THE WEISS CHRONICLES

In the building where Tamar lives is a family with kids that invite other kids over and they also like both Oz and Meira. The photos are of Meira and the boys playing poker. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ I don't think I played poker until late in high school. Also I don't think I sat at a formal poker table until I was in Nevada in the early 1970s.

We had a drip from our faucet downstairs. It wasn't a big drip just a few drops per minute. The faucet was old and couldn't be fixed so we bought a new faucet. When the old faucet was removed, it showed a lot of other problems e.g., decaying tubing. Anyway, by the time we were done, we had a new sink counter as well as a new sink and new faucet ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Cost was about $600. But it does look nice and it doesn't drip.

I hadn't had any beef for several days so today I indulged myself with some vodka. I used a tumbler made of caramelized sugar at a dairy late lunch. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Unfortunately, because I have had gout attacks I have to be a bit careful to avoid overeating beef especially if I do it with alcohol (beer being the worst offender in this regard)

A few days ago I was shopping at Harris Teeter. When I got to the bagging/checkout station, I was told that "Harris Teeter does not do plastic bagging anymore" and my goods were placed in paper bags. I was annoyed by this but didn't call the store and complain. However, some people may have done so because today I went to the same Harris Teeter store and they had plastic bags, not only at the regular checkout station but also the self checkout station. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I mentioned to the checkout person that I was happy to see plastic back (we use it to discard cat waste). He said he also preferred the plastic bags because they were easier to use and didn't take up as much space in the bagging station.

I had to go to Montgomery Mall to pick up new glass frames and lenses as mine were about 4 years old. The lenses were getting fade areas and my eyesight had changed (gotten less near sighted). I also wanted to get some gift wrapping for a present I was giving to a couple who were getting married (daughter of Mike and Nadine Postol). I got to the mall, parked, entered and looked at the directory. To my surprise and pleasure, the Hallmark store was located right next to Lenscrafters. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... The clerk at Hallmark suggested a gift bag instead of wrapping as that is now a frequently used custom and more convenient as it doesn't require the gift receiver creating a mess by opening a big box - a good suggestion.

It is in the low 50s at noon today in our vicinity with rain. Our furnace has been on already this morning. Our normal maximum for 28 May is 80F. Lowest daily maximum temperature for DC was 57F set in 1858 when the temperature records were taken downtown instead of at airports. That 1858 record will not be broken as DCA recorded a temperature of 58F just after midnight. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ For nearby recording stations for 28 May, Dulles (IAD) had a record low maximum of 54F back in 1968. BWI had a record low maximum of 58F in 1996

In the mail today was a letter and a redeemable check if Ann gets insurance on a car she never owned. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... We've also gotten junk calls about her 'Ford Fiesta'. I'm not sure how we got this but I think she once was car shopping and may have clicked on 'more information' on a car like this. Coincidentally, today I received a phone call asking me if I wanted to insure my Mazda RX-3 (I did own one of these back in the mid 1970s).

I got there a bit before 10am as I had an optical exam at that time. My eyesight changed a bit but not drastically. I am starting to get cataracks and probably will need surgery in a few years. Fortunately, no astigmatism though. I ordered new glasses. The exam was only $5 copay. The glasses were over $400. Across from the Lenscrafter store was, I think, a grand opening of a store called UNI QLO. This a subsidiary of Fast Retailing, a Japanese Company. There was a drum quartette (or maybe trio) and a long, long, long line of parents and kids. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Yes, the quartette was loud. Really loud and I found it annoying. I wonder who had the idea to do this.

Our chair lift stopped working. I called the company that installed it in March 2024 (which meant we were outside the warranty period). I actually had to call them twice before they called me back. First they had me look at the electrical outlet and a switch on the chair itself and a few other things. When that didn't show any problem, they made an appointment and showed up on time. They said it was the battery. They replaced it. Here's the kicker .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... The battery was supposed to last 7 years. So the repair guy said there would be no charge.

I donated plasma 13 May. There were three new machines that weren't there the previous time I went there. One was a new partially automated blood pressure machine that also takes your pulse. One was a machine that takes your temperature with a beam on the forehead. Both of these were an improvement but not by much. The third new machine (in the image) took the hemoglobin count via a device fitted on the thumb. This was nice as previously, there was a blood test and some pain (although minimal pain) to get the blood for the test. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. They also seemed to have a new plasma separator which took a while to get ready to work with my blood. Thus I got to the room at about 410pm and didn't finish with the donation until about 615pm. Vitals: BP 115/84, pulse 74, HG = 14.6

I went to Shacharit May 10. The post Haftorah Dvar was given by someone I didn't recognize. He spoke a bit on the subject of Jerusalem Day and the Israeli hevrah that is part of Beth Sholom (who sponsored the Kiddush by the way). But most of his dvar was about a famous sentence in Parshah Kedoshim, "Love Your Neighbor As Yourself" (Lev 19:18). He mentioned the disagreement between Rabbi Akiva and Ben Azzai noted in the Jerusalem Talmud in Tractate Nedarim 30. Akiva says the 'Love Your..." is the most important pasuk and Ben Azzai says that "This is the book of the generations of Adam..." (which is from Genesis 5) is the most important. Our Dvar presenter gave a passionate defense of Akiva's position with lots of emphatic gestures and oratorical vocalizations. I was amused as it seems like someone passionately claiming that $100 is more than $50. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... But maybe I missed something. Also the image is from the internet, I didn't take a picture at the service. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... .

