Suzanne and Margo

Margo works for Danita at UMBC. Margo and Suzanne have been together for over 15 years. This year, MD liberalized their marriage laws. Margo and Suzanne got married today (Saturday). it was a very nice wedding. The ceremony was outdoors in brilliant sunshine. It was followed by a very nice reception at a building on the grounds. One advantage of getting married after being together for so long is that the principals can be themselves and have fun. Because I am married to Danita, I got to sit at the “power table” with Ray Hoff (who used to be the director of the research group), and Jan (who is currently the director of the smaller of the two groups Danita runs).

Painted Shoes – Birds that Mate for Life

If it had rained, the ceremony would have been in the barn. Then I would have been able to use my line about how gentlemen used to wear a tie when going to church and overalls when going to the barn. But it was sunny, the ceremony was outdoors, and I can’t use that line. The wedding had a lot of personal and hand made touches. The ladies painted their shoes. Suzanne’s theme was birds that mate for life. Margo’s theme was flowers, combined with the tree of life.

Our week was bookend-ed with rain. In between, we had great weather (as we did today), and I rode my bike. To do something a little different, I drove down to Northern Virginia. Most of Northern Virginia is what I call “Suburban Desert”. There’s not much reason to go there. But when I did the MS Cure ride two years ago, I discovered there is a section west of Dulles Airport that is beautiful country — farms, fields, and gently rolling hills; with the Blue Ridge Mountains occasionally defining the horizon. The ride was a victim of it’s own success. There were too many  bikers on two few roads. They don’t do that ride any more. I don’t have the routes I rode two years ago. But I found a promising route on the Internet. Wednesday, I decided to go down and try out the ride. Google said it takes an hour to drive there. Allowing 90 minutes with traffic and 7 hours for the ride, I should beat Danita home.

The ride was less than totally successful. The “best” route driving down took the Dulles Airport toll road. I drove through the toll booth and noticed they were charging my E-Z Pass $1.75. I judged that was a fair fare. Virginia got the drop on me, though. A few miles before I was to exit, I went through a second tool booth — $5.10. By the time I saw the sign, there was no option but to pay the toll. That was an outrages rip-off. Going home, I drove around the other side of Dulles Airport and paid no tolls. The second half of the bike ride was all Suburban Desert. It was simply miles I had to do to get back to the car. Not knowing the roads in the area, I decided to follow the plan and not try to find a shortcut. Finally, the drive back was a much slower than the drive down. It took 3 hours to do my 1-hour drive. I should have known.

But the first part of the ride was perfect. Perfect weather. Perfect country. Perfect roads. I started out going past a new wealthy area. These houses were so large, the 4-bay garages didn’t look at all out of place. I never got close to one of the houses, but it certainly looked like they were built with real stone. It also looked like the lots were about 10 acres. These people are not pretenders to wealth. Then I went through an upper class neighborhood. The “better” houses still had 4-bay garages, but the stone was fake, and houses were separated by 50 or 100 feet. It seemed to be an open-minded neighborhood. They allowed people in even if they could only afford a 3-bay garage. Sidewalks were everywhere and flowers were plentiful. After that, it was 35 miles of gorgeous country.

Antioch Baptist Church

I rode by Antioch Baptist Church. I didn’t take notes from the historical placard, and I couldn’t find the history on the Internet. But from memory, the church was founded “way back” in a log cabin (which is still standing). Then they built a stone building, but it was so poorly built it fell down from its own weight. (Maybe the placard didn’t use these exact words.) The building you see here is their third. The church was closed due to lack of members, but it opened up again in the early 1990s, and is active today. I don’t understand what it is that makes the past this important to some people.

Another placard noted the importance of the general area. Some Yankee soldiers, who had been soundly whooped by Johnny Reb, snuck out through this area to avoid capture. Also several Confederate generals bravely marched through the area, including J. E. B. Stuart, who started his “controversial” ride to Gettysburg here. I think this last point is funny, because most people would say that Stuart’s ride to Gettysburg was “disastrous”. The cavalry’s main job was to scout for the enemy. But J. E. B. got sidetracked and went up an adjacent valley while Lee was marching up the Shenandoah Valley. Lee knew he couldn’t win the war in a military sense. His objective was to win a major battle in the North’s territory and convince a dispirited enemy to give up. If J. E. B. had done his job, Lee might have been able to control the ground of that engagement. He might have had the high ground, instead of giving that advantage to the Union, and the US might be a very different country today. Only a Virginia historian could call that “controversial”.

