I am writing this on Sunday, 8/10. There are 2 pics.
Friday was Danita’s birthday. She’s not been one to be upset about birthdays, but having her 60th birthday, combined with the retirement planing we’ve started, made this one a little traumatic for her. We had a 3-part celebration. Thursday, we went to the Highland Inn, an upscale restaurant. It was a bit of a drive, but the food was fabulous and the price was quite reasonable for what we got. Friday we had a neighborhood “Chill and Grill”. I picked up a birthday cake as our contribution to the desert table. Lots of people stopped by to wish Danita a happy birthday. There were lots of jokes about how hard I worked on Danita’s birthday cake. It took me all week! (I ordered it Monday, picked it up Friday.) It was like inviting 150 people to a birthday party, but a whole lot cheaper. Today after Church, we drove up to Baltimore and had breakfast at First Watch Cafe. This is a breakfast-and-lunch only place with the specialty of using only fresh ingredients. It’s a bit of a drive, but the breakfast is fabulous and we had a great time.
Rouse Rock
We continued our Columbia walks. We visited a wetlands area. It was one of the shortest walks, but it was a nice one. Much of it was boardwalk, which let us get up-close-and-personal to the wetlands. It was very nice except for one short section. There was a gazebo in the middle of a small pond connected to the trail by a section of boardwalk. It was very pretty, but impossible to reach. A couple of geese had taken up residence on the connecting boardwalk. This was their territory and they weren’t budging for anybody. One would have to be quite determined in any event, given the quantity of bird poop on that section of the boardwalk. Our other walk was in the most popular recreational park of the area. It’s called Centennial Lake. The trail is a little over 2 1/2 miles. The park is always jammed with walkers, runners, cyclists, kids, boaters, and fishermen. The highlight of this walk was two more “Rouse Rocks”. These were much smaller, and “in memory of” instead of a “gift to”. I continue to be amazed.
I consider the “Rouse Rocks” to be one of my Columbia stories. These are stories about things that are a little off beat, humorous, and illustrate how life in Columbia is different than life anywhere else in the known universe. From our unique street names, to the amazing obsession about the street sign format, to the commercial underbelly, to the complete lack of straight roads, to see-saws; they make quite a collection of stories. But I have lost my favorite Columbia story. You might remember that the bus routes in Columbia are denoted by colors, the buses are painted green, and the bus route is displayed by a yellow electronic sign. This gave me my my story about the green bus with the yellow sign that says red. But I can’t use that story any more. Columbia, Howard County, and parts of Arundel County regionalized their buses. They changed the bus route names from memorable colors like “red” to bland numbers like “407”. And the buses aren’t necessarily green. And they don’t all use yellow electronic signs anyway. The world just keeps on changing. Uniqueness keeps on disappearing. We keep moving from the interesting to the bland bourgeois. What is an old grouch to do but observe and complain?
Power Up 3
I invested in a Kickstarter project! These are companies that use the internet to find the funds to develop interesting things. This project is a remote-control paper airplane, controlled by your smart phone. It sounds like a great idea that would be a lot of fun. It’s called Power Up 3. For my $30, I got an electronic module that looks like a high-tech cockpit, a piece of carbon-fiber rod, and a propeller / rudder assembly. (the propeller goes behind the rudder at the back of the plane.) Just fold a piece of paper into an airplane (the template is on the web), clip on the Power Up 3, download the app, and have fun. It turned out to be more funny than fun, and the joke was on me. On my very first flight, the plane nosed down towards the ground, then flew towards my neighbor’s deck, climbing sharply to an altitude of about 25 feet. After almost literally hitting the deck, it staled, rolled, and headed back towards the ground. It recovered briefly then nose-planted into the grass. The propeller quickly began chewing its way into the grass. What made the flight so funny was the pilot, because about the time the propeller started buzzing along the ground, I finally realized that the plane was climbing too steeply and would soon stall if I didn’t do *something* to my smart phone to correct the flight. The abrupt landing must have misaligned the plane in a way I couldn’t detect, because that was by far the best and most interesting flight I ever had. Although the time it rolled and flew upside-down for 30 feet before crashing was kind of interesting also. And to think my main concern is that it would fly out of range of my smart phone and I would lose control. Ha! I never once was able to provide any correction, either good or bad, while the plane was still in the air. Having exhausted my patience, I went back to the you-tube video of the plane in flight. This time I noticed how unstable the plane is, and how it needs frequent and timely corrections just to keep in the air. Oh, well. Live and learn.
I hope this finds everybody doing well.