I am writing this on Friday, Jan 31. There are no pics.

Is there a time when you should not tip a waitress? I have read that it is poor form not to tip. They say bad food is the kitchen’s fault. Slow service is the management’s fault (for not having enough wait staff). Last night was the first time in memory I didn’t tip. We went to Ruby Tuesday at 9071 Snowden River Pkwy, Columbia, MD 21046. (Just to keep the record straight.) The restaurant was cold. When our waitress came to take our order, I told her I was cold. She said the heat was already all the way up, she had been cold all night. I didn’t find that very helpful. While waiting for the food, I got colder. I put my jacket on. Then I put my hat on. For whatever reason, I just couldn’t warm up. On my third complaint, our waitress said they had decided to close this section because it was too cold. “Thanks”, I said. Just before we got the check, the manager came over. He offered to re-seat us. (After we were done eating). He said the section was now closed. (Still not very helpful.) He said next time, let them know when we sit down and they will re-seat us. By now, Danita and I were both pretty unhappy. The last comment from the manager convinced me not to leave a tip. We had complained when we first sat down, and several other times. The manager told me the waitress had done nothing until the meal was over. I wonder if the waitress and the manager think we were unreasonable. I doubt we’ll find out, because we won’t be going back any time real soon.

On a much brighter note, we’re going to Florida. (There might be pictures next week.) Danita has a meeting at work this morning, so we booked an afternoon flight down. We’re returning Tuesday.

We’re going down to visit Mom and Glen of course. We’re looking forward to seeing them. Just to show how hip Mom is, she has already set up a Super Bowl party. Normally I would say it’s also quite nice to escape some cold and lousy weather. Lord knows it’s been cold enough this year. There are news articles about ships getting stuck in the ice in the bay. But as it happens, we are heading into a warm spell. Baltimore temperatures will be near 50 while we are in Florida. Not to worry. It will be cold again by Tuesday, along with a little freezing rain.

Wednesday I have a doctor’s appointment. Also on Wednesday evening I *don’t* have my second class. They cancelled my class due to low enrollment. They were very good about cancelling the class promptly and letting me know in a timely manner. But I haven’t heard about the refund yet. I guess that can wait until next week.

I’ve also been busy with issues at the clubhouse. Issue 1: Our assistant is pretty good at entering residents in our database by now. The only thing I’m doing is keeping an eye on recent entries. Issue 2: I found several people who have passes but aren’t in the database. We think these are folks who move in, receive passes at settlement, and don’t register with the clubhouse. I wrote a new report in the database to help the staff quickly find and manage this issue. I generated the list of affected residents and helped the assistant get started on getting these folks registered. Issue 3: The program I used to back up one of the computers hasn’t been working since our new assistant started. I’ve been trying to fix the program and doing backups manually. Last week, I gave up on the old program. I found another program, got comments from everybody concerned about such things, installed the new program, and updated our IT documentation. I thought everything was all squared away. I stopped into the clubhouse yesterday to say hi, only to learned about Issue 4: they needed to move one of the computers. This involved crawling on the floor, routing wires around furniture, and such. This while they were fretting about decorations for the Super Bowl party. Now everything at the clubhouse is squared away. I’m certain of it, because I’m not stopping in again until next week.

Well, I’ve been getting pretty good at cold weather riding (as long as the streets are clear of snow & ice, of course). I can get a short ride in before flight time. I hope this finds everybody doing well.