Sorting Cookie Cutters

Ryn teases us that we live in a house with extraordinarily low entropy. She means our house is clean and orderly, in the extreme. It seems that it’s often true for us retired folks. For one thing, there’s no kids to move things around, so things tend to stay where they were put. For another, retired folks have some extra time on their hands. Here’s a picture of Danita bringing our entropy to new lows, sorting cookie cutters.

We are having unusually cool and rainy weather. Last Saturday, after 18 days in a row of cool, rainy weather, the afternoon turned warm and sunny. I got a nice ride in. I found lots of people mowing their lawn. There was so much stuff kicked up into the air that in spots, my eyes hurt and I had trouble breathing. It was almost as if neighborhoods were preparing for synchronized mowing events. But it was a good ride.

This is Preakness week, which means it’s time for balloon ascensions. We have been attending Preakness balloon ascensions for years. We went when they were held in Druid Hill Park. We went to some more when they were held at Oregon Ridge. And we went to still more when they moved to Turf Valley Country Club (which, fortunately, is conveniently close to where we live now.) Every time we went, the balloons inflated but didn’t go up because the wind was blowing too hard, or it was in the wrong direction, or whatever.

The ascensions are early in the morning. In spite of the early hour, they are always popular. And their fun, even when the balloons stay firmly tethered to the earth. The weather got warm and sunny today. We decided to give it another go. We were rewarded with actually getting to see the balloons ascend. Don’t worry. We won’t get spoiled by two days of great weather. Tomorrow, for the actual running of the Preakness race, the forecast is — temperatures in the 50s with rain all day.

We have lots of activities scheduled for the next week. Tonight is neighborhood Casino night. I usually eat the food and give my chips to Danita. Saturday we have Burgers and Beer at the church. Sunday we’re meeting Mark for breakfast and eating a neighborhood pot-luck dinner in the evening. Monday is picking up our Russian Visas (with a stop at the patisserie!). Yoga is Tuesday. That puts us up to Wednesday, when we have absolutely nothing scheduled. That’s too bad, because the cookie cutters are already in great order. Danita’s book club meets Thursday. I’m supposed to count people on a spot of Columbia trails Saturday. And that brings us up to Ed and Lynne’s Parkton Open a week from Sunday.

I get tired just thinking about all this activity. I hope this finds everybody doing well. Here’s a few more balloon pics. Click on them if you want to see them bigger.

Indications are that the evening Balloon Glow is much more popular than the early morning Balloon Ascension

There are no pics this week.

Our focus this week has been on getting a Russian Visa. We have to have a Russian visa before we can visit Russia. One can get a visa from a company that specializes in getting visas for people. All those companies charge a lot of money and all visa applications go through  “ILS-Visa”, a company Russia set up specifically to manage all Russian visas. ILS-Visa has an office in DC. We decided we could save a bunch of our hard earned green by doing the visa ourselves. It sounds so easy. Fill out an on-line form, take it to ILS-Visa, and wait a week. Voila. It turned out to be a little harder than that.

We needed an invitation before applying for a visa. Our flights and boat cruise were through Gate1. They said they would send an invitation, so we waited for that. When it arrived, it did not include our entire time in Russia — only the cruise. I contacted our hotel in St. Petersburg and in Moscow and got invitations from them also.

The online form turned out to be quite involved. They required our previous two employers, with start / end dates, job titles, name of supervisor, and more. They require two numbers from the invitations, helpfully listing the Russian word to look for. One invitation didn’t have one of the words. I suppose they used a synonym? They required the the schools where we got degrees, with major and start/end dates. The details were astounding. We went through 3 iterations, with me entering information and Danita proofing. Having all the paperwork, one can request an appointment with ILS-Visa. Requesting an appointment can be done on-line. Except that no appointment times are available in 2016 or 2017. Why have a website to request appointments if they obviously don’t intend to offer appointment times?

