Pajama Game, a 50s era book, play, and movie. Doris Day starred in the movie version. Sometimes life isn’t fair. Danita was sitting in an aisle seat. They had happy dancing girls coming down the aisle. After intermission, I asked Danita to swap with me. I had angry striking factory works coming down the aisle. NOT FAIR!

Mom is excited because her kitchen cabinets came in. They’ll be rebuilding her kitchen next week. Her bedroom is done but the master bath stalled, waiting for a plumbing inspection and permit.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We have really great news this week. Danita is feeling much better. Danita’s been out of the easy chair and sleeping in out bed for most of the week. The Prednisone did the trick. Her rheumatologist is already starting to taper her dose down. She’s still working on her range of motion, but most of that is at home. She’s cutting the PT down to once a week.

I had some bad news. Wednesday, I ran my bike off the edge of the road. It had a bit of a drop and I ended up splayed across a grass field. I was in the last quarter of one of my more challenging routes, rolling down hill and feeling good when it happened. Danita was taking her dad to a doctor, so I decided my best option was to ride home. I wimped out and took the easy, 5 mile route instead of the fun and challenging 10 mile route I had planned. The bike got a bent crank arm. I got bumps and bruises to my upper body. The doc patched me up with some butterfly bandages. I’m getting around pretty well, but it still hurts when I laugh. So Danita’s in our bed, but she’s sleeping alone because I’m downstairs in the easy chair. This recovery thing is a little slower now that I’m over 70.

We don’t have any neighborhood parties this weekend, so we plan to go to a play at Baltimore County Community College tomorrow. Tomorrow is a “5th Sunday”. We try to do a special breakfast. This week, we’re going to a Mexican restaurant on the other side of the tracks. This place is a real hoot. It’s a short drive to the prison and several truck stops. The shopping center it’s in is just a pawn shop short of perfection. But the prices are good and the food is great. We had dinner there one night and had a great time. I understand the place had even more atmosphere when it was located in the back of the gas station. Monday I’ll go back to see the doc. I’m healing up pretty well, so I expect to be thrown out with an admonition to stop doing foolish things. Monday evening I’m giving a neighborhood presentation about how one can save money by “cutting the cord”.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Danita is still feeling pains. The prednisone has helped, but it hasn’t been the miracle cure that it is for some patients with PMR.

Danita and I met her siblings at Bud’s place for a father’s day dinner last Sunday.

I had a very unusual event happen this week. Our shower door has been droopy. It got worse, and I called in some experts. They found that the door wasn’t properly reinforced. The entire 65 pound door was being held up by screws in wallboard.So the men drilled out the old plugs, installed new plugs as a temporary measure, and went to their next appointment. An hour or so later, there was a short in the bathroom. There is a switch for the closet light on the other side of the wall from where the men drilled. I figured they nicked the wire. I removed a piece of the wall and found the wire completely undisturbed.

But there was still the short. I removed the wiring from the switch. Still a short. How about the closet light fixture? No.I removed wiring from the bathroom fan. No joy. I tried the fixture over the vanity. Nope. Could the breaker be defective. I took the electric panel cover off and swapped breakers. The breaker works fine. There aren’t many possibilities left. There are 3 switches on the other side of the bathroom. I took the first one out, no problem found. When I took the middle one out, I saw the darnedest thing. There was a sliver of the hot wire exposed where it went into the switch. The safety ground wire was right next to it, and part of it had melted. That switch sat inside the wall for 10 years with no problems, then decided to short shortly after those guys drilled the wall on the opposite side of the bathroom.

Fixing the short was easy. But I still had a bunch of stuff torn apart, with parts on the floor and wires sticking out of walls. The light fixture over the vanity was so cheap I couldn’t reassemble it. But I got everything else put together. When I was done, the light fixture in the closet didn’t work. Danita and I went to Lowe’s and didn’t see anything we liked. So we went out for pizza. When we came home, I ordered the fixtures from Amazon. The closet fixture was a breeze to put up and worked perfectly. The vanity fixture was even better. It was the same size as the original fixture. You can’t see any of that ugly discolored drywall around the light. It was much better built and therefore much easier to install. The best feature was the drop cords that suspended the lamp near the base plate while I connected the wires with my “other two hands”. I finished the installation just in time so that Danita and I could go to a condo party. We had a food truck with pit-beef, pulled pork, and other foods of that ilk. The weather was perfect.

Everything in the bathroom is back in place, except for the bracing for the shower door. Unfortunately, the screws are right next to an existing stud, so I can’t just insert a 2×4, because the screws will be at the edge and won’t get a good bite on the wood. I have a workman lined up to help, but it’s a small job and I have to wait until he has time in his schedule.

Now we’re all set to attend the neighborhood concert Sunday, with snacks, desserts, and libations.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Danita is still suffering from her mystery pains, but things are starting to look up. She saw a rheumatologist who said she probably has PMR. That’s what I had some 20 years ago. The best way to diagnose PMR is that it responds very quickly to prednisone. Danita started her regimen Friday evening. Fingers crossed! She’s still doing her PT, mostly working on range of motion.

Our condo (Kendall 1) had some really great news. When the contractor built our houses, they installed some of the flashing upside down. This allowed water to leak into affected houses. The symptoms weren’t obvious for years. When the symptoms became obvious, it took time to figure out the cause, find an engineering company to do a study, and do a test repair on one unit. The condo sued the builder. The builder brought in the subcontractors and the architect. Then the builder merged with another company, and we started all over again. This has been going on for the last 3 ½ years. Residents who want to move out have been able to sell their houses, but it was tough. Most banks wouldn’t offer a mortgage. Most sales were cash deals. About a week ago, the board announced that they have settled the suit in arbitration and they are very satisfied with the deal. Residents don’t know what the deal is yet because the final papers are still being drawn up, but it’s obviously a multi-million deal. So far as I know, my unit isn’t affected. But the condo will be carefully inspecting all units to make sure. We haven’t even started planning the repairs. The general hope is that we can start construction next spring, with construction lasting about a year. After that, we’ll have to work on some sidewalk and street repairs we’ve been putting off. With heavy construction equipment moving in and out, those repairs are expected to grow. We have some residents with professional experience in the construction industry. We’ll be calling on their expertise as we move forward.

We’ve had some delightful weather. I got a nice set of rides. That’s good because it looks like it will be a rainy week coming up.

Danita’s been working on her retirement papers. She’s made good progress, but somehow the package sent by Raytheon got returned as undeliverable. I’ve been working on my minimum withdrawal from my IRA, which is with TRP (T. Rowe Price). It’s a slow go. I linked our savings account to my IRA funds. TRP had to do micro-transactions for verification. After the micro transactions, I didn’t receive the Email that told me what to do next. I went to their website to see if I could figure it out, and found their login system was down. I called customer service and they fixed me up. I’m all set to buy more funds from TRP, but I have to wait another week before I can move funds out. After that, I’ll be able to set up an automatic annual transfer. And after that, I’ll be able to set up charitable contributions directly from my IRA, so the donations don’t count as income. That last is important because the new tax laws are very unfavorable for Danita and me. My goal was to get all this done before July 1. It’s going to be close. Fortunately, there’s noting special about the July 1 date. It’s just a goal.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.