Chronological Account of the Weiss family with contextual remarks, some weather, sports and other news.
You can write to me at: mhw20854@yahoo.com
The people in the Weiss family are: Martin, Ann, Beth and George. I also sometimes write about other people or our pet.
Monday, September 01, 2025
Dry August
At the official weather recording station at National Airport, August 2025 ended with only 0.20 inches of rain. This was the dryest August in DC history. The previous August record for that location was in 1962 when the month had 0.55 inches. It wasn't quite as dry in other parts of the region. For example, at IAD (Dulles International) there was 0.85 inches and at BWI (Marshall International) it was 2.05 inches. Fall is frequently a dry period locally. In Octorber 1963 there was only a trace (less than 0.01") at National Airport. .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
August 2025 was also cooler than normal by almost about 3.7F. It was one of the coolest Augusts since 1946 (National Airport was the official weather recording station by then, having opened in 1941). August 1992 was about as cool as August 2025.
I doesn't look like fall yet (certainly not like the image) but the past several mornings have been in the low 60sF and the forecast is for that continuing for another week or two. The Capital Weather Gang (a website I visit sometimes) follows the local weather much closer than I do and they have for a number of years. The CWG calls 'End of Summer' each year. They did so today, the earliest they have ever called it. August is currently averaging 3F below normal and the weather pattern indicates this will continue. The CWG definition of 'End of Summer' is no period of 3 days with each day 90F or above. Of course we have had warm days in September and even October so they may be wrong.
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back in 2004, the final 90F day was August 4 and in the 1890s there was a year in which the final 90F day was October 3 but that was when the weather recording station was downtown. This year August 17 was 90F.
Yesterday was moving day, from Ramet Gan to Netanya. Image is of the central city with Mediterranean on the left. Today we spoke via messenger video. So far, and its only two days, the people in her building are very nice, the landlord is nice, the merchants are nice. The beach is about 4 miles away but a short bus ride. .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. some difficulty getting Oz enrolled in the school system but it now looks like he will be enrolled in a school only 4 walking minutes away.
Back in mid January, Ann was discharged from Suburban Hospital (it was her third time there since Sept 2024). The presumptive damage done to her cardiac system by the diseases that occassioned the hospital admittance was sufficient for her to be admitted into the JSSA Hospice program. This requires a diagnosis that remaining life expectancy is 6 months. It has been 8 months since mid January. JSSA informed us that beginning on or about 10 September, Ann will be in Hospice Transition instead of JSSA Hospice. There are some differences. In the former: only one RN visit per month instead of one per week; no free Social Work or Clerical counciling visits; no free bath & hairdoo visits; no free medicine and sanitary supplies and no free hospital bed. We will manage. We are now down to an average of 6 or fewer hours per day of private care service. Also, Blue Cross will, I think, cover much of the cost of the medicine. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Notwithstanding all the above, Ann is pretty upset about this.
I get to use one of my fav lines - and it gets laughs
I was at Harris Teeter yesterday. They had the superlarge size of Utz prepopped popcorn (the apple gives a size perspective). It is UD so not to be eaten with meat but don't combine hot dogs and popcorn. I hadn't seen this in many years but I recall we used to buy this brand in this size when we lived in Virginia in the 1990s. One lady who was next in line at the grocery check out was looking at the bag seeming to be curious. I remembered a line I used when Beth asked me in the 1990s, "why did you get such a big bag".. .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. I remembered what I said then and repeated it for the grocery clerk and the lady in line, "Well, it is better to have popcorn and not need it than to need popcorn and not have it." The clerk chuckled and laughed, the lady in line nodded and then chuckled and laughed.
On 20 August, Gerry Berg and I went to near Dover Delaware to visit Arthur Sackman in his new home. He moved in 2024 into a new house. It is a suburban neighborhood of about 100 homes plucked down into a very rural part of Delaware and there are ducks, chickens, horses and lambs within a mile or so. The neighborhood was built by Ryan Homes in 2023-2024 so he is an original owner. The house has 5 bedrooms (and a study that converts into a bedroom). There are 6 people living there, all 'sort of' related to Arthur by marriage (it is too complicated for Arthur to want to explain).
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We played some sheepsfoot while we visited. On the way back, we stopped to visit a friend of Berg's. She runs a store in a mall near Columbia, Maryland.
This is what it looked like yesterday and also approximately for the 30 years previous. My neighbor worked with the contractor to get an estimate and schedule the work. The work was supposed to be done Wednesday or Thursday but the contractor showed up today (Tuesday) at 830am
The first part of the work was done with relatively small hand tools. It was the cutting down of the bamboo and vines and hauling them away.
The next part was using some powerful and noisy tools to grind up the bamboo roots. They they put grass seed and straw down.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For a few years we will have to be vigilant looking for bamboo shoots and pulling them. This would have been the case if we had had the roots dug up and hauled off but maybe not as many shoots.
Oz is at summer camp in Israel for a few weeks before regular school starts. Tamar was picking him up yesterday and found the poster shown above. I'm pretty sure they aren't teaching 6 year olds about Pythagorus's theorem but even for somewhat older kids this would be quite a stretch normally. I think the idea of using wood blocks (I think that's what they are) to illustrate this is pretty cool. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
my understading is that multiplication is typically introduced in 3rd grade and the 3 x 3 = 9 would be understood then. However, the concept of the triangle's sides and the relationship to the hypotenuse is more complicated.
