There are no pics this week. Friday we are leaving to visit the Reeds, so look for some pics from that. The day after we get back, I am flying down to Florida to visit Mom. We’ll see when all this stuff gets posted.

Today is Pi Day. π = 3.14159265359 (approximately). Since today is 3/14/15, the date matches Pi when truncated to 5 digits. Or you can wait until 9:26:53 AM and match Pi to 10 digits. We decided to match just the 5 digits. We went to the Double T diner for breakfast and had pie for dessert. But we had a moment of silence at 9:26:53. At least, I’m pretty sure we did. It’s pretty quiet around here without kids. Some people say this good of a match for Pi only happens once a century. But to my way of thinking, 3/14/16 matches Pi when *rounded* to 5 digits, and it’s a lot closer to the actual value of Pi. So I’m sure we’ll be doing something extra special for Pi day next year.

Danita and I had our Hepatitis A shots in preparation for our China trip. I took to mine without trouble. Danita’s arm was sore for a couple of days. She took her shot in the left arm. That was unfortunate because she usually sleeps on her left side. I’m still waiting for my float switch to come in so I can set the sump alarm. Aparently it’s being shipped direct from China. We’ve had a lot of snow melt and quite a bit of rain starting late last night to boot. The ground is saturated, and our sump pump is kicking off every 2 minutes. I was able to determine the exact height I want the float switch. So things should move along quickly once the part comes in.

We had a SOCA party last night. It was such good fun, we’re having another one tomorrow. Tomorrow’s party is our St. Patrick’s Day dinner.

The weather’s improving and I’m getting some good rides in. I have some training to do, but I’m pleased with what I’ve done this week.

The ladies in the office decided to rearrange their office furniture. They don’t tend to think of the networking equipment as being very important, so they laid it on the floor. Unfortunately, that disturbed some of the connections and their network stopped working. They sent me Email, text, and phone call. For some reason, I didn’t hear my phone ring. I didn’t answer them for over an hour, when I reached my ride destination of Glenwood. It’s two more hours to get back home, and I wasn’t skipping lunch. Fixing the network wasn’t hard, but the equipment was still on the floor. I told them they had to do something to get it off the floor, and they ordered a file cabinet. It’s supposed to be in this week. We’ll see if it gets in before I start my grand travels.

Mom’s computer problems might be on-going, but mine are done. Lappy arrived about 9:30 Monday morning, and this time everything was working fine. It took me little time to get everything set up on Lappy; and to get the new HP Stream computer hooked up to use with the TV. I was pretty happy. I didn’t want to pay for an Microsoft Office license for the Stream, so I was using LibreOffice. It’s supposed to be a great package and compatible with Microsoft Office files. I found it was full of bugs. While it could read and write Office formats, there were plenty of differences. When I got Lappy back, I completely re-started one Word document because it was too hard to fix all the formatting problems.

Besides all the travel that starts next week, we’re looking forward to a presentation at the National Aquarium. An underwater wildlife photographer will be making a presentation. It should be fun.

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

There are no pics this week.

We got slammed. The ice storm that was supposed to start late Sunday started early Sunday. We weren’t able to meet Mark for breakfast. Then it got cold again. We had single-digit temperatures. Thursday, we got another 8″ of snow. At least Danita got her snow day. UMBC announced Wednesday that they would close the campus Thursday. It looks like that was the end of winter. The temperature got over 40 today. Snow is melting. The forecast is for temps above freezing from now on. We’ll try that breakfast with Mark again tomorrow.

The cold temperatures didn’t bother us so much this time, because the furnace was fixed Monday. The furnace people brought 3 trucks and three techs. It was all done in one afternoon. Tuesday we started getting an occasional really bad screeching sound. A furnace tech came and solved the problem with a little oil.

We’ve been preparing our house for our trip to China. We had a backup sump pump installed. This runs off water pressure. Since we’re on county water, we can now pump the sump even if power fails. When we go to China, we are required to turn the water to the house off. So we installed a new line to connect the backup sump before the water shutoff valve. It took two guys all day one day, but it’s installed and working. I’m working on an alarm to let me know when the main pump fails. I had an alarm, but the sensor is getting wet with water sloshing around in the sump well and making alarms even when the pump is working. I ordered a float switch to replace the water sensor. Everything should be set in a few days. I also installed more security cameras. We have the house covered. If anybody breaks in, their picture will be in my Email. I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress this week.

