There are no pics this week.
We had a week of beautiful weather — warm and sunny through Wednesday. It was rainy Thursday, but Friday it was dry with highs near 80. I went out to Frederick Friday to enjoy the extraordinary weather. I can get to Frederick in less than an hour, so it’s not a long drive. Frederick County has 3 covered bridges. While Frederick County is in the foothills, much of it is basically flat.There’s several variations of a ride that goes through all 3 bridges, called “Covered Bridges Get Stoned”. I’m not sure where the name came from, because this is not an area with very many stone fences. Perhaps its because one of the bridges is on stone pilings. But the name stuck. It’s one of the more famous bike rides in the state. All of the routes go through very pretty farm country and have no major hills. Of more practical importance, all of them start at a public park with plenty of free parking and spot-a-pots. I chose a 40-mile ride. My plan was to have lunch in Emmitsburg. Unfortunately, I left my camera and money in the car. I saw lots of interesting sights, but I have no pics. And I had a delayed lunch.
I’m glad I got a lot of riding in last week. This week, we are promised highs in the 50s. There’s rain in the forecast for Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday should be nice, but I’m meeting Tony Chaprnka for lunch and I’m leading a web posting class in the afternoon. So there may not be very much riding this week.
We had our October church dinner last night. Danita and I worked as servers until the rush was over, then we enjoyed a very nice dinner. It was a fun evening. Today, we’re going to see Tom Hanks in “Bridge of Spies”. We have high hopes for this movie. The preview I saw had the coolest car — a perfect example of cars of that era.
This week has been filled with technology challenges. I told you I couldn’t answer phone calls on my smart phone and got a flip phone. The rest of the smart phone was working, and I was counting on it staying that way. Unfortunately, it started freezing once a day. Then it started freezing twice a day. It’s pretty clear where this was going, and I count on it for my calendar, contacts, notes, password vault, and other functions. I looked around and noticed that a tablet is a *lot* cheaper than a smart phone. I don’t understand why, because a tablet has the same computer chips as a smart phone. It has a larger and much nicer display. But it’s 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost. Whatever the reason, a tablet makes sense for me. There’s plenty of Wi-Fi around. I’ve very seldom felt the need to get data over the cell phone network. I chose the Nexus 7, 2013 edition. It came in this week, and I really like it. It’s small enough to fit in my cargo pockets (4.5″ x 8″), large enough to easily do anything I want on the web, and runs all the little programs I rely on so much. My biggest problem using the tablet is the on-screen keyboard, which I have never mastered. I ordered a tiny keyboard that is supposed to clip on and double as a case to protect the screen. We’ll see how well that works when it comes in next week, but it gets pretty good reviews.
The next technology challenge was Verizon FIOS. We were getting a $20/month “Preferred Customer” discount. The discount ended last month. When I called them up, Verizon said the discount is no longer available. But I can save $10/month if I increase my bandwidth from 15 MBits to 50 MBits and sign up for a 2-year contract. I don’t understand why it’s cheaper if I triple my bandwidth, but I *really* don’t understand why it’s more expensive if I drop the TV. I took the deal because it was the cheapest thing they would offer me. Unfortunately, the deal comes with a new router. I worked on the new router most of the week, and finally had everything working again yesterday. The reviews say that some people have had problems with this router. I have 30 days to return my old router. I plan to see how things work for a couple of weeks before making any decisions.
The third technology challenge is our web site. I proposed an addition that would let residents log into the website. I had installed the changes on my computer and had a pretty good idea of how it will work. The proposal includes moving resident information from a database on our office computer to out website, with suitable controls on who sees what information. I wrote a brief description and asked for approval to move forward. I got a raft of stuff from our president about privacy of resident information. From my viewpoint, there is no change in privacy. But obviously either some people misunderstand what I’m proposing or not everybody shares my perception of the Internet. Whatever happens next, it won’t be before mid-December, when all the important people can be available to discuss this.
With snow-bird season fast approaching, it might be quite a while before we decide what to do. It might end up being over a year before we implement this. We have photographs of everybody who has a pool pass. Most of the data can be transferred to the website automatically, but the pool pass photos have to be scanned and uploaded one at a time. I want the winter season to do this while the pool is closed. I was thinking to do it this winter. But now it looks like it might be next winter.
Here’s hoping that your challenges are as minor and as easy to manage as mine, and that this finds everybody doing well.
