We’re having our first snow of the year. Original forecasts were for the snow to stop early this morning with 1 – 3″ accumulation. We’ve had at least 4″ so far, and it looks like it will snow most of the day. They say we could get 8″ total. It’s certainly enough that Danita and I stayed home today. We missed our Bob Evans breakfast, but we might don our boots this afternoon and walk to a Long Horn dinner, thanks to Mom’s gift card. It’s plenty good enough and an easy walk.

I feel pleased with myself. I was able to repair my Sony STR-VX22 stereo. It was no big deal, but I was happy to get it working. This vintage unit is circa 1982. This was the second repair. The first was around 1985 or so. It still sounds great. Way to go Sony. https://classicreceivers.com/sony-str-vx22

We spent a lot of time planning the details of our Italy trip in August-September. The only thing we had in place was the air tickets over and back and the cruise. We’re flying over early and staying late to visit Florence, Vienna, Pisa, and get a couple more days in Rome. We found our first choice hotel in Vienna was full and some other hotels are selling their rooms at a good pace. The cruise is now totally full. We’ve planned Florence, Pisa, and Venice. Danita is nailing down the last details of our extra days in Rome and looking at what we want to do when we dock at the other cities. I’ll reserve hotel rooms today.

We had a neighborhood party yesterday and won’t have another one until Saturday. It’s a tough life, but somebody has to live it.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Greetings from West Palm Beach. Mom had a plumbing leak in her master bath. By the time it was discovered, there was a good amount of mold in the bath and part of the bedroom. Mom was distraught. Gayle came down to help out. Progress was minimal because of the holiday season. Just as Gayle was leaving, Mom had a second unrelated leak at the kitchen sink. Mom and Gayle dried it up and rinsed with a Clorox solution and thought everything in the kitchen was OK. I came down Wednesday to meet with the contractor, sign a contract, and get stuff out of her bedroom. Just as the contractor was leaving, he noticed the kitchen has mold. Mom took the second mold infestation pretty hard.

Things are made more difficult because Mom’s insurance company is slow to pay. Mom has to front the money for mold remediation. After the insurance company reimburses that cost, Mom will use part of the money to start the reconstruction. The whole thing is quite a mess. It will be months before everything is put back together. We don’t even know how much the contractor will have to remove from the kitchen to get all the mold.

We spent  most of the weekend out of the house, visiting farmer markets and such. Spectacular weather made it easy to be outside.

I am flying home tomorrow. I can talk with the contractor from Baltimore. The insurance company has a letter from Mom giving me permission to talk on her behalf. It meets their stated requirements, we’ll see how well it works. The contractor will remove mold in the master bedroom next week. Hopefully Mom won’t have too hard of a time next week.

Ed & Lynne hosted Christmas dinner twice this year. Ryn was coming down to visit with us on Christmas Day and got to Ed’s place before dinner. We had a nice Christmas dinner. The Reeds came up Saturday. Sunday we all went back to Ed’s place for another holiday dinner, this time including Ed’s kids and grandkids. Ryn left for a community in Virginia this morning; the Reeds will leave to go home tomorrow. A couple of pics are below. More pics are on the website. Keeping labels synced with pictures is difficult. There’s a new version of my web site software that should improve this before we have another big party.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

1: Julia, Pat, Bryon, Danita, Elizabeth, Ryn
2: Jul and Pat
3: Bryon, Danita, Elizabeth
4: Danita, Elizabeth, Ryn
5: Addie (back), Suzanne
6: Pete and Joe
7: Mark, Pat, Danita, Ryn
8: Ed, Lynne’s back
9: Toni, Rebecca, Maisie (the star of the party, Joe and Toni’s baby)

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.