Starting with a sad event, Houlihan’s permanently closed. This was a restaurant with the second best meatloaf in the county (after Danita’s). The next restaurant is so far below Houlihan’s I wouldn’t even give it a nod. There’s plenty of OK meatloaf. It’s just that Houlihan’s was particularly good. Fortunately, they had their meatloaf on sale for $10 less than a month ago, and we took advantage of it.

Moving from sad to shady, First Watch gave me a breakfast BOGO for my birthday. That was very nice. To use the BOGO, I have to create an account and order online, or order from their smart phone app, or dine in. We won’t be dining in until AP (After Pandemic), so that means to get the BOGO I have to let them store my credit card number on their servers. I find that sleazy. This Sunday Bob Evans is in rotation. When First Watch is up, I plan to try to order to-go in person, then go out to the car and wait for the food to be prepared. (It’s usually about 15 minutes). I definitely don’t trust First Watch to store my credit card.

The “best misadventure” award goes to trash collection. Danita and I got our second Shingle shots Tuesday. By Wednesday we both felt miserable. We had aches. We felt cold. I was still in my PJs when I heard the trash truck. Oops. I forgot to put the trash out. Danita was dressed. She ran the trash can down the street, hailing the trash men. Sorry about that, Danita!

Now for the “worst misadventure” award. I rode my bike to get groceries as I do every Thursday. Everything was normal until it was time to insert my credit card in the self-checkout machine. My wallet wasn’t there. I had the store put the order on hold and rode my bike home (about an hour). I went to my wallet drawer, and the wallet wasn’t there either. Both Danita and I looked everywhere. We never found it. There were no fraudulent charges. I had my normal complement of insurance ID, drivers license, and credit cards. It only took about an hour to cancel cards and order replacements. Friday I got the new credit card number. It took another hour to switch all the auto-charges to the new card. (I keep a list of all auto-payments just for this kind of emergency.) I had a new wallet delivered Friday. Danita and I will be getting new cards over the next several weeks.

Our most fun activity was a food truck yesterday. This time it was “Greek on the Street”. We had dinner with our neighbors. (Extremely socially distanced, of course.) Danita and I both had Gyro sandwiches. We split an order of Greek fries. We couldn’t believe how many fries we got for $5. It made a McDonalds super size look wimpy. We literally couldn’t eat them all.

It was definitely as much excitement as I want in one week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We combined a Thanksgiving day Zoom with a baby shower for Jiajia. It was a lot of fun. Danita prepared two Cornish Hens for dinner and made some of her most excellent sausage stuffing.

Our most interesting Zoom was a concert called Latency. Back in the day, the BBC formed a group of musicians to make electronic music for shows like Dr. Who. They called themselves the Radiophonic Workshop. They played some of their better known works and performed one new piece live. Each member was in their home, playing over the internet. This is much harder than it sounds because the internet adds delays, making it impossible for the musicians to keep together. Their music was famous for using tape recorders to purposely create delays. They came up with the idea of setting themselves up with equipment that created an intentional delay loop. Each musician added to the piece as the loop passed through their house. Following the language of the day, the concert was far out. The concert is on YouTube. You can hear it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWYIQMzRUd8

I hope everybody had an enjoyable Thanksgiving day.

We had lots of Zoom seminars this week. The funniest one was a seminar about Beethoven’s 9th symphony. It featured the conductor of the Johns Hopkins Orchestra and the acting manager of the local classical music station. Both have impeccable music backgrounds. But I found their presentation so far fetched as to be humorous. They were talking about specific musical phrases and associating them to specific events such as the creation of the universe. There’s no doubt Beethoven had a large vision and high ambitions, but somehow I think he probably good a good chuckle out of this detailed analysis. Who knows? Maybe they’re right. To me, there is no physical meaning. I enjoy the music.

This is the holiday season, but severely lacking in holiday activities. It strikes home as we go through days with traditional activities that aren’t going to happen this year. In spite of our self-imposed restrictions, we’re doing what we can. Notably, we had ginger snap cookies and port wine cheese after dinner last night. This is extremely noteworthy because it portends a dinner of sour beef and buttons. For dinner tonight! Woo-Hoo! One recipe makes a lot of food. We plan to freeze leftovers and enjoy multiple dinners.

A new bagel restaurant is doing a soft opening. We had their omelet and bagel breakfast this morning. It was pretty good.

I’ve written a couple of times about neck and upper back pain from bike riding. After spending weeks looking at options, I decided to get a recumbent tricycle. I literally considered every recumbent trike sold in the US. Many of these are outrageously expensive. I selected the Hase Trigo. It has a good reputation. It’s expensive but half to third the price of many others. It has a very tall seat for recumbent. That makes for good visibility. There’s nothing in stock, but a shipment is due in December. For now, I plan to keep both bikes. I have some rides I like to take that the trike might not work for.