So we bundled up our forms, invitations, photos (the photo that’s in our passport isn’t good enough, I guess) and took a trip to DC. When we arrived at ILS-Visa, we learned that our application had 3 errors. For example, one error was the name of the St. Petersburg hotel. The name I copied and pasted from the website wasn’t acceptable because it wasn’t the Russian name. We could correct the forms and come back another time, or they could correct the forms for us. It “only” cost an extra $30. Each. The invitation we had from the St. Petersburg hotel was not acceptable. It turns out the hotel sent us two documents (both in Russian). I picked out the wrong one.

The good thing was the person at ILS-Visa who we worked with. She was polite and professional. She called me at home, helped me find the correct invitation form, and allowed me to Email it to her. If all goes well, we will be able to pick up our Visas Monday, May 23 at 2:00. When we left ILS-Visa, I spotted a patisserie across the street. Our plan is to arrive a little early and visit the patisserie when we go to pick up the visas.

My other recent frustration is over. I’ve been “spring cleaning” the office computers. I finished my last update this morning. There are a few issues I’m not sure how to address. I documented them and sent them off to the IT committee.

Besides that, we had a neighborhood concert Tuesday. It was a “big band” playing swing. The band wasn’t the best, but it was good fun. I met with our new IT support company and reviewed our office computers with him. We had a neighborhood party yesterday. And we have a BSO concert tomorrow. The concert is unusual for us, because this performance is at Strathmore, which is close to DC.

That’s quite enough complaining for one week. ;-) I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Impossible pies – spinach & bacon

Our story of B ryon’s first communion begins Wednesday. It was quite a busy day for both of us. One of the residents discuvered the update of our websie had a major flaw. I didn’t figure out the cause until early Thursday morning. I spent most of the rest of the morning fixing the website. I had enough time to pack and grab a quick shower. Just as I was starting my shower, Bud showed up at our house looking to go through some stuff we were holding for him and a lunch. He and Danita had gotten their signals crossed. Danita was able to give him his stuff, but unfortunately we didn’t have any food in the house and he left withut lunch.

Cupcakes

We headed off to Staunton, checked into our hotel, and immediately went to the Mill House Restaurant.We had eaten there before, and knew the food would be somewhat expensive, have very large portions, and be deliciously prepared. What we didn’t know is that by arriving before 6, we were eligible for the early bird special, which was amazing. Portion sizes were just right for us. The food was just as good, and the price was an umbelievable bargin. I had a Cajuin steak dinner with ‘taters, fruit, and a small desert for about the same price as Outback. My only comment was the steak was CAJUN. But it was still quite good. We just had time for a gellato at our favorite Staunton ice cream place, The Split Bannana. I had spicy chocolayte, which was marvously good and certainly much better than it sounded. Then we were off to Henry V. This is not my favorite Shakespeare, but it was done quite well, and it was Shakespeare after all.

Danita’s famous potato salad

Thursday we drove to Jul’s and did grocery shopping. Jul and Pat were both running late. All we had time for was dinner and preparing for bedtime. Friday Danita cooked As you can tell from these pics, Danita had a fantastic day and the food came out looking GREAT. I did a loop around the area, staying on back roads. I was surprised at how rural this area is. I spent mostly of my time riding past farms.

Jul, Bryon, Baner

Saturday was the first communion. The parish had 72 children this year. They split them into three services. Bryon’s group was at 10:00 Saturday. They did a beautiful job. Children came up, one at a time, with their entire family. The child had their first communion. Then each member of the family had either communion or a blessing. You can see Bryon and Julia before the service started, along with Bryon’s first communion banner. Below you can see a picture of all 24 of the children after the service. After the service, we came back to the house for a family party. Danita prepared much more food than was needed, plus one contingent cancelled at the last minute. So there was plenty of leftover food.

Zip Line

We decided that  going to church once in the weekend is enough. But it had been a big weekend for everybody. So we visited a local park with a very nice playground, including a zip line. We also went to see “Jungle Book”. It is a good story, well told. And the computer animation is mind-blowingly good.

Party pictures are below. Jay and Melody are Pat’s parents. Barbara is his Godmother. The rest of to folks are all assorted family members. You can also see some of Pat’s amazing garden in the background.