I noticed the 'check engine' warning light was on. This worried me. I found the manual. It listed a lot of problems. One of the problems that would cause this warning was if the gas cap wasn't on right. It was time to get gasoline anyway so I went to a station, filled up and made sure the gas cap was on tight. I started the car and the warning light was still on. I picked up the manual again and read some more. At the end of a long paragraph was the statement that it might take driving a bit before the warning light went off it the warning was caused by any emission related problem (one of which was the gas cap). I had another stop to make (buying beer). I did that and started the car up again. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... The warning light went off. Yay!
I saw a big deer near the house this morning (first image). Over a period of years, the deer (and to a much lesser extent the rabbits) have destroyed a lot of my vegetation, particularly the lillies. But also various other plants. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Coincidentally I received a shipment on anti deer devices yesterday (second image of one of the devices). The devices work by sensing motion and displaying a short burst of visible light and a longer burst of ultrasound (more than 20 k Hertz as compared to human speech which is between 300 and 3000 Hertz. FWIW, orchestra members have, for over 80 years or so, based their own tuning on a 440 Hertz sound (an A). The devices sense about a 50 degree vertical and 100 degree horizontal area within about 40 feet. The devices have gotten good yelp reviews and also a good review by an independent evaluation company.
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I have two other devices but haven't decided yet where to place them.
The Crape Myrtles in the front yard are in full bloom. The florets are so abundant they weigh down the branches. This happens most years. Also, in most years, our plants are some of the latest crape myrtles to bloom. The three trees we have really stand out visually when you approach from the west (although I am standing to the east of the trees for this picture).
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Meira, Tamar and Oz. Oz is wearing his tiger green belt (a mark on the way to a black belt) and holding a tae kwon duo trophy (I think everyone gets one of those).
George came over from Silver Spring. Cheryl and Irwin came from Lutherville. ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
In back row, from left: George, Martin, Irwin
In front row, from left: Tamar, Meira, Oz, Ann, Cheryl
As noted earlier (on July 2), one of our health workers has a Mercedes Benz. The health worker on 25 July had a Cadillac.
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................It is a 2014 that she bought in 2018..
Yes those are 6 candles in donut holes. Oz showed his yai kwon doa moves before he got his birthday pastry.
............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ and yes he didn't eat all his dinner 2 hours after the donut holes
This morning we had deer in both the back yard and side yard munching our vegetation. I've tried deer repellent vegetation over many years. For various reasons, it hasn't worked in the long term. For one year the chives I planted seemed to do the trick but almost all the chives have died off or been displaced by other plants. The image is actually from 2018 since I didn't get good images today. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
So I sent away for ZeroDeer.com's ultrasonic devices (they also blink light for a second or two when they sense motion). Gets very high ratings on yelp and at least one 'independent' testing service.
Nice morning today. The minimum temperature at the Rockville coop station this morning was 65F and up county it was in the low 60s which is about as good as it gets in July. Oz and Tamar and Meira went to the Tai Kwon Doa camp by walking and walked back. When Oz got home from camp, Oz and I watched "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (the 2nd HP movie). Oz covered his eyes a few times during scary parts although during the scariest part (in my opinion) which was Harry's fight with the giant snake (until the end of the fight it seems Harry is badly outmatched), he seemed to be OK. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Maybe it was the movie but after he watched that I gave him some chicken and rice. He said it was the best chicken and rice he ever had (maybe it was the sauce which had onion, garlic and tomato sauce).
Oz told me I should have two bottles of Coke in the car in case someone is riding in the back (like him on his way to tai kwon duo). Ann told me to leave a set of glasses in the car so I wouldn't have to come back in the house after I drove out of the driveway and up the street and realized I was without glasses. I took both pieces of advice (at least for now)/
I'll probably go back to one bottle of Coke after Oz departs. With respect to the glasses, sometime I forget to leave them in the car. //........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ Fortunately, I have several extra pair (although with slightly different correction). I'll work on this.
My phone sounded an alarm about 5 pm today. It was a flash flood warning and emergency. It was the first flash flood emergency in this area ever (the category dates about 20 years). We had some pretty heavy rain here. However, some areas just a few miles away got 3" of rain in about an hour or so.
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Later reports from the precip network indicated that some areas of Silver Spring had over 5" of rain in 2.5 hours.
Video of flooding on Sligo Creek is here.
I picked Oz up at his Tai qwon Doa camp today. On the way out he wanted me to take a picture of him.
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The site is at the exit from the Cabin John Mall.
Oz has been wanting to ride on a firetruck. Apparently all the firetruck museums in Israel are either only open on Saturday or 'not for kids'. So we went to the Fire Museum of Maryland, which is in Lutherville, MD.
Their website is https://www.firemuseummd.org/. It is only a few miles from where Irwin and Cheryl live and Irwin joined us at the museum (Cheryl had to stay with their dog who is very sick). Irwin was a bit late as he had urgent (not quite but almost emergency) dental work done.
The museum had a 'Discover Room' (also called a play room) and the first image is Oz in firefighter gear in the drive seat of a 1938 vintage firetruck. The second image was taken by Tamar in the play room and has Irwin, Oz, Meira and myself. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... In the third image is Oz in not quite full fire fighter gear in front of the fire engine.
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.........They also had an interesting fire alarm room which re created the sights and sounds of fire alarms and fire notifications of the pre telephone era. At one time, Baltimore had about 600 different fire alarm stations and the fire desk captain had an index card for each indicating which fire station was nearby and what equipment they had. On the strange side, they had a lost and found table. on the table was a B. Talmud for Tractage Avoda Zora.