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

It was a fairly normal week. We had some Zooms. We had some carry out meals. We had several really good home cooked meals. Nothing unusual happened.

I’ve been having problems with my neck and upper back being sore at the end of a bike ride. I tried Danita’s bike. Hers is a “crank forward” design. The idea is that I would sit more upright and not have to be as flexible. It was great for eliminating my neck pain, but my upper back pain persisted. I guess I’ll try something else.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We are having unbelievably nice weather. I did a ride today in 75 degree weather. I was in summer clothes, and sweating! I wasn’t sweating a lot, but I think this is the first time I ever sweat outdoors in November. I’ve missed two interesting Zooms. I carefully planned my day Friday so I could watch a Zoom from the Museum of Industry about Baltimore industry during WW II. I was going to hit the road immediately after that Zoom so I could get home in time for a Circle Zoom. About an hour before the Zoom was supposed to start, I learned that the Zoom would be an hour later. It was too late to get a ride in and catch the Zoom. Danita enjoyed the presentation.

We usually watch a couple of hours of TV after dinner. We ran out of interesting Amazon Prime videos quite a while ago. We’ve been using Netflix. We’re getting pretty good at finding interesting content. Right now we’re watching Lucifer and Queens Gambit. I didn’t think a series about a woman who plays chess could possibly be interesting. But there were so many good reviews that we gave it a try. It’s quite good.

Bud called Sunday and said his mouth hurt from his tooth extraction. He’s doesn’t normally complain. Danita and I spent almost all day Monday taking him to the oral surgeon and the regular dentist. It seems to have been a false alarm. That took a lot of time, but the good news is quite welcome.

Our class about detective novellas is more work than we intended. The first book was a fun read. The next book was written in England in the 1950s. The third was written in New Zeeland in the 1940s. There’s too many English words! Even the Kindle dictionary doesn’t recognize them all. Plus there are allusions to pop culture of the day that we don’t get. Still, we’re learning interesting things about how detective novels are constructed, and some of the things that make them interesting.

That’s the news for this week. I hope all are doing well.

I spent several hours Saturday finishing up the computer swaps in our clubhouse. I also made progress on our clubhouse WiFi. We purchased an outdoor WiFi device to cover the pool area. I spent several more hours Saturday plus most of this morning taking data and coming up with some options for installation. We’ll have to find a way to route Ethernet cable through the clubhouse to where the WiFi device will be mounted.

Danita and I took Bud to the oral surgeon to have two teeth removed. Bud did well. By the end of the week, he was eating real foods.

The front derailleur stopped working on my bike. That’s the part that changes the gears. I was having trouble shifting down to the low gears. I took it to the bike shop. They mis-diagnosed the problem and did an adjustment. Two days later, I was back at the bike shop, completely unable to shift into low gear. This time the problem was obvious. The bike works great.

The backup sump pump is not doing very well. We have a water powered backup pump and it didn’t work. The pump company sent me a new pump under warranty and gave me a lot of advice on how to make it work better. One thing that was needed was to enlarge a hole in the sump cover from 2″ to 3 1/2″. I bought a hole saw, and learned that while drilling a 3 1/2″ hole isn’t very hard, enlarging an existing hole is a whole lot harder. A plumber came by Friday and spent 3 hours installing everything. When all was done, it still didn’t work. In fact, it’s possible that it never worked. I have some things I want to do yet. We’ll see how it turns out.

I was so busy dong stuff that I missed three Zooms that sounded interesting. One was about Baltimore Arabbers. We still have them. In fact, there are two active arabber horse stables. Unfortunately, the main guest either didn’t show or couldn’t get their computer to work. Danita told me they did a brief interview of an arabber. He told stories of the 500 days he spent in solitary while in prison. If you don’t know abut the arabbers, here’s a YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5h5LDVwZHg The other two zooms were about Day of the Dead dancers. Danita told me the videography was so bad she stopped watching. It’s not easy to make a bunch of people dancing look good.

There aren’t very many Zooms for us next week. But the rain should roll out, allowing more time for bike rides. In low gear!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Most of my cycling is done on the road. But I also ride paved trails where I need them to cross major highways. That has been a challenge this week. In places there are so many leaves on the ground that I can’t see where the pavement is. I just slow down and aim for the center of the trail. It’s kind of like a winter white-out, but in the fall and with leaves. My other issue lately has been my back and neck. My body isn’t as flexible as it used to be. In the last few weeks, I’ve been getting pains in my neck and upper back. I’ve found some relief in doing “yogling” (yoga cycling). I stretch my head out and keep a straight line from my sitz bones to the top of my head. But I don’t close my eyes, say ooom, or put my hands together at the center of my chest.

Bud is turning 90. We’re having a small shindig this afternoon. It will be Ed, Lynne, Danita, and me in Bud’s apartment. Lynn and Gene will participate by Zoom, as will Rick and Suzy. Bud asked his neighbor to attend, but the neighbor declined due to Covid concerns. Tuesday we’ll take Bud to an oral surgeon to have two teeth extracted. I won’t be welcome in the waiting room. I’ll bring plenty of reading material.