We’re driving home tomorrow. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

First Communion

Carson, Celeste, Pat, Tara, Slipknot

Jay, Marc

Jill, Barbara, Danita

Melody, Barbara

Pat, Forrest, Marc

Pat, Melody, Jay

The weather has been mostly lousy — cool and wet. But we had a couple of nice days early in the week. Tuesday was the nicest — sunny and 85. Danita and I drove the bikes down to Patapsco Park and rode a mostly paved trail to the Bode Dam. Because it was election day, schools were closed. There were plenty of other people out there enjoying the park with us. We had a good time. When we got back to the car, we split up. Danita drove her bike home and I rode mine up Ilchester Hill. Yep, I can still do it.

The neighborhood’s office computers are driving me nuts. I had been letting them go for quite a while. Once I started looking at them, I saw one thing after another. I’ll be going over this afternoon to get a couple of concentrated hours on one vexing issue. There is at least one more issue. The rest should be standard clean-up. It will take several weeks, but only because I don’t want to change too many things at once. We’re looking to see if we can find a helpful professional company to make things work better.

Obnoxious Old Keyboard with Nexus 7 tablet

I wrote some time ago about a tablet / keyboard that was portable enough to fit in a cargo pocket and powerful enough to do anything that’s done on the Internet. The tablet has proved itself. On the other hand, the keyboard has proved itself to be a damned nuisance. I like this keyboard because it doubles as a case. It becomes part of the tablet and the two fit into one pocket. I can even type standing up without a table. I hold the tablet/keyboard in one hand and type with the other. (I know there’s a screen keyboard, but for whatever reason I have not been able to learn to type on it.) Unfortunately, the keyboard is rapidly dying. In the mean time, it ignores key strokes, gives out 6 letters for one keystroke, and in general exhibits extremely obnoxious behaviors. All the other Nexus 7 solutions seem to source the same cheap keyboard.

New not-quite-as-portable keyboard

I found a folding portable Bluetooth keyboard that will arrive this weekend. It has many good points. I have high hopes for it’s longevity and reliability. Typing will be better. Keys are larger, and all the keys are there. (I won’t have to use any multi-press functions to get characters like an apostrophe.) I will still be able to use my tablet as a mini-PC. But the world of mini-keyboards isn’t perfect. The new keyboard is not specifically made for my tablet. It doesn’t double as a case.  It’s a 3-piece solution that takes a few seconds to set up. It will require two of my precious pockets. And it’s just not as portable. I guess the world isn’t perfect yet.

We had planned to attend a dance recital at UMBC last night, but at the last minute we decided to blow it off. We are looking forward to neighborhood concert and deserts this evening.

Next Sunday is Mother’s Day. Danita and I will spend Mother’s day with Julia this year. Bryon’s first communion is Saturday, and there will be a big family party afterwards. I know I will have a good time at the party, because the Reed family is very nice and because we will have great food. Danita is catering the affair. We are driving to Staunton, VA Wednesday afternoon. We stay overnight in Staunton and attend Shakespeare’s “Henry the Fifth”. at the Blackfriars Theatere. Thursday we will drive to NC and visit the grocery store. Friday, Danita will cook all day while the Reeds are at work and the kids are at school. We’ll come home on Monday. It’s nice that we have time to spend a couple of extra days with the Reeds.

That’s enough for this week. I hope everybody is doing well.

As you can see from the title, today is a very special day for Elizabeth. Have a very special day, Liz.

This was a quiet week. We we went to a concert at UMBC last Saturday. We heard a cello – piano duo. The Shostakovitch was a little out there. The Prokofiev was rather screechy. But the Rachmaninoff was very nice.

The big thing for me this week is that it’s my turn to buy bagels for Men’s club tomorrow morning. The computers in the clubhouse need some attention. Other than that, we’re in the middle of two quiet weeks in a row. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are some pics this week, including Danita on her new bicycle.

Snow on Apr 9

It has been a busy week, but let’s start with a discussion of the weather. Which included snow. In April. I don’t recall that we have ever had snow this late in the year. If you click this picture, you can easily see the large snowflakes against the background of the black street. The snow didn’t stick to the pavement, or even to the grass. But we did have a thin coating on the deck. Highs should get up into the 80s next week.