Where do you think all these stones came from? I’ll bet they weren’t imported from Italy.

There were miles and miles of stone fences. It seemed to me that in places they built stone fences not because they needed the fence as much as they needed some place to put the stones. The fences were in excellent condition. I couldn’t even conceive of how much work it was to clear these stones, move them to where a fence was needed, and build the fence. There were incredible examples of extraordinary stone work. Unfortunately, I was having so much fun riding, looking, and thinking that I didn’t take pictures until near the end of the first half of the ride. The next picture shows an example of building a stone fence right into a tree. It is far from the best example of fancy stone work. Besides trees, I also saw incredible stone work around ditches, gulleys, and such.

Is a tree in the way of that stone fence? Just build the fence into the tree.

Long stretches of the ride had undisturbed woods on both sides of the road. The Cicadas were at their peak. (This brood doesn’t live in our area. We’ll be getting our Cicadas in 2021. Or so they say.) I didn’t see very many of the insects. (They hadn’t started dying off yet — they were staying in the woods and doing whatever it is they do during their short season.) But I certainly heard them. At times they were so loud that I couldn’t hear whether a car was coming up from behind. After the ride, when I was driving around behind Dulles Airport, it was a different sensation. I was going faster and the wooded areas near where I was driving weren’t as large. I would hear no insect sounds, then the Cicadas would quickly get loud, then quickly get soft, fading out to nothing.

One of the few things we just don’t have in Columbia is good Greek food. Considering how many Greeks live in Baltimore and how easy it is to get great Greek food up there, I’m at a loss to explain how one can go to a “good” Greek restaurant in Columbia and find that all Gyros are made with beef (there being no lamb anywhere on the menu). Thursday, Danita and I decided to go up to Baltimore and eat at Ikaros. We didn’t know this was the first evening of the annual Greek festival. Fortunately for us, the end-of-the-week rain had started, turnout for the first night of the festival was light, and we were able to find a parking spot. We had a very nice meal with good Greek food.

We have only one more party this week. Our neighborhood is having its strawberry social tomorrow. Last year, they forgot the ice cream. That certainly put a bit of a damper on the evening for Danita and me. We have it on good authority that the ice cream was missed by many. The forecast for tomorrow includes a 90% probability of ice cream.

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

Note: There are no pictures this week.

I lost my bike computer! I don’t know why they call them computers. They are really a combo digital watch and speedometer, and only cost $20 or so. When I was a kid, the coolest thing one could do to pimp a bike was to use a clothes pin and a playing card to add a motor sound by arranging the playing card to click against the wheel spokes. The second coolest thing one could do was to add a speedometer. That is, provided one could get the money. The speedometer was a hook that attached to the axle of the front wheel.  The hook sat against a spoke and rotated as the wheel turned. A shaft rotated inside a hollow flexible tube and was connected to the speedometer on the handle bar. These days, of course, everything is digitized. One mounts a magnet to a spoke on the front wheel. A magnetic pickup is mounted to the front fork. As the wheel spins, the magnet creates voltage pulses in the pickup, which are sent up a wire to the specially designed watch. It has tons of features. The battery lasts for 2 years or more. And in real dollars it’s probably cheaper than what I mostly couldn’t afford as a kid. Unfortunately, the readout unit is designed to be removable. Over time, mine got loose and removed itself somewhere along a Howard County roadside. In my case, the battery lasted the life of the speedometer. I could have visited bike shops looking for a new unit that was as cool as my old one. Or I could visit my good friend Amazon and get it delivered right to my door. The new unit delivered to my door is very nice, but it has one defect. They ship the unit with the battery removed. To show what the display will look like when it’s in use, they put a sticky transparent plastic cover over the display. When I got mine, it clearly said 21 MPH. The defect is, when I put the unit on my bike, it mostly said 12 MPH. I’m going to have to see if I can’t get those two digits swapped so it displays correctly. ;-)

It was a hot week, but good weather for riding. Friday I drove up to Jerusalem Mill and rode some of the old streets around Baltimore and Harford Counties. It was a lot of fun. You will be happy to know that the double-chocolate malted milkshakes at Jamie’s are as good as they ever were. (My route went right by there, just at the half-way point. What could I do? I’m sure it was just a coincidence. But having had the encounter,  I had to check it out.) I found things that changed as well as things that hadn’t. They added music to the patio at Jamie’s. The patio tables are still the same, and looking pretty grungy. Both were to the detriment of the establishment. But I had to forgive Jamie’s faults. How many places serve really great milkshakes these days?