I went to a birthday party. One of the people sponsoring the event was Charlie Meyers who was in my graduation class at Northwood High School. The other was a friend of his, Dale Ross, who was born one day later than Charlie. Both of them had parents named Michael and Sylvia. They were neighbors in an apartment when they were young and kept up with each other and were in a dorm together at the University of Md- College Park. The party was at Har Sholom and catered by Moti's (so kosher). Nice cooked meat and middle eastern table and sushi and hot dogs and beer and wine (I had two Stella Artois beers, one of my favorite brands - it is a Belgian beer owned by a subsidiary of Anheuser Busch - this even though I am not supposed to have beers). .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... There was also entertainment. It was a group called Capital Fools. Musical comedy and some impressions. I couldn't understand the lyrics of the songs but there was a pretty good Donald Trump impressionist. Unfortunately I ate something that went down the wrong pipe and I started coughing a lot and decided to go rather than subject the people around me to coughing noise. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ann had two observances for birthday 76. One was on 30 April, her actual birthday. She had apple pie and whipped topping. Today she had another. George was here and we had pastry for pre-lunch course. Our home aide took the photo. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... It was a Napolean with candles. We actually were able to eat a decent lunch after this, although with a 20 minute break.

On Saturday 26 April I was eating some fish. I felt something in my teeth. It felt like a filling was coming out. I went to see the dentist today. It was a piece of the tooth that split off. Something similar happened in 2023 but that ended up resulting in a tooth extraction. This time the dentist thought the tooth could be saved by capping it. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... The cap was placed on 1 May. It took 3 novocaine applications before I allowed the dentist to complete his drilling. The cap was made using the results of a camera scan of the tooth stump. It seems to fit nicely and looks just like a real tooth.

Ann has been on oxygen for a few weeks. This began when she told the Hospice nurse that she had compressive chest pains (blood oxygen is not a problem, every time anyone has measured it the count is over 95 of 100). The hospice doctor then prescribed oxygen and we had a machine delivered to our house the next day. It worked fine for about a week. Then it started to show a problem by beeping loudly. I called the company that provided the machine and a technician came out. He said that I need to keep the water in the reservoir (it provides water vapor with the oxygen) about half filled and not to let it get too high or too low and similarly to keep the oxygen flow meter not too high or too low but to tighten the top of the water reservoir as tight as I could after filling it. I have done so since then but the beeping continued. We had beeping today at 5am, 830am and 2 pm. We got a new oxygen machine at 230pm today (see image). The technician who brought it said it might work better if we plugged the electricity into a socket instead of a surge protector so we are trying that. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At one point the technician called George when he couldn't reach me (I think I was driving at that time) and George emailed me that "the O2 guy wants to speak to you". I emailed back "Aren't we all O2 people".

I used Chat GPT a number of times. It is known to occassionally make mistakes. One time I asked it something and saw a mistake in the answer. I asked a follow up about it. Chat GPT 'apologized for the confusion', not for making a mistake. Actually this is something humans do. Lately I've been using Grok 3 for my AI questions. One time I asked a question and in my questing I made a mistaken assumption. Grok 3 gave a nice and even enthusiastic answer. I asked a follow up about it querying why it didn't let me know I had made a mistake. Grok 3 answered that it had been designed to be pleasant and positive and encourage constructive learning and dialogue. This is something humans do also. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- but many fewer are like Grok 3 than Chat GPT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The two images were created by asking both Chat GPT and Grok to create a minimalist office with a 34" main monitor, a grey Persian cat in a round cushion under the desk, specified houseplants, an oak table with a Macbook pro, and a few more things. Grok seemed to take the 'minimalist' instruction more seriously than Chat GPT. Also the Grok cat seems more comfortable.

There was a big big event planned for the week after Passover. It was to be catered with cooking being done by a mixed crew of people some of whom were used to kosher cooking and others who weren't. The catering venue had to be reorganized to minimize confusion. I agreed to open the kosher kitchen at 500am and be relieved by another mashgiach at 700am the day after Passover. Fortunately, they changed the schedule and the opening was postponed to 6am. This would not normally be a big problem but the night before is the night we clean up after Passover. That work wasn't done until about 130am on the day I had to get up early. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I went to sleep early the next day and don't seem to have suffered damage.

I made two large mistakes this year preparing or conducting the sedar. The preparation mistake was that I didn't make a roasted egg on the Friday before the Sedar. Since we aren't to cook on Sabbath, I had to cook the egg on the stovetop during the early part of the Sedar. It made some noise when the egg cracked but otherwise it came out 'roasted and edible'. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The other mistake was also made by Ann and George who were at the Sedar. We forgot to eat the matzah affikomen. George woke up at 1130pm on Saturday night and came down and ate it.

We got a $2000+ check from the Hebrew Home. It was reimbursement based on the Hebrew Home getting additional payments from Medicare and Blue Cross Blue Shield. I had several conversations with the Hebrew Home accounting department on previous bills questioning the amount of Medicare and BC/BS participation. They assured me that they would follow up with Medicare and BC/BS and apparently they did. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ A nice surprise.

On 2 April I went to Annapolis with Gerry Berg, Dave Kroes and Glen Kruser. We took a tour of the Naval Academy (second image which is taken with the chapel in the background). The guide was in the class that also had Ross Perot. The guide referred to Perot as 'very unique'. I restrained myself from telling him that the phrase 'very unique' is redundant. When I got home I looked up the issue of 'very unique'. Actually a fair number of people consider 'very unique' to be legitimate usage. Similarly, the words 'true' and'false' are not necessarily absolute as many people describe new stories, for example as 'mostly true' or 'mostly false'. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/very-unique-and-absolute-adjectives .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Anyway, Glenn and Dave were around for much of the week and we had three games of sheepshead and visited Kevin Shaw who is in long term care at at a rehab facility in Burtonsville. .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................