Snow also accumulated on our old car (2007 Honda Accord). Snow was able to accumulate on the car because the car was outside the garage. The car was outside the garage because there isn’t enough room for 2 cars and 2 bikes inside the garage. So of course the car had to go outside. I bought this car 7 years ago when I was making smart cards. Two companies merged and they closed the plant in Owings Mills. I was driving to the  other plant 3 days a week, which was north of Philadelphia. It was an insanely luxurious car by our standards at the time, yet with it’s 4-banger engine and manual transmission it got great gas mileage. It did a fabulous job over the years. With only 113,000 miles, it still runs perfectly. But now the door seal around the driver’s door leaks. And sometimes the heater gets stuck on full heat (usually in the summer time). We seldom drive it. Sometimes it sits so long the battery goes dead. It was certainly not going to be driven while we we will be in Pipe Spring for 3 months later on this year. Eventually, seals and gaskets would start going bad. It was time to get rid of the car. So I took it to Car Max. We didn’t get a great price, but we got a fair price. From the time I pulled out of the driveway, the entire sale took less than 4 hours. That includes returning the tags and cancelling the insurance. It was a good car, and almost certainly my last “stick shift”.

Biker Grandma

I’ve been trying to add several features to our community website. They include a directory of residents, automatic Emails for new bits and for important announcements, better access to residents’ information for our board, etc. I expected to get everything up and running by early this year. But the board has continually delayed over political issues. With the snow birds back from FL, and with a shiny new privacy policy in place, I thought we were finally set to go. But at a meeting Monday, the board decided to wait while they address an issue over Email addresses. My guess is that they’ll delay so long that we’ll be into our travels, and the features will be added by early next year.

Cruising Along

Besides all that, we finished planning for all the trips we’ll be taking this year. We decided we won’t have problems getting around St. Petersburg because everything we want to see is an easy walk from out hotel. However, we are going to need help in Moscow. It’s a sprawling city. I found a website “toursbylocals”. Through them we found a local guide that will get us around town for the three days we are there. The cost very reasonable, especially compared to traditional companies that offer tourist services. I have a feeling we’ll be using toursbylocals again over the coming years. After we’re back from Russia, we’ll be hosting the grand kids for a week. We have both indoor and outdoor activities planned for each day. Shortly after that, we’ll be leaving for Pipe Spring. We are giving ourselves 3 weeks to drive out, taking our time to see the sights and hike the trails as we go. We have every sight, trail, and hotel mapped out.

That’s all for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There is one pic this week.

Danita’s application for Emeritus status was approved by the president of UMBC. She received the letter this week. She is quite pleased.

As well as things are going in general, sometimes specific events don’t click. Danita and I went out to dinner Thursday as we usually do. I wanted this dinner to be a special one. I booked a table at Baldwin’s Station, our favorite restaurant. I wanted to surprise Danita with flowers. I found a way to order flowers without her knowing. But the dinner didn’t work. The day was cold and rainy. Traffic was terrible. The room we were seated in was cold. And the flowers weren’t there. The food was very good, but we were so cold we didn’t even consider desert. We went home early and watched some TV.

Flowers

Friday was as unexpected as Thursday, but it was unexpectedly nice. Friday was Danita’s day to work this week. She attended a great seminar Friday morning. (about science and art, and other interdisciplinary activities.) Mid-morning, I received an apology from the florist. When they transcribed the order into the computer, they entered the wrong day. They delivered the flowers to our house. So I was able to surprise Danita after all. Friday evening we had a neighborhood party. These are always fun because the grouches and nay-sayers stay home. Everybody who comes is out to have a good time.

We’re getting a nice bonus from Panera for Danita’s first month of retirement. There’s a Panera a little over a mile away. We usually have breakfast out Sundays. The third Sunday is counting Sunday for me. We need a predictably quick breakfast. So we usually go to Panera on third Sundays. In April, folks who have their loyalty card can get one free bagel every day in April. We’re using it as a Bagel BOGO. So far, we’re walking through the flavors Panera offers. Every morning, one of us drives to Panera and gets two bagels to go. We bring them home and eat them with our own toaster, spreads, and coffee. Total cost: $1.27. That’s a bargain in anybody’s book.