Besides riding my bike, I also installed the new Wi-Fi unit in our clubhouse. I found that by moving it, I could get a great signal throughout the upstairs of the clubhouse. Somebody told me there’s even a good signal in the bathroom stalls. (That was a surprise to me. I never considered this to be important, but apparently at least one gentleman was delighted.)

I had two doctor appointments this week. I learned that I have good blood flow through my carotid arteries. I also had a psychometric evaluation, which takes a whole day. I failed almost every test. (The tests are designed to get harder until everybody fails. This maps out a person’s capabilities.) There was one test on which I had a 100% perfect score. Unfortunately, it means I am eminently qualified for the most boring and demeaning jobs. NEWS FLASH — early results are already in. I am better at some things than I am at others.

Our neighbors across the street are Gary and Sarah. Sarah has a job with the US Government. She doesn’t talk about her job much. An interviewer knocked at my door and asked questions about her. Do the police come to quiet boisterous parties? Does she spend a lot of time traveling to foreign countries? Is she trustworthy? Is there any reason to doubt her loyalty to the US? It seems that these folks always find a way to slide in the shocking question. I think they do it just to see if we’re paying attention. Years ago, it was “Is this person associated with the Boy Scouts?” (That’s back when the Boy Scouts were considered some kind of a subversive organization. It turns out the government might have been right. According to some, the Boy Scouts are subverting family values even as I write this!) The interviewer asked me if Sarah was associated with any organization that would threaten the privacy of US citizens. I was so shocked by the question, I blurted out, “You mean besides the US Government???” I hope Sarah gets to keep her job.

I received a new burden this week, and it’s laying heavy on my soul. We normally have trash pickup on Monday and recycle pickup on Thursday. Last Monday was a holiday, so pickups were delayed to Tuesday / Friday. Thursday morning, I saw our neighbor Gary (the husband) outside, and went across the street to tell him about my interview. While we were chatting, our next door neighbor Libby put the recycles out. She wasn’t the only one. Almost all of the houses put their recycles out a day too early. I warned Libby that pickup wouldn’t be until Friday. She said her benchmark was Gary, and Gary’s recycles were out. Gary advised her not to believe a word I said. Of course, the pickup was Friday. This weekend, Libby told me that *I* am now her benchmark for trash pickup. I never wanted all this responsibility! However, I was very happy I was right, because after all that, I couldn’t possibly put our recycles out Thursday “just in case”. I could have ended up with two-week-old wine bottles stinking up the garage.

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

The Parkton Open

This is Memorial Day weekend. As everybody surely knows, that means today (Sunday) was the Parkton Open. Ed and Lynne host people from around the area. There was a Western theme this year. Danita got us bandannas. I wore my serape. I don’t think I looked much like Clint Eastwood — I didn’t have an old chewed-up cigar or a baaad hat.The Western theme extended to the menu somewhat. We had chili, but I’m not convinced turkey chili is a true Western dish.

Winners!

The Parkton Open is, of course, a croquet competition. You can see the winners in this post. You may notice there are no Eichenlaubs included. Again. But the sun was bold and we had beautiful weather. Certainly the sky was as blue as it ever is in the West.

Mark, Danita

I had a great time at the Elvis dinner last Sunday. I even got up and did a little dancing. It didn’t hurt that they didn’t put wine glasses out. The plastic cups are much larger than the wine glasses. It’s possible I mis-judged my drink sizes.

Ed (left), Rebecca (right)

If I live to be a zillion years old, there are things I won’t understand. The SOCA board (especially Mark B.) saw that a few of us in the neighborhood are doing helpful technology things but that nobody else understands what we are doing. The board decided it would be wise to have a technology committee.