Unfortunately, we didn’t quite clear the decks. Lappy came back from HP. I ordered my computer with 2 disk drives. The second disk drive wasn’t working. I called the repair facility. The guy said the second disk wasn’t in the computer. He didn’t call me back; then we got that snow. While I was waiting for them to reopen, I took the computer apart and verified the 2nd disk is still there. I got hold of them Friday. They agreed to take the computer back and fix the disk. Maybe when I get Lappy next week everything will be working.

We’re looking forward to a BSO concert tomorrow afternoon.

That’s it for now. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are a couple of pics this week.

Snow in Visitor Parking

We started the week with a whopping 8″ snow Saturday evening and Sunday morning. (Yea Dani, but it’s a lot for us). Danita did her grocery store run very early Saturday morning to avoid the big rush later in the day. We stayed home Sunday — no Church, no breakfast out. Danita made the best omelette I’ve had in many years. The grounds crew had bobcats moving the snow. All the visitor’s spots were piled high with the stuff. That’s one of the disadvantages of high density living. There’s lots of streets, sidewalks and driveways. Tiny yards. It’s all got to go somewhere. Danita was disappointed because everything was cleared out by the end of Sunday. She didn’t get even one day off of work. It would be nice if that were the end of winter, but temperatures got cold again. It got down to 12 last night. Things should be warming up later on this week.

HP Stream PC

Other than winter, we’re making progress on stuff. Taxes are done for the year. These days one can E-file taxes, tell the government to take the money owed from the checking account, and not to take it until April 15 — no matter how much snow is outside. Pretty cool. I got a great deal on Turbo Tax this year. They sell several different levels of Turbo Tax. They took stocks (Schedule D) out of the package I normally buy, and they’ve been getting very bad publicity. Amazon put the more advanced package on super sale. After I bought that, Turbo Tax offered a $25 rebate for people who need Schedule D. With taxes done, I sent lappy off to HP to get the keyboard repaired. It’s fixed and should come back next week. HP came out with a new, small, inexpensive computer they call the Stream 200-010. It’s kind of like a desktop, but it’s not much bigger than my fist. We decided that’s cheap enough and small enough that we can buy it and leave it hooked up to the TV for streaming movies from the Internet. In the mean time, I’ve been using it as my computer while lappy’s being repaired. It’s amazingly competent. But only because I was forewarned by the reviews and added another stick of memory. Still, the total cost with the extra memory is still under $200.

5 of the 6 parts we need to fix the furnace came in early last week. The last part came in Friday. The furnace fixers will be over Monday afternoon. In the mean time, the fireplace has been doing a credible job of keeping the house reasonably warm.

With all the bad weather we’ve been having, I haven’t ridden my bike in since Feb 11. I went over to the gym in our clubhouse several times, but going to the gym isn’t my cup of tea. I was able to take the bike out to the bank yesterday, to deposit that $25 Turbo Tax check. But it was too cold to ride very long, and the roads weren’t good enough to go on the narrow back roads I enjoy riding so much. Hopefully I’ll be able to start riding soon.

My Chinese Culture class has settled in. When working over the internet, it’s easy to forget how young most of these students are.

We don’t have any parties this week, but we should have clear roads Sunday for the first time in many weeks. (Not the whole day. That would be too much to ask for, apparently. But they should be clear until Noon.) We plan to meet Mark for breakfast.

Well, Danita’s back from the grocery store. It’s time to unload the groceries.

We’re having a cold February. Some people are comparing this February to all the other Februaries in recorded history. That’s quite a trick, considering the month isn’t over yet. But there’s no doubt we have a cold one this year. That’s one reason why it’s inconvenient that our furnace stopped working. We talked to two different repair companies. The parts are under warranty, but we have to pay for the labor. The have to pull the furnace apart to replace the parts, and they’re working in a tiny closet, so this isn’t going to be cheap. Parts are on order. But we’re not the only people in the state with a furnace that doesn’t work. We’ll see when it gets fixed. In the mean time, our gas fireplace is doing a good job of keeping the house warm enough that there’s no danger of pipes freezing. Sweaters and blankets take care of the rest.

I’ve been checking our financial site for the last 1099 every day. Finally it was posted. I downloaded it and opened it, only to find that the account summary information was incorrect and the 1099 information wasn’t in it. I called our friendly financial advisor. He had been getting quite a number of phone calls on this subject, and as friendly as he is, he was beginning to get a little frustrated. It turns out he had told several of his clients that the 1099s were finally posted. But I was the first person to actually look at the form and see the emperor had no clothes. The advisor kept his cool, but I had the distinct impression that he was wondering about his career choice. Three days later, they had the file renamed from “Summary and 1099” to “Account Summary”. The summary was still wrong. Finally today, the 1099 was posted. I don’t know if it’s correct, but it’s close. Fortunately, it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s exactly correct. It only matters that the numbers on our tax return match the numbers reported to the IRS. Taxes are completed, and will be filed after Danita reviews them.

