Bezabor: (posted from home)
Monday, 20 February-
I worked on taxes through mid-afternoon and then rode the motorcycle to Starbuck’s in Camp Hill for a coffee, then to Pinchot State Park for a walk. It was a nice 38-degree day though warmer walking downwind than into the light-but-cold wind. I headed back the Pinchot Trail and Ridge Trail and circled around toward the campground. Part-way around I saw what looked like a new trail leading off into the pines so turned onto it. But it soon split, then split again, and again. Before long it disappeared into trails leading away in multiple directions but none of them very distinct. I could have backtracked but wanted to keep exploring this nice remote-feeling area so I just kept the sun at about 10 o’clock (in other words off my left and slightly ahead) to keep going in a straight line and before long I came out (after playing in the briars a while) at the campground—that was fun!
I headed back to the bike and as I entered the parking lot there was a guy about my age jogging along behind his Dalmatian. He was just stopping to gather his breath so we chatted a bit. It turns out he’s a retiree from the same facility— I retired in September, he retired in November. And as we chatted, what do you think he said? He wishes he had something to do….and then he added: “But I don’t want to work, either”. He said the only thing he has been doing since retiring is taking his dog for a walk. Holy frijoles. This is getting to be a recurring theme.
Sunday, 19 February-
It was another cold day so I didn’t mind spending much of it continuing to work on taxes. I have quite a lot of work to do yet, mostly in figuring out how to correct an error we made in a previous year. That evening we watched our latest Netflix movie “Turtles Can Fly”. It’s about orphan children in a small village and refugee camp just about to be over-run by American forces in the Iraq War. It’s a tragic story but highly recommended.
Saturday, 18 February-
With the colder weather keeping me inside, I worked on taxes most of the day. That evening we went to a potluck dinner featuring a powerpoint presentation about a four-month-long boating trip. Local boaters Fred and Pat spent June through September 2005 taking their 30-foot trawler from the Chesapeake up to the Hudson, then across the Erie Canal, across Lake Ontario, up the Rideau Canal to the Ottawa River, then on to Montreal and the St Lawrence River, then down the Chamblay Canal, Lake Champlain and the Champlain Canal back to the Hudson and then home. After seeing this presentation, I’ve decided Fred is my new hero. He’s now 70 years old, he did last summer’s trip in a 32-year-old trawler, he toured the US by motorcycle in 1979, he sailed Canada’s North Channel in his 25-foot sailboat, he still likes to take whitewater rafting trips each year and he’s a soft-spoken, humble guy….quite a role model!
Friday, 17 February-
It was supposed to start rapidly getting cold around lunch time today and this morning we had winds in the fifty-mile-per-hour range as the temps dropped from a high of 57 to a more seasonal mid-day temp of 40. Labashi and I drove in to Eastern Market to pick up some groceries in the morning. In the afternoon I had a doctor’s appointment to have a sebaceous cyst surgically removed from my scalp. It was about the size of a pea so I joked with the doctor about my wife being concerned about the cyst possibly being the location of my pea-sized brain. The procedure was amazingly easy—the only thing I felt at all was the first insertion of the nummy-needle. He closed it up with four stitches and told me I’d have a divot there for quite a while. The stitches look like I have a big, black carpenter ant on my scalp and they have to stay there for ten days… oh, well!
That evening we watched the last Alias episode on disk 5 then I watched the movie “Secuestro Express” while Labashi worked on the web. Labashi wasn’t interested in the movie because it sounded pretty violent in the reviews on RottenTomatoes.com but it turned out not to be too bad. The story was about the rapidly-growing Latin American practice of an ‘express’ kidnapping. Where a regular kidnapping can last for weeks, months, even years, the express version consists of the kidnappers grabbing someone overnight or for a day or two while they demand and collect a relatively small ransom from family.
Thursday, 16 February-
I worked on our taxes again today but didn’t strain myself. It was another extra-warm, 55-degree, sunny day so Labashi and I drove down to Rudy Park in the afternoon to walk again. There was still too much snow (and in some places there’s too much mud) to get off the paved walking path but the path is long enough to keep things interesting. We walked for two hours before heading home. That evening we watched three Alias epidsodes (Season Four, Disk Five).