Suzanne (left), Bud (right)

Mark recruited me, Mike G. (who runs our web site), and Rob C. (our video expert) to be on the committee. As everybody knows, a committee needs a chair. Mike and I saw each other shortly after we agreed to be on the committee. The first thing we agreed is that neither of us wanted to be chair. I had previously suggested Mark should be our chair, but SOCA rules say he can’t be both a board member and a committee chair. I also previously told Mark I couldn’t be the chair because I was allergic to attending (long boring) board meetings.

Danita, Lynne, Addie

When we finally had our inaugural meeting, Mark didn’t understand when none of us introverted, geeky, technology types wanted to chair the committee. Mike pleaded he did too much travel. Rob said he is too busy. Then Mark asked me again. Being the most honest of the three, I said that I simply am not interested in being a chair.Then Mark didn’t understand why none of us knew other people who should be on the committee.

Dennis, Danita

I pointed out two of our most pressing issues: There is no documentation for the web site (passwords, contacts, etc), and there is no board password that would allow us to create executive access to the clubhouse computers. I was not surprised when Mark didn’t know what to do about these issues. We closed our meeting with Mike saying he would not want to meet every month, a feeling that Rob and I shared, but didn’t verbally second.

Pete, Rebecca, Danita

Our clubhouse and pool area has WiFi. Obviously, one WiFi transmitter isn’t going to reach the entire clubhouse plus pool area. Somebody installed two WiFi repeaters. One works, the other not so much. It works for a while, then stops working. If somebody resets it, it works again for a while. Mark asked me about this some 6 months ago. I did a little investigating and said it is a hardware problem. If he wants it to work, the board has to buy a new unit. After our technology meeting, Mark asked me about it again. I gave him the same advice I gave 6 months ago. I had to say the same thing 4 times in slightly different ways. Finally he wanted to know which unit to buy. I did a little more investigating and recommended two units. One will do a so-so job for $65. The other will do a great job for $105. Mark wanted the $65 solution. This from a board that is spending really big bucks to put up a very large permanent awning that will make our porch area look dark.

Lynne, Suzanne

Even geeks like me aren’t perfect, though. About 4 months ago, I made a recommendation for a configuration change for our WiFi. It would be a great idea for many sites. Unfortunately, it won’t work in our clubhouse. More unfortunately, I didn’t realize it won’t work until a few days *after* I made the proposal. Most unfortunately, Mark remembered my previous problematic proposal, reminded me about it, and made me fess up.

Rebecca

The new WiFi repeater came in Friday. Mark wanted me to install it tomorrow. He even offered to meet me “first thing in the morning” at 9:30. I told him I have to have wheels rolling before 8 tomorrow. After 6 months of delay, he’ll just have to live with imperfect WiFi for another day or two.

Lynne, Addie

I had an unusual biking day Saturday. I went out to do my metric century ride. But it was cool and windy and I wasn’t feeling so good. So I shifted to a different ride that is half is long. Then I cut *that* ride in half and came home early. I’m feeling better after a day of rigorous croquet tournament play. I’m going to try again tomorrow.

That’s it for this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well. Enjoy a few more pics of the Parkton Open below. As usual, you can make the pics larger by clicking on them. Joe isn’t pictured because he was at his girlfriend’s graduation.

Danita, Addie

Addie, Suzanne

Bud

Rebecca (left), Ed (right), Pete (relaxing)

Winners

Not Winners

If we didn’t win …

… we at least had a good time

Balloons Over Baltimore

This is Preakness week, and that means the hot-air balloons are in town. We went out early this morning (Saturday) to see the balloon inflation. Back when we lived on Rueckert Ave in Baltimore, they did this in Patterson Park. When we moved to Kingsville, they moved it to Hunt Valley. Now we live in Columbia, and they have moved to Turf Valley — just 15 minutes away. (I’m just stating a fact.) If we wanted to see lots of balloons, we should have gone on Thursday or Friday. By Saturday, many of the balloon teams had left. Only one full-size balloon was in the air (tethered balloon rides — just $15!). There were also a couple of mini-balloons. Still, it was a nice morning and we had fun. Afterwards, we went out to Bob Evans to take advantage of a BOGO breakfast. (BOGO means “Buy One, Get One”.)