We haven’t prepared food at home for two days. Breakfast is Panera bagels. Thursday I had lunch with Tony Chaprnka and Danita had leftovers. Thursday night was our night out. Friday morning was more Panera bagels. Danita had lunch as part of her seminar and I rode to the grocery store and brought home a salad. And Friday night was the neighborhood party. We’re living large here in Columbia.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

Thursday was Danita’s last day at work. But she’s not retired just yet. She opted to take vacation and stay on the payroll for 2 more months. The financial advantage is that we get cheaper medical insurance for the two months. When her bosses figured that out that Danita was on payroll, they talked her into doing Email every day and coming in one day a week. She won’t take vacation when she works, but she’ll continue working part time. It might be a nice transition. The stress level should be less, because the bosses finally announced how they will proceed moving forward. They will promote Mary (one of the women that works for Danita) and hire a new entry-level person. It’s a reasonable plan. Here’s hoping everything works out smoothly.

Danita got a very generous REI gift card at her retirement. This was very nice, because it made it easy for her to go ahead an buy a bike. She got a “Townie”. Here’s a link that shows the bike. Her bike is blue, which isn’t a color shown on the website.

https://www.rei.com/product/851142/electra-townie-7d-step-through-womens-bike-2015

The bike suits her very well. I don’t have a picture yet. We’ve had bad weather and were able to ride only once. I would have taken a picture, but I had accidentally set some option on my camera that precluded my getting a shot. I finally got the camera straightened out, so there should be a picture by next week.

So far, retirement feels like a very relaxed 3-day weekend. For our dinner-out Thursday we got pizza. Then we came home and had a private party. (With wine.) Saturday we went to a concert at UMBC. We heard the Chiara String Quartet. The quartet is comprised of excellent musicians. Unfortunately, they wanted to broaden our horizons somewhat more than we want our horizons broadened. They played a piece based on Andean folk music (by Gabriela Lena Frank), and a piece based on Eastern European folk music (by Bartok). “Based on” was used very loosely. These pieces were both quite modern, discordant, and lacking in any peaceful or beautiful music. Fortunately, the third piece was a Brahms string quartet.

Today, we went to Miss Shirley’s for an extraordinarily good breakfast. We’re going to a special mass with Circle this afternoon, which will be followed by a dinner.

Over a year ago, I wrote about the Patapsco river valley. A century ago, it was a major industrial area, thanks to the beginnings of the B & O railroad. Among other things, it produced some of the finest flour available. Today, it is a very undeveloped park. One can walk along the path of the first US railroad and see parts of the foundations of some of the factories, including stone that is grooved from the original B & O rails. The last vestige of it’s industrial past is the Bode dam, which was one of the first hydroelectric dams and was very innovative for it’s day. I wrote about how the Patapsco Park personnel planned to remove the dam, which would bring the are from natural to industrial and back to natural in a little over a century. The park service announced they are in the final stages of the dam removal. By the end of the year, the only thing left should be a concrete bench. The river should be back to it’s pre-industrial state about two years after that. You can read the article here.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/catonsville/ph-ca-at-bloede-dam-patapsco-0316-20160322-story.html

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Here are (almost) a dozen pics from Danita’s UMBC retirement party.

Hrabowski is the president of UMBC. Karl is the VP of research. Belay is the director of JCET. Jan is the director of GPHI. Belay and Jan both work for Karl; both are Danita’s boss. Ray is retired. He used to be director and is the person who hired Danita. Mary works for Danita and organized the party.

With Hrabowski

With Hrabowski

Mary Remarks

Hrabowski Remarks

Hrabowski Remarks

Karl Remarks

Belay Remarks

Jan Remarks

Ray Remarks

Presents Presentation

Danita Remarks

This one’s all about the pics. Here they are.

Easter Bread

Addie, Joe, Rebecca, Pete

Toni’s Dad, Mark

Toni, Joe

Suzanne, Addie

Mark, Bud, Danita

Plalying the Ball Game

Getting the Egg Hut Picture

Some Eggs are Easy

Some Eggs are Hard

Sweeping the Grounds for Eggs

All Over but the Counting