A lot of our Zooms are ended or ending. The Fitzgerald and Hemingway class is done, as is the Maryland Music class. We have our last Jazz class this week. Other Zooms are picking up the slack. There are several presentations about Baltimore architecture, Day of the Dead traditions, and art topics. The Walters Art Museum had a wonderful presentation on transparent enamels. Plus we start a class about Mystery Novels under 200 pages. Danita found so many Zooms that I don’t watch them all. I missed two yesterday, trying to figure out where the pavement is that gets me over US 29.

Our neighborhood finally got our door security software moved to the new computer. That meant I was clear to do the last computer swap. I did that Saturday. The new computer is installed, but it took so long that I didn’t get everything done. One issue is that the monitor is so old that it doesn’t have an HDMI port. The computer offers only HDMI. I am lending my monitor to the neighborhood for now.

Another interesting development was the outdoor WiFi. The question was whether we can use existing security camera wiring to get an Ethernet signal outdoors. It took many hours of poking around to figure out what the security folks do. (They are habitually secretive.) Eventually I was able to figure out how our existing security camera wiring works, how to use that wiring for an Ethernet signal, and that the solution costs several hundred dollars. I suspect we’ll be looking for a cheap way to run an Ethernet cable through the wall. It took a year to do the computer swap. We’ll see how long it takes to install the poolside WiFi.

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

We had lots of Zooms this week. The sleeper was a tour of Clifton Mansion. This estate was owned by Johns Hopkins. He wanted his university to be on this property. It didn’t happen. The mansion was used as a golf course clubhouse for a while. One of the chimneys fell down along with part of the roof. It was a mess and an eyesore. Today its being renovated. The roof and chimney are fixed. Many areas are completed. It has a commanding view of Baltimore. Here’s one pic. You can find plenty more on the internet. We were inspired to put it “on the list”. But we weren’t inspired enough to donate money or volunteer.

Danita and I took Bud to the podiatrist Tuesday. Ed and Lynne took him to the dentist Wednesday. It takes two of us to get him between his wheel chair and the car.

Our clubhouse WiFi was very slow. I don’t know what the problem is, but there’s no doubt it was the WiFi Access Point. Another guy and I installed a new one today. The speed is back, but the signal isn’t as strong. We’re considering how we will get WiFi poolside.

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

Not much new is happening here in Columbia. The food truck was a success. Instead of eating in our driveway with a few neighbors, we moved the cars and ate in the garage. With cooler weather, it was good to be out of the breeze. It was also nice to have the garage lights to counteract the earlier sunset. Unfortunately, the free ice cream was a dud. The freezer in our clubhouse stopped working. Instead of ice cream, we had melted goop. Fortunately, I was able to buy a key-lime-pie-in-a-jar. We also enjoyed an evening of wine, snacks, and conversation with the Jonses this week.

Other than that, we’re watching educational Zooms. I’m bike riding. Danita’s walking. We’re reading. We even watch a little TV.

I hope this finds everybody well.

I reached a milestone this week. To my knowledge, the house works. I’m sure that means I’ve overlooked something. But for the moment, I’ll accept my false sense of accomplishment.

Danita is the queen of interesting stuff. We are taking our Osher course on Hemmingway and Fitzgerald. We are taking a course on jazz, taught by a Peabody professor. We are taking a course on Maryland music, taught by another Peabody professor. This week we start “Quantum Sensing for Everyone”, taught by an APL PhD. We have prep work for Quantum Sensing. The first class will be about error estimation. There’s no math in this course, just general concepts. I think starting with error estimation is an excellent beginning. It’s a far cry from college. But it’s good to keep the mind active. We’ve never benefited so much from being Hopkins Alumni. As an extra bonus, UMBC has a twice a year lecture series that is available through video streaming this time around. We will attend a lecture about Cleopatra.

I’m enjoying an almost embarrassing level of good food this week. Danita made meatloaf last night. That means meatloaf sandwiches for lunch. Plus we had our big Sunday breakfast — from Bob Evans this morning. Plus we have a neighborhood food truck dinner this evening. Danita and I will be ordering from the seafood truck. Danita is looking forward to crab cakes. I want the shrimp salad sandwich. They also have Key Lime Pie in a jar. It is quite tasty. And the neighborhood is giving out free ice cream — Nutty Buddies or ice cream sandwiches. By the end of the week, I’ll be waddling around the house.

This is the last day our pool is open. Danita has been going in the afternoon after temperatures are 65 or so. The pool has a heater, but it isn’t keeping up. Danita plans to try walking for exercise next week. I’ve been riding in the afternoon to catch warmer weather. It’s going to be a long winter. We’ll be finding lots of ways to keep our spirits up.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.