We Were There!

It was eventful all week, starting with our concert last Sunday. As you may remember, we heard the symphony play the music to Charlie Chaplain’s “Modern Times”. We were both delighted. I had always associated CC with old-time slapstick comedy in silent movies — good in its day, but not very interesting any more. I found an amazingly funny and uplifting movie. The movie had slap-stick comedy — one great gag after another. It also had a story. It had characters. It was uplifting. In short, it was a good movie. Danita’s favorite part was when Chaplain started doing Michael Jackson’s “Moon Walk”. I got a biography of Chaplain from our E-library. The man lived through a very rough childhood. But he was eternally optimistic about his (and our) future. I found a copy of “The Kid” on Amazon. It’s on our “to watch” list.

Having passed my PT (I expect to be discharged Monday) and having raised the handlebars on my bike (so I don’t re-injure myself), it was time to get serious about training for the ride up the Blue Ridge. I have two serious training rides — a 65 mile course around Liberty Reservoir that includes 6,000 feet of climbing, and a hilly circle around Ellicott City, crossing back and forth across the Patapsco River, using the steepest hills I can find. My training plan has 3 parts. 1 – Ride both training rides twice within one week. 2 – Continue riding each training ride once a week, while mixing in some other rides I find more fun. 3 – Go back to serious training rides for the last two weeks of June. I must be in better shape than I thought. I achieved the first goal this week. I did the second Liberty Reservoir ride Friday in absolutely perfect weather. The temperature was moderate. The sun was shining brightly. The spring flowers and greenery were in full bloom. Having ridden around much of Howard and Carroll county, I can safely report that this spring has brought a bumper crop of construction. Everywhere I went, I saw house renovations and repairs, new home construction, and of course road construction. It looks like one of the roads I use on the Liberty Reservoir route will be unrideable due to a repaving project. This will close the route for me (there being no reasonable detours). Even though I temporarily lost one training route, I am quite pleased to have met my goal so soon (and also still a little tired).

Besides that, we went to “Medicare 101”, offered by a Howard County volunteer organization. We learned that if one MUST sign up for Medicare Part A within 3 months of their 65th birthday. If a person decides not to sign up for Part B and later changes their mind, they will pay a penalty for the rest of their life. There are many, many parts to Medicare. The system is unbelievably complicated. Lastly, we learned that thanks to Danita’s many years of service to the state of MD through her job at UMBC, we are very lucky to need only Part A. We don’t have to go to Medicare 102. We don’t have to compare Part D plans on the web. And we don’t have to visit a Medicare counselor to try and figure out which of the many options is best for us.

We also had a neighborhood art show Friday evening. We have a lot of very talented artists living in our neighborhood.The garden club offered floral arrangements next to many of the paintings. They did an incredible job of complementing the art. Of course, being a SOCA event, there was food and libations. After seeing all the art work, we relaxed on the porch, chatting with neighbors and enjoying the perfect weather. It’s a good thing we went to that party, because the next one won’t be until Sunday, when we have an Elvis impersonator coming. Sometimes it’s hard living up to the Jonses in this neighborhood. One does what one must.

Rick, Dani, and Mom might remember when Dad had that little Austin Healey Sprite, how we joked about how it was Dad’s road dinghy. Well, here’s a picture of somebody else’s road dinghy. I though it was a cute pic.

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

This was a great week because I finally finished my work at CASA. The job ended up being to issue new computers and take care of a few odds and ends. It wasn’t that big a deal. But the office manager is passive aggressive. She would demand unnecessary tests and meaningless information. When I did what she asked, she ignored the results. She refused to buy what we needed. For a week and a half, I stopped going in because there was nothing for me to do until she bought something we needed. (Of course, I told both the office manager and the executive director what I was doing and why). All together, the job ended up taking twice as long as it should have, which I found quite frustrating. But by Thursday I had done everything I could do. As usual, there was an issue. As usual, I told them. As usual, they denied me permission to solve it and did not solve it themselves. But this was for an upgrade for one PC that works perfectly fine without the upgrade. I told them they can call me if they need me, and that I need at least 2 to 4 hours of work to come in. (It takes me 2 hours work to pay for the trip.) I managed to leave the office without doing anything dramatic like shaking the dust off my feet.