Retirement is a strange beast these days. There are so many rules. If one delays Social Security payments, they increase 8% a year until age 70, so it’s a good idea to delay Social Security if one can. IRA accounts require minimum withdrawals after age 70 1/2, so it’s a good idea to delay withdrawals until 70 1/2, if one can. For us, Danita plans to retire next year, and I won’t be 70 yet. I’m close, but we need something to live on while we’re waiting for that magical moment. We decided to use some stock. We decided it would be a good idea to sell the stock now, because a major market downturn would put a definite crimp in our life style while we’re waiting for me to be 70. So we sold the stock near the end of last year. Between the taxes on the stock, the trip to China, and repairing the furnace, we’re doing an breathtaking job of spending money.

My online Chinese Culture class is getting stranger and stranger. We had an assignment to pick a topic and lead an online discussion for one day. My topic was “Working Through Cultural Differences”, which I based on my experiences working with Chinese people at Axalto. I posted my blurb on the web, and got no comments. Some discussion. I figured I’m so old I just don’t know how to do it. The next day, another student posted a blurb about Chinese holidays on the web. She also had zero replies. Nobody else has been brave enough to give it a go.

It’s started snowing. According to the weather folks, this could be the biggest snow so far this year — as much as whopping 8″, before it switches over to rain. Somebody asked me my opinion. I told them that if the snow was a big one, I wouldn’t go to work. They didn’t catch my humor. It’s supposed to warm up tomorrow. The temperature could “rocket up to 38 degrees.” That would be nice, because we have a SOCA party Sunday.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

We got a new thermostat this week. BGE was offering to install them for free. It’s pretty easy for me to be at home during the day, so I signed us up. This one is WiFi enabled. We can change our home temperature from anywhere in the world using our phone (there’s an app for that!) or a computer. It displays the indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity on a color screen. It displays the weather forecast. It can change the temperature throughout the day if we wish. In the winter, we keep the house at 68 all the time. They claim that the thermostat can save us money by being aware of the weather.

I also received my new Kindle this week. I got a Kindle Voyage with the Origami cover. It’s a very nice E-reader. This is the first Kindle with a glass screen. (Earlier Kindles have a plastic screen.) It also has a backlight and a high resolution display. The total effect is that the Kindle Voyage is actually easier on the eyes than a paper book. I used to put my old Kindle in the cargo pocket of my pants to have it with me. Somehow, when I took it out, it had turned itself on and done a bunch of page turns; sometimes even changing the displayed book. The Voyage is so small that the Kindle with the cover is actually smaller than my old Kindle was without the cover. The cover keeps the Kindle from turning itself on or pressing pages. The smaller size means it fits in my pockets. It’s a little pricey, but it’s very nice, I use it a lot, and I expect it to last as long as my previous Kindle (which was almost 6 years).

As I mentioned in my previous blog, we ate out a lot last week. Danita’s been having a party at work each month in appreciation for the work her folks do. This week, she had a Chinese lunch and had one of the Chinese faculty talk about Chinese New Year. We had a SOCA party yesterday. We’re having a SOCA Valentine’s concert with dessert tomorrow.

I had to give up riding. We haven’t had very much snow, although it’s snowing as I write this. The streets have never been snowy for more than a day or two so far this winter. But this month, when it’s “warm” (above freezing), it’s threatening rain. When it’s dry, it’s cold (below 20). The low tonight is supposed to be 7. It’s supposed to get down to 2 Sunday night. I’ve been going over to our neighborhood gym. It’s no where as good a workout, but it’s better than nothing.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

Last Sunday was Superbowl. I got tired after the half time show and went to bed. I was getting a cold. Danita fell asleep with the TV on, but woke up to see the last few minutes of the game. My oh my, I’m feeling old.

