We started the week off with a bang. We had Christmas Zoom concerts two nights in a row. The first was a baroque concert. They suggested enjoying cookies and hot chocolate with the concert. We didn’t buy their concert pack, but we did get some Oreos and make a nice cup of hot mocha. The other concert had each musician playing or singing in their own home. I don’t know how they kept everybody synchronized. Even the children chorus did quite well. Their last number was a jazz piece with irregular rhythms. I could tell they had a little trouble with that one. But overall, it was a great concert.

Sunday was neighborhood luminary night. Folks were invited to make luminaries and put them out from 6 to 7. Danita made several. It was fun walking around the neighborhood. Here’s a picture of the Jones with their luminaries.

Mom has been cooking meals that Mark and JiaJia can heat up after the baby comes. These are our favorite recipes that feed a family. Danita and I ate a little bit and froze the rest. Mark and Jiajia picked really good recipes. Danita and I have been eating really well.

Christmas day we had a small zoom with just Mark, Jiajia, and the Reeds. That was fun. One of our gifts was a 6-month subscription to “The Great Courses”. These are lecture courses. Most of them are 24 lectures, so we got started right away. We picked out 10 courses to watch together, plus we both have a few courses that just one of us is interested in. Five days a week at 9:00, Danita and I watch two lectures. In 6 months when we’re all done, we should have had our vaccination and we should be able to get out more. So far, the lectures have been excellent.

I also built a database this week. I use Quicken for our budget. Quicken has become quite cumbersome for what I need these days. It wants me to store data in the cloud, which I’m reluctant to do. Every time I start Quicken, the connection to the cloud account has to time out. I want to review accounts daily. It’s extra work to do that without the cloud storage. I decided I could build a database that I can use for our budget. The basic database is done. I will be using both Quicken and the database until I’m confident everything is working well. Then I’ll add some features. The cool thing is that I can make the database work exactly the way I want. I had to spend a lot of time looking things up. I forgot all the details of syntax and formatting. But it’s been a lot of fun. I haven’t done work like this in years.

My new bike has been delayed. Plus the dealer doesn’t usually stock the configuration I want. I want to test ride before putting down a hefty deposit. The dealer had one of the first bikes made by this manufacturer with the configuration I want in his warehouse. We agreed I would use that as the test ride. I rode it this week and it’s exactly what I expected. I put the deposit down. The dealer said I could take the old bike home and ride it while waiting for the new bike. I was pleased to find the bike fit in our car, so I took it home. Unfortunately, really old bikes develop issues. The chain was too loose. I fixed that (imperfectly). Then I found that one of the wheels was reluctant to turn — the brake was rubbing against the wheel. I started looking at that when I noticed one of the tires had gone flat. I hadn’t ridden even 5 miles. At this point, I decided I was getting a friendly message from my guardian angel about the wisdom of riding this very old bike. The bike’s in the garage waiting for the new bike to come in. One good thing is that I verified the new bike will fit in the garage.

That’s the news from Columbia. I hope everybody had a pleasant Christmas

Even without the parties or the prospects of seeing family in person, it’s starting to feel a little like the holidays. Danita put up decorations a couple of weeks ago. Radio music has been seasonal. We even got some genuine winter weather. It was about an inch of mostly ice. Streets are clear throughout the area. (Clear enough for safe driving, not clear enough for a bike.) Sidewalks in our neighborhood are clear, making it easy to take walks. We have 5 condos, each on its own loop. I call the neighborhood walk a “5 leaf clover” walk. Temperatures are staying near freezing, so Columbia trails are impassable.

I thought I would have my new bike by now. I don’t. It’s going to be a lot longer and quite a bit harder than I thought. That’s OK. Long bike rides are problematic this time of year.

And that is all the news that’s fit to print. I hope this finds everyone doing well.

This week our lives included the best Zoom we have ever seen, and the worst. The best was about insect diversity in Costa Rica. It’s from Road Scholar. This was a free presentation, so I’m passing it on. The presenter is a delightful person, very entertaining, and knows a lot about insects. I promise you will be entertained and you will learn a lot if you watch it. The recording is on the web through Dec 23. Here’s the link.

https://roadscholar.zoom.us/rec/share/WlUBEmLkpjE7Pnoxgx04sypnqOaqyZlwL1Lp9VorKfb05VOHPH2fkBe22N50eDE1.5EX2PypnMQ0DQn31

The worst was a presentation from Peabody about medieval music. Music was performed on instruments of the time. The performer had very good technique, but the music didn’t sound musical. I certainly hope that medieval people had better music than this.

The rest of the week was pretty standard. We had our last Detective Novella class Thursday. COVID is still running rampant after the Thanksgiving holiday. Many counties in Maryland are closing indoor dining. Some are also closing outdoor dining. That doesn’t affect us. Carry out is still allowed. We’ll be having a Bob Evans breakfast Sunday. Our neighborhood is bringing a seafood food truck Sunday. This is the truck that offers Key Lime pie in a jar. It tastes a lot better than it sounds.

We’ve enjoyed some very mild weather the last few days. Highs have been near 60, with sunny skies and mild wind. It’s perfect for outdoor activities, such as bicycling!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

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.