It was just in time, because the weather Friday was perfect. It started out a little cool, warmed to 80, and was sunny all day. It was just the day to try my hilly metric century ride again. This time it went very well. I was tired at the end of the ride, but I had no pain in my arm, shoulder, or neck. The weather has been extremely unpredictable the last several days. I’ll look at the weather the night before and learn that I should be able to ride in the afternoon, but not in the morning. I’ll check the weather in the morning and see that I can ride in the morning, but not in the afternoon. By late morning or early afternoon, it becomes apparent that the thunderstorms that had a 95% chance of starting at Noon just couldn’t get started. And so it goes.

Last night we had a neighborhood “Chill and Grill”. The association provides hamburgers and hot dogs, buns, drinks, and plates / silverware / etc. Residents bring a side dish or desert. We had wonderful weather for the party. We sat inside, but the majority of residents were outside. After the party, one of the residents offered a movie. Just as we were walking in the house, a major thunderstorm started up. Lucky us!

Tomorrow is the last Symphony concert. This one is a little different. The orchestra will play music to accompany Charlie Chaplin’s “ModernTimes”. I’ve never actually seen the movie, although I have seen the famous takeout of Charlie working on the gears.  It should be a lot of fun. If we go out to eat afterwards, it will be someplace low-scale. Trying to eat at a restaurant on Mother’s Day is not our idea of fun. We make it a point to have Sunday breakfast at Panera on Mother’s Day, because it’s even less crowded than normal. And Panera serves a perfectly fine breakfast.

Physical Therapy is going very well. Last Wednesday, the therapist got 100% motion in my arm. I’m thinking this will be the last week of PT. That will give me even more flexibility for training.

Ed and Lynne Schmaus’s son Pete was working as the grounds keeper at a Boy Scout camp on the Eastern Shore. Pete lost that job this week. The house they were living in was provided as part of the job, so they lost the right to live in the house as well. We’re not sure what happened, and it doesn’t really matter. Pete, Rebecca, and their two daughters are moving in with Ed and Lynne. Lynne has been teaching Kindergarten full time for the last several years. She is well connected with the Baltimore County schools. She was able to get the older grandchild placed immediately because they are technically homeless. (The younger girl is too young for school.)

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

Note: There are no pictures this week.

After all the excitement we had last week, we were due for some quiet time. We had no neighborhood parties. We ate dinner out Saturday and breakfast this morning. Other than that, we didn’t go anywhere this weekend. I got a few good rides in. The higher handle bars are definitely a big improvement. I spent much of my time at CASA wiping sensitive data from computers so they can be donated or recycled. (As old as these computers are, they could still run Linux and Open Office.) I was able to add the Visitor Pool Passes to our neighborhood residents database. PT is starting to have a positive affect on my shoulder. That’s about it for the week.

I hope everybody is doing well.

Dennis

Note: There are no pictures this week.

Nothing particularly special happened this week. I’m close to finishing the computer upgrades at CASA. There’s more work to do, but maybe not a whole lot. I won’t mind if I run dry there. I work 4 hours a day, 2 days a week. I get a stipend, but the first two hours of my stipend goes towards paying for the mileage and parking. I had a meeting with the tech support company at Habitat. They agreed with my overall plan, but disagreed with my proposed implementation. Their solution is technically better and also more expensive. It’s not likely to happen at Habitat. There are other things I can do for them, so I’ll re-focus my energies there.

I’m still doing PT twice a week, which take an amazingly large chunk out of the week.

Not much happened on the bike. My bike is in the shop getting its handle bars raised. They ordered the wrong part. The process of ordering and receiving a part takes at least 2 days. I hope to get the bike back Monday or Tuesday. I’ve been riding my backup bike, but it’s not set up for longer rides. In addition, it has turned amazingly cold here. We had a freeze warning last night.

Fortunately, the entertainment rolls on. We had a SOCA party yesterday. Today, we are going to a BSO concert.