Temperatures were higher than forecast. The snow for late Sunday / early Monday  became rain. There was no snow emergency. Danita went to work. I was stuck inside, and I had a cold, and I felt lousy. I decided it would be a perfect day to do taxes. Unfortunately, one of our financial institutions has not released their 1099s. They are supposed to be released by Jan 25. As of tomorrow, they will be 2 weeks late. Normally, I would call them up and threaten to pull my money out of their account. Just to make myself feel better. But I can’t do that because we already closed the account as part of our financial re-organization. My first attempt to fix my computer keyboard didn’t work. I don’t want to do any more until the taxes are done. Grrrr. Monday was a very good day to be home alone.

Later on this week, I got another tech problem. My Kindle’s button stopped working. The only way I can switch books is to reset the Kindle. Every once in a while, The Kindle switches the book from whatever I was reading to the Bible. It’s a message from God. I need a new Kindle. I went to Amazon. The Kindle I want is out of stock. Who knew retired life is so hard?

Our neighborhood decided they want to put car license plates in the database. I’ve had the database ready for this for over a month. There was a flurry of 20 or so Emails. I wanted to send out a sample form to illustrate a point. The license plates weren’t on the form! I had to quickly fix my development database so I could send the form. That night, I updated the official database. Nobody knows of my error except me. Whew! Other than fixing my mistake, I mostly had to watch the Emails fly by.

Our neighborhood also promoted one of the women in the office from “Assistant” to “Office Manager”. That is another flurry of Emails. There have been over a dozen so far, and it’s not over yet. This is another one where all I have to do is wait for the Emails to settle. Then I’ll change her Email settings from “Assistant” to “Office Manager” and be done.

We have a busy week coming up. We’re going to a Church spaghetti dinner this evening. Tuesday, Danita has a late meeting at UMBC. She will eat at school and I will probably grab a hamburger. Wednesday will be our dinner out this week. The Outback is just down the street from our Tai Chi class. Thursday, BG&E is coming to install a new WiFi Thermostat. And we have two neighborhood parties next weekend. It’s getting hard to keep up with our schedule.

It’s almost time to go to dinner. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

This is a time of year when I can’t do much riding. Outdoor projects are not very enticing. And taxes have to be done. I don’t like doing taxes. I don’t like ithem so much that Danita forbids me from doing them while she’s home. I spent a couple of days this week fooling around with computer issues. Then I bought Turbo Tax. I put all my papers in order. And in general I played around until it was Friday afternoon. There was no sense to start when Danita would be home in just a few hours. Now I’m off the hook until Tuesday. (They are forecasting snow Sunday night / Monday morning. If UMBC opens, Danita will likely work from home to avoid the joy of skittering around the roads.)

The snow storm early this week that hit New England so hard left us largely untouched. We got less than 2″. We got another dusting mid-week, and we’re looking forward to 1 to 3″ Sunday. So far, we’ve been lucky with the snow. We’ve had just enough to have plenty of snow emergency evenings.

I went to see my dermatologist Tuesday, for a “full body scan”. Apparently I wasn’t good enough last year. I was back in the office Thursday for a blue light treatment for my arms. One has to avoid sun exposure for 2 days after a blue light treatment. That’s not very hard to do in this weather. Before going outside, I’m generally wearing a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, and a jacket — plus gloves and hat. I don’t think much sun gets through all that.

We saw the completion of a project this week. We have our powers of attorney signed, notarized, and witnessed. All papers are filed in the appropriate places. The financial transfers for my investments are all done. Danita has one financial transfer in process and one more yet to do. Our goal was to get all this stuff done before we went to China. It looks like we won’t have any problem meeting that goal.

Speaking of going to China, we’re starting to gear up for the trip. We paid the balance of the tour. We received our 40+ page brochure of instructions. I am starting to investigate how we will stay in communication during our trip. Our visa applications are in. We’re making a list of what we will take. This last point is going to take some effort. The travel company warns that there are places where baggage portage is not practical, and we should be prepared to tote our own luggage up and down hills and steps. In other words, we should travel light. The challenge isn’t figuring out what we want to take, so much as it is figuring out what we can leave home.

My class in Chinese Culture has started. I’ve completed the first two modules, getting an “A” on both. It’s fun but kind of strange taking an E-class, because I don’t have any idea what the other students are doing or thinking. The instructor has a nice array of supplemental material (videos, documents, and power point presentations), but there is no lecture. Doing the work is pretty easy so far, but there’s one assignment that’s giving me grief. I have to select “a topic” and lead a one day on-line discussion on that topic. How does one lead a topic on which no participants know anything? I can’t even imagine the objective of such an exercise. The instructor isn’t into doing any extra work. Her response to my query was most unsatisfactory.

