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.
Friday, August 08, 2025
Mishpat Pythagorus
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.
Tamar was able, using Meira's birth certificate and Tamar's USA passport to obtain a USA passport for Meira at the USA consulate in Tel Aviv. However, for some reason (I can only speculate why) it is impossible to obtain a social security number the same day and very difficult to obtain a social security number at any time form the USA consultate (people have done it but complained about the process for several years). So Tamar figured she would get the SSN while visiting us this year. She tried getting an interview on line but the website told her there was no openings until well after she was to leavel the US for Israel in late July. Multiple phone calls later (one by George), Tamar called on 14 July and was told there was an opening on 15 July (I imagine that this was due to someone who had to cancel so they could get a dental appointment when someone canceled that). The SSA office in Rockville, MD is only about 4 miles from our house so I drove here there and she quickly got an interview which was completed successfully in less than 30 minutes. ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
We received the actual SS card with Meira's SSN on it in the USPS mail 19 July. It was actually addressed to Meira Chen Weiss. Unfortunately the letter got wet in the rainstorm that day and we will have to do some drying on it.
Oz got a new bike and scooter helmet today (see image). He and I also watched Star Wars Episode 5 'The Empire Strikes Back'. He had a lot of questions during the movie but I think he is gradually getting to understand the difference between fiction and reality (also from watching Road Runner and Coyote - he asked me a few days ago why Wyle E. stays in the air a few moments before he falls after he goes off the cliff): Meira is giving us some very nice smiles these days. I laugh and she smiles or I sing stupid made up lyrics to her and she laughs (and sometimes drools). .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Oz also had a very sweet comment yesterday. I was reading "The Magic Finger" to him. It is a 1960s book about a girl who used her magic finger to turn a family of duck hunters into ducks so they would learn not to hunt ducks. He said, "If I had a magic finger I would make Bubbie well again."
A new day time health aid came today. A nice woman but what surprized me was that she had a Mercedes Benz. We spoke about this. It is a 2011 model which I think she has had for about 10 years. Her husband works construction. She has heard the Janice Joplin song "Mercedes Benz".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFGk8E4AY3Q&t=8s
............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... However she doesn't like the perfume sold by Dior that has a backround taken from "Cry Baby" by Janis Joplin while Natalie Portman frolics in a Dior floral dress.
My car radio started coming on by itself. I turned it off, took the key out of the ignition, opened the door and got out. I came on just a bit later. So I brought the car late in the day in on 27 June. They took the radio out and let me have the car back on July 1 while the radio is being fixed or if not fixable, a new radio is ready. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ .............. Will update when the fixed or new radio is here.
We saw a preview of this clip a few days ago from what I think was an stringer for the Ap and sent it to Irwin Schreiner who sent us the URL with an NBC short. It was only 5% as long as the AP stringer's video but had a lot of the interview.
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/israelis-shelter-in-underground-train-station-241814597944
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an article in the Times of Israel about this and had the photo above
https://www.timesofisrael.com/echoes-of-the-blitz-in-ramat-gans-underground-bialik-station-an-unlikely-wartime-refuge/
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The video of the AP Stringer is ............
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=zuY_fNEKLTg
......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... She has been in and out of the station now a half dozen times
I was tired of looking at this particular box of Matzah left over from Passover. I decided to make fried matzoah with it because the recipe was on the box. I used the 'soak a lot of matzoah' method rather than the 'fry only three or four at a time' method. Also I used twice the amount of eggs that the recipe called for. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... The image is while it was in the frying pan. We had it on Friday 20 June at night with turkey and sweeet peppers and George came on Sunday 22 June and we had it with burgers. Both times, everyone was positive about it.
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.
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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.