Next week we’re having an adventure. Danita and I will leave for North Carolina Friday, returning Monday. We plan to head over to the Charlotte area and knock on doors and see if anybody will let us visit with their children. I have an idea we’ll be successful with the first door we knock on. Danita’s dad is coming with us. He has a friend in Charlotte just 20 minutes from Jul’s house. Bud’s coming to our house Thursday for dinner and staying overnight. The trip should be quite different with a 3rd person in the car.

That’s in for this week. I’m not likely to write next week. But I just might have some pictures to share when I do finally write again. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Note: There are no pictures this week.

I did this season’s first metric century ride today. I rode 65 miles, climbing 5000 feet. That’s a little over 100 KM, or a metric century. The weather was perfect, but it turns out my body is a little less than perfect. I’m having real trouble reaching my handle bars. I’m going to have to find some way to get a more relaxed fit. The best thing about the ride was that The Snowball Stand was open. They didn’t have any ice cream today, but that’s not what I typically get at The Snowball Stand. However, I’m glad I asked. While I was standing there waiting for them to make my snowball, I overheard a mother ask her young daughter whether she wanted a snowball or ice cream. I knew where this was going, and warned her. I was fast enough that the girl didn’t have time to set her mind on ice cream, so all ended well.

I had a busy week. I had PT Monday and Wednesday, followed by a ride. (Actually, the continuation of the ride, since I rode my bike to PT.) I had work Thursday and Friday. I even had work on Saturday! Because computers at CASA were dying as I was trying to issue new ones, I had to issue several laptops before they were ready. Now that things are ready, we had 4 laptops that were issued and needed to be updated. It takes half a day to update them. People need to use their computers at work. So I came in Saturday morning to do the updates.

I think I mentioned before that our community association asked if I would mind being on an IT committee. I said that was fine with me. This week, I was asked to attend the board meeting. It’s certainly not everyday that I am summoned to appear before the board. I was joking with Danita that if they kick me out of the neighborhood, she can have the house. I don’t know what they think this IT committee is, but I’m pretty certain it’s not going to include attending board meetings every month.

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

Sue is one of the researchers that works in Danita’s research group. Don is Sue’s husband. (Does this make Don some kind of a brother-in-law through work?) This information is relevant because Don got excited about my trip to Maine. They invited us over to their house for dinner so he could pump me for information. Somehow it came out that Don tried to do a one-day ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway and found it very, very hard. In fact, he didn’t make it to his destination. He flagged down a pickup truck and hitched a ride to where he was staying. The next day, he had a local point out a shorter road going back. That sounded like a challenge to me. We kept egging each other on about riding the Blue Ridge. Finally, we decided to ride the parkway from Ashland, NC to Front Royal, VA (where it ends). After we get to Front Royal, we will ride on to Harper’s Ferry, WV. From there, I will ride home. Don might have Sue pick him up in Harper’s Ferry.

We need places to stay. Don can’t camp. I don’t want to carry the weight of camping gear in the mountains. We definitely do not want to ride into town, because that means riding down the side of a mountain, then riding back up the next morning. Mountains tend to be 2500 feet or so above civilization. Fortunately, there are enough places either on the parkway or just off the parkway that we can do the ride. These tend to be mountain vacation resorts. Monday, we made our hotel reservations for the entire trip, except for two places that aren’t open yet. This means every day is already planned out. We will ride the prescribed miles no matter the weather.

Blue Ridge Parkway

You can see a map of the trip here. (Click the picture to make it larger.) Notice that we will climb a total of 53,000 feet. That’s 10 miles! This in spite of the fact that Front Royal is 3,000 feet lower in elevation than is Ashland. The blue rectangles mark our hotels. We are planning shorter days where we can. (There are only so many hotels on the Blue Ridge Parkway). We will do the 500 mile ride in 2 weeks (July 12 – 26).

My bike training is just beginning. The weather has stayed stubbornly cool, with highs between 40 and 50 degrees. Yesterday, we had our first warm day, with a high of 62. It was my first ride this season with short sleeves and short pants. There was lots of skin to slather with sun block. It felt great. I even managed to work up a drop of sweat near the end of the ride — my first drop of sweat for the season! It was back to cool weather today, but next week we might get temperatures in the 70s. If the weather stays good, it won’t take long to build my distance and hill-climbing capacity. I’m champing at the bit, because there’s no doubt I will have to be in better shape than I was last year.