The neighborhood activity this weekend is a Superbowl party. We won’t be attending. We have a theater room that will have the game on. It has seating for 20 (including folding chairs), with food and drink prohibited. We have a large, comfortable party room with seating for lots. But we don’t have a screen or projector for that room. So you can go, eat, drink, and talk. Or you can watch the game. (Or the commercials, if you prefer.) We want to do both at the same time, so we’ll be staying home. We’ve had so many snow emergencies that we’re thinking of a slightly more nutritious evening — sweet Italian sausages with grilled onions and peppers on rolls. Yummy.

Well, Danita’s home. I think I’ll wander down and see if the grocery store had shrimp salad. That would make a tasty lunch. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

We had an unusual day Tuesday. Just by coincidence, Danita and I both had doctors appointments early in the morning. Danita was off to see her dermatologist. I had lab work done. We met up at the house and went out to a big breakfast at Bob Evans. Then we drove up to Towson. It was way past time to move our wills from Baltimore to Howard County. It’s a good thing we were well fed. It took over an hour to retrieve the wills from Baltimore County. It took almost all day before we got home again. But the end result is we effectively had a 4-day weekend (since Monday was a holiday). Thanks to the internet, I already got my lab work back. Everything was in the “normal” column. Yea!

There’s both some progress and a setback on the computer front. I received a replacement WiFi board. The technician was supposed to come by and install it in my computer today. It looks like he wimped out due to sloppy weather. I guess I’ll have to get the installation rescheduled. I downloaded the service manual and decided I don’t have the skills to open the computer. The days of removing a few screws to open the case are long gone. And now for the setback. Unfortunately, I spilled a glass of water. Some water got into the computer and now my keyboard doesn’t work. Fortunately, Mark bought me a very nice keyboard with Cherry key switches. I’ll be using that until the WiFi board is replaced, so I can get the keyboard fixed. (The warranty doesn’t cover water spills.) It’s not so good that I have to go through the pain of carrying around an extra keyboard with my laptop, But I must say, it’s a very nice keyboard to type on.

We’ve had a consistent weather pattern lately. One sloppy weather day followed by one or two nice days, followed by another sloppy weather day … There were only two days when the roads were good enough to ride this week. One was Tuesday, which we spent driving around the area. The other was Friday. Given that I was only getting one ride in this week, I had a choose carefully. Should I ride to the grocery store, pick up a few things, and bring home a salad for lunch? Or ride out to Glenwood and have a healthy sandwich? Or ride by Woodstock and stop in for a pepperoni kolache and a cup of Hershey’s hand-dipped ice cream? It’s a good thing I remembered my lactate pill.

Sunday should be fun. It’s our neighborhood’s annual chili dinner. Danita had a very good chili recipe, but she tried a new recipe and it was even better. But by the time we signed up, there were already plenty of people bringing chili. So Danita is making a green bean and roasted onion salad. It sounds yummy, and as I say, “onions are good for your heart.” The Knights of Columbus at our church have a unique fund raiser. After church services they will be taking payments for Maryland crab soup, to be delivered after church on Superbowl weekend. I asked around while we were counting money last week. I heard the soup is very good, but needs some more Old Bay seasoning. Our check is written, and we’ve verified our stock of Old Bay.

I read an interesting book — Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal”. The author started out with a romanticized story about his grandfather’s life in rural India. I thought he was going to be a “back to nature” nut, proposing we all go back to life as it never was in 1800. But I hung in there and he surprised me by becoming much more realistic. Then he started writing about the evils of nursing homes. It’s hard to disagree with him, but it’s irrelevant for most of us because there’s not much we can do about it. I thought the rest of the book was going to be “the world is awful”. But I hung in there again and he surprised me again. This is an excellent book covering all major end of life issues we face today. There’s a reason this is rated as a #1 best seller by Amazon. And why there’s such a long waiting list at our public library.

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

There are no pics this week.

My big news is that I planned a trip to Mom’s. I’ll be in W. Palm Beach March 24 – 27. Danita’s not coming this year. She’ll be writing the proposal to renew the research contract with NASA.

Wednesday was my busy day this week. I had lunch with Tony Chaprnka. We went to the Sunshine Grill in Kingsville and spent a very pleasant 2 hours talking about geek stuff. That evening, Danita and I took our first Tai Chi class. I’m not sure it’s going to take for me. We learned the first 4 moves of the Yong Short Method. We are supposed to practice them daily, but so far I haven’t.

