Scattered Thoughts . . .

I 've always enjoyed bicycles since I was a young child on Long Island.  By the time I was in high school and college, I was riding my bicycle all over the island and Long Island is no small island.  It is about 20 miles wide and 120 miles long.  I was hit by a few cars and had one bicycle stolen but I've always enjoyed biking. When I first relocated to Vermont (my last Air Force/DOD assignment), I purchased a cheap bicycle and did quite a bit of riding while exploring.  Between kayaking (I lived on a major river), flying, biking and driving, I got to see most of Vermont in a short time.   That cheap bicycle bit the dust about 15 years ago so I haven't done any riding since then.  Every summer I do some searching for a new bicycle but nothing in the lower price range ever catches my eye.  This summer, after having COVID again for the past couple of months and losing quite a bit of weight, I finally found a decent bicycle at a very good price....

O n our way to Ohio on the train with Lukey and Kenzie back in June, we took a route that passed through Manhattan, then down to Washington and then down into Virginia before heading westward and passing through West Virginia, into Kentucky, and then up into Ohio.  Lukey and Kenzie have already been with us in Manhattan quite a few times but this would be the first time we continued on to Washington with Kenzie and Lukey, our Amtrak fanatic grandchild who was looking forward to finally pulling into this station while in an Amtrak sleeper car. We had about a forty-five minute layover at the station in Washington which I knew was just enough time to head up into beautiful Union Station and then wander out to the street so Lukey and Kenzie could actually see a bit of Washington.  We'd have to keep our pace up but I knew we could fit in this short excursion through the station.  I've been here many times but this would be a first for all my travel companions on this trip so I...

I 've been sick with COVID since mid-July and I'm still struggling with this virus.  I felt better than I have in a couple of months yesterday morning so I finally stepped outside to do some landscaping.  I haven't done this at all in the past month so this was a good sign that maybe this virus is behind me.  Actually, I haven't done anything outside at all in the past month so the yard was definitely in need of some attention. My plan was to start with the edge trimming with the weed-whacker and then see how I feel.  I got side-tracked and did some pruning and trimming of some plants but I finished all the edge trimming in less than an hour.  I was still feeling well so I decided to pull out the lawnmower.  My original plan was to do the edge trimming on one day and then do the mowing on another to better manage my energy and avoid overdoing it but I was still feeling well after doing the edge trimming so I decided to mow the lawn too.   I got th...

D uring our trip out to Ohio with Lukey and Kenzie back in June, we suffered a few relatively small photography equipment failures.  This is not surprising in the least when traveling with enough equipment for three people and, in the big scheme of things, the failures were quite small.   I'd say that the worst failure was finding that a 21 minute video of fireworks was out of focus throughout the entire video.  I can blame this on small LCD screens when paired with old eyes!  So that was my fault.  We lost one or two little things too.  The only thing that actually broke was my Peak Design Capture Clip which is a $60 item (well...  that is what I paid...  to replace it with the newer version would cost $80). I use this Capture Clip to hold my camera on my shoulder strap.  The Capture Clip allows me to quickly remove the camera from the shoulder strap whenever necessary.  This clip also allows me to securely (supposedly) clip my cam...

I 'm still dealing with evening fevers and generally feeling like crap d ue to this latest bout with COVID.  After two months of miserable, painful health, this is getting old. I feel halfway decent in the morning but then, after my afternoon nap, I feel quite lousy again.  The fever comes back and I simply feel miserable.  You'd think that after napping for a couple of hours, I would feel pretty good again but that has never been the case any of the seven or eight times I've had COVID.  I get up from my nap hoping to feel fairly well but I feel feverish and my headache is back.  And, worse yet, nothing seems to cut the pain of this COVID headache. My breathing is still worse than usual too.  I really need to find the energy to do the PT for breathing and clearing out the lungs that I have done every time I've had this virus.   Anyway, that is the latest news on my health. EDIT:  The following morning - By the time we went to bed last night,...

I moved my new mini computer from the kitchen table to my desk in the bedroom yesterday.  I think I'm finished moving stuff from my older desktop computer to this new computer so it was time to move it to the bedroom desk.  Besides, it was getting old having this computer temporarily taking up space on our kitchen table! This morning, I installed a small shelf on the wall under the desk for my new hard drive enclosure.  That worked out well.  The cooling fan in this enclosure is a bit loud when this enclosure is sitting right on the desk so I wanted to place it under the desk where it is hardly heard at all.  I have a remote outlet arriving tomorrow so I can turn this enclosure on and off without having to duck under the desk to manually use the switch on the back of the enclosure.  Now that I finally had this new mini computer connected to my good IPS 4K monitor, it was time to calibrate the display so the colors are accurate.  This is definitely nee...

I 've already mentioned in a few blog entries that I picked up COVID while at the hospital for my partially amputated thumb (table saw accident) but I'll quickly explain again in this next paragraph.   While we were in the waiting room of the emergency department, an elderly woman sat down behind us and she was clearly having trouble breathing and was constantly coughing up a lung.  We instantly suspected she had COVID so we were looking forward to one of us being pulled out of the waiting room as soon as possible.  Within about five minutes, we were called into Trauma.  I thanked the nurse for calling us in so quickly and explained that I'd like to avoid exposure to COVID and mentioned the elderly woman coughing up a lung in the waiting room.  Within about five or seven days, both Sheila and I were sick with typical COVID symptoms.  We had been nowhere else so we knew this was the exposure that sickened us. I had the very unique "razor blade" sore th...

O n the last day of our trip in June out to the midwest with Lukey and Kenzie, we spent some time at the Newport Aquarium in Kentucky.  Other than the two leg train ride back home, this would be the last of our sightseeing.   We almost missed seeing the aquarium.  We had no idea that they only let in visitors by appointment only.  We experienced this at various museums during the pandemic but never expected to encounter this after the pandemic.  Once we arrived at the aquarium, we realized why reservations were required.  It is clearly a very popular destination and the building is only so large.  Even with a scheduled appointment, the aquarium was so crowded it made seeing things moderately difficult.  Without controlling the number of people in the aquarium, we wouldn't have been able to see a thing! When we arrived at the aquarium, it was sunny out and the temperature was in the triple digits.  Our clothes were completely soaked in sw...