There’s not a lot of other news for us. We’re going to a concert at the Engineering Club tomorrow. The Engineering Club was once a very elegant house in Mount Vernon — the very fashionable neighborhood in downtown Baltimore (near Baltimore’s George Washington Monument). We’ll be hearing the Concert Artists of Baltimore perform. They’re playing some music that most folks don’t hear very often. It’s not exactly Beethoven, but it should be a fun concert.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Note: There are no pictures this week.

Happy Easter everybody. I hope yours is a good one. Ours will be a little different. Danita and I are going to Ed & Lynne’s as usual. But Ed raised turkeys, so we’re having turkey for Easter dinner. I think this is the first year that ham hasn’t been available. Given the weather forecast for today, I suspect we’ll be hiding plastic easter eggs inside this year.

I went back to work at CASA this week. When we started the computer upgrade project, we agreed we would use Windows 8 Pro and Windows 7 Pro. The reason for the “Pro” versions is that it allows them to encrypt sensitive files, and allows them to back up personal computers. It turns out the office manager is passive aggressive  and refused to order the software licenses. Two weeks ago, I ran out of useful work I could do. I don’t really need this job, and it’s against my ethics to make them pay $15 per hour for me to do nothing. I decided to stop going to work. This forced the issue. The licenses were ordered. They came in Tuesday. I went back to work Thursday. This didn’t change the passive aggressive nature of the office manager. Instead of giving me access to the downloads, she burned them onto disk “for” me. She burned Windows 7 instead of Windows 7 SP 1. I spent 4 hours downloading the service pack over their very slow data link. When she burned Windows 8 Pro, she copied the ISO file onto the disk instead of using the ISO file to create the CD-image. She clearly knew this was not the way to go, because she created the CD-image for everything else. Fortunately, I found a way to work around this. Two of the computers need a memory upgrade, which she didn’t order because she was “confused”, even though I sent her a web link. Finally, after forcing me to work every Thursday and Friday, she decided she couldn’t come to work Thursday or Friday, so we couldn’t “clarify” the computer memory upgrade.It’s frustrating to have a small project turned into a major production like this, but it’s nice that the work is optional. I’ll go in next week and maybe one day the week after. If the memory isn’t in by then, I’ll run out of work again and stop going in.

I have two projects in the works for Habitat. Both will take weeks to get going, as meetings must be held and after that hardware ordered.

In the meantime, the weather is getting nicer. I’m spending a little more time on the bike. One of the women who works for Danita has a husband who got very excited about my bike trip to Maine. Don and I were talking about bike trips and started talking about riding the Blue Ridge Parkway. This morphed into a 2-man ride up the Blue Ridge from Asheville, VA back to home. We’re planning to do the ride in mid-July. It should take about 2 weeks to ride the 500 miles. The mountains take a toll. We’re not planning on riding as many miles a day as I did riding to Maine. We won’t be doing any camping. Don isn’t at all interested in camping, and I’m not interested in carrying the weight of camping gear in the mountains. Except for Roanoke, we won’t be able to ride into a nearby town to get a hotel. It’s not that big a deal to ride an extra couple of miles. It’s no problem if those miles go down the side of the mountain. But going back up the mountain the next morning before even starting the daily ride is an overwhelming thought. Fortunately, there are enough hotels, B & Bs, and less expensive resorts right off the parkway to make the trip possible. Because some of the places are popular in the summer time, I’m going over to Don’s house tomorrow. We’ll make our reservations for each night of the trip. Except for the last two days, we should only ride 4 or 5 hours a day. That will give us some flexibility to ride around rain squalls. It should be a challenging adventure. After we finish the reservations, we’ll do a bike ride.

I got the results of an MRI of my brain this week. I was surprised to learn that I had a stroke. It’s an old stroke. I had an MRI about 17 years ago, and it wasn’t there then. It most likely happened during my surgery. But it might have happened while I was on Plavix. Or it might have happened some other time. I guess it’s true what people have been saying about me. I have a hole in my head (a missing tooth), and I’m brain-dead (stroke damage). It’s at least nice to know there’s something more than just bone between my ears.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.