Another thing I’ve spent time on this week is my computer. The WiFi keeps on disconnecting. It seemed to be happening more frequently. I decided to do something about it when it disconnected just as I clicked the button to by my air line ticket to W. Palm Beach. Stupid computers. And stupid computer companies. HP tried to tell me the extended warranty I bought for my computer didn’t apply. After a vigorous and frank discussion, they decided to connect me to tech support. Of course they had to check the drivers and generally  waste a bunch of everybody’s time. But at the end of the call Friday (with the “supervisor”), they asked to confirm my address. I take it this means they might send somebody to replace my WiFi board after the next call Monday morning.

I wish I could say that was the only bureaucratic hassle I had to overcome. I got a new windshield on my car. We have EZ Pass transponders to make going through toll lanes easy. The glue on my windshield stick-um was all gooey and disgusting. One can get new stick-ums for free, but only if one is an authorized person on the account. I set up our EZ Pass account. When we moved, I changed Danita’s transponder from “tunnel commuter” to “standard”. But somehow, only Danita is an authorized person on our account. Grrrrrrr.

The SOCA party this week is Bingo tonight. Danita will be attending this activity unescorted.

Late tomorrow morning I have my first monthly counting session at Church. We’ll see how effective my formal training was. We’re having a pot-luck dinner with Circle Sunday evening.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

There are no pics this week.

Here’s something that was yucky this week. I took the car out Tuesday to open a new account at our bank. It was cold and snowy. I turned on the defroster. The windshield cracked. It went across the bottom of the windshield, all the way across the car. I can’t complain. I picked up a stone divit years ago. The crack was overdue. I ended up spending a lot of time Thursday getting it fixed. The bike ride to pick up the car was bracing. The temperature was 12 degrees. But the roads were clear and there was little traffic. I couldn’t even declare a snow emergency Tuesday evening, because we had Yoga.

Danita and I went out to dinner Thursday. We tried a new place. The food was good and the prices very reasonable. Unfortunately, parking is a mess and the music was very loud. I don’t think this will become a regular place. Friday, we had a neighborhood party. The food was good and we had a good time. But both of us woke up in the wee hours feeling extremely thirsty and had trouble getting back to sleep. Spoo-oooky.

Danita went down to visit Bud last weekend. They decided Bud needed a larger safe deposit box at the bank. Bud was getting tired and decided to get the new safe deposit box later. When he went to get the box, he learned that Danita had to sign a new signature card. The signature card on the old box could not be used for the new box. That’s why Danita is at Riderwood as I write this, for the sole purpose of signing that stupid card.

I finished Gleick’s “The Information”. He mentioned that the Rand Corporation published a book with 1 million random digits in 1955, and that the book is still on sale at Amazon. I was amazed. In 1955, this book was essential to some geeks, but today it has little if any value. There are many programs that will generate random numbers that are better than Rand’s book. I went to Amazon and found the book is indeed still for sale. The reviews were hilarious. I must have spent half an hour laughing myself out of my chair. One person put the book on his wish list so he could easily go to the page and read a few more reviews. His wife thought he actually wanted the book, and bought him a copy. This is a very expensive book.

When I needed random numbers in school, I used a short table that was in my CRC handbook. This handy tomb had every mathematical thing an engineer or undergraduate math major could want. My copy was well used by the time a graduated, and I bought a new copy as a kind of graduation present to myself. I actually had a job where I needed random numbers. I was building a radiation monitor system for Westhingouse’s nuclear power plants. It was the first system to use a microprocessor to do the measurement. Radiation measurements are very random. The trick was to find a way to accurately estimate the radiation level while also reacting quickly if the level changed. And to make it work with a ridiculously under-powered microprocessor. And make the measurements for 8 detectors. (Microprocessors were so expensive, not even a nuclear power plant could afford a separate one for each detector.) The project was grand fun. Unfortunately, tables of random numbers have a normal distribution. I needed a Poisson distribution. There were no canned ways to generate the numbers I needed. I was concerned that if I had some kind of fundamental misunderstanding, I wouldn’t necessarily detect it if I wrote the program to do the radiation measurement and also wrote the program to generate the random numbers I would use for testing. Just then, a woman majoring in engineering physics at Loyola College applied for a summer job at Westinghouse. Everybody wanted to give her a hand, but nobody had anything for her to do. Finally, in desperation, my boss asked me if I could use her. And that’s how one young lady ended up spending her summer reading radiation measurements and typing them into a computer. It had to be a tedious summer for her, but the pay was a lot better than she could get anywhere else. She never complained.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.