Monday, 20 February-
I worked on taxes through mid-afternoon and then rode the motorcycle to Starbuck’s in Camp Hill for a coffee, then to Pinchot State Park for a walk. It was a nice 38-degree day though warmer walking downwind than into the light-but-cold wind. I headed back the Pinchot Trail and Ridge Trail and circled around toward the campground. Part-way around I saw what looked like a new trail leading off into the pines so turned onto it. But it soon split, then split again, and again. Before long it disappeared into trails leading away in multiple directions but none of them very distinct. I could have backtracked but wanted to keep exploring this nice remote-feeling area so I just kept the sun at about 10 o’clock (in other words off my left and slightly ahead) to keep going in a straight line and before long I came out (after playing in the briars a while) at the campground—that was fun!
I headed back to the bike and as I entered the parking lot there was a guy about my age jogging along behind his Dalmatian. He was just stopping to gather his breath so we chatted a bit. It turns out he’s a retiree from the same facility— I retired in September, he retired in November. And as we chatted, what do you think he said? He wishes he had something to do….and then he added: “But I don’t want to work, either”. He said the only thing he has been doing since retiring is taking his dog for a walk. Holy frijoles. This is getting to be a recurring theme.
Sunday, 19 February-
It was another cold day so I didn’t mind spending much of it continuing to work on taxes. I have quite a lot of work to do yet, mostly in figuring out how to correct an error we made in a previous year. That evening we watched our latest Netflix movie “Turtles Can Fly”. It’s about orphan children in a small village and refugee camp just about to be over-run by American forces in the Iraq War. It’s a tragic story but highly recommended.
Saturday, 18 February-
With the colder weather keeping me inside, I worked on taxes most of the day. That evening we went to a potluck dinner featuring a powerpoint presentation about a four-month-long boating trip. Local boaters Fred and Pat spent June through September 2005 taking their 30-foot trawler from the Chesapeake up to the Hudson, then across the Erie Canal, across Lake Ontario, up the Rideau Canal to the Ottawa River, then on to Montreal and the St Lawrence River, then down the Chamblay Canal, Lake Champlain and the Champlain Canal back to the Hudson and then home. After seeing this presentation, I’ve decided Fred is my new hero. He’s now 70 years old, he did last summer’s trip in a 32-year-old trawler, he toured the US by motorcycle in 1979, he sailed Canada’s North Channel in his 25-foot sailboat, he still likes to take whitewater rafting trips each year and he’s a soft-spoken, humble guy….quite a role model!
Friday, 17 February-
It was supposed to start rapidly getting cold around lunch time today and this morning we had winds in the fifty-mile-per-hour range as the temps dropped from a high of 57 to a more seasonal mid-day temp of 40. Labashi and I drove in to Eastern Market to pick up some groceries in the morning. In the afternoon I had a doctor’s appointment to have a sebaceous cyst surgically removed from my scalp. It was about the size of a pea so I joked with the doctor about my wife being concerned about the cyst possibly being the location of my pea-sized brain. The procedure was amazingly easy—the only thing I felt at all was the first insertion of the nummy-needle. He closed it up with four stitches and told me I’d have a divot there for quite a while. The stitches look like I have a big, black carpenter ant on my scalp and they have to stay there for ten days… oh, well!
That evening we watched the last Alias episode on disk 5 then I watched the movie “Secuestro Express” while Labashi worked on the web. Labashi wasn’t interested in the movie because it sounded pretty violent in the reviews on RottenTomatoes.com but it turned out not to be too bad. The story was about the rapidly-growing Latin American practice of an ‘express’ kidnapping. Where a regular kidnapping can last for weeks, months, even years, the express version consists of the kidnappers grabbing someone overnight or for a day or two while they demand and collect a relatively small ransom from family.
Thursday, 16 February-
I worked on our taxes again today but didn’t strain myself. It was another extra-warm, 55-degree, sunny day so Labashi and I drove down to Rudy Park in the afternoon to walk again. There was still too much snow (and in some places there’s too much mud) to get off the paved walking path but the path is long enough to keep things interesting. We walked for two hours before heading home. That evening we watched three Alias epidsodes (Season Four, Disk Five).
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 21:10
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