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.
Thursday, January 01, 2026
Another lucky day at the lost and found for Tamar
A few days ago, Tamar got off a bus with her kids and realized she had left her laptop bag in the bus. She called the main bus station (in Natanya). They told her they would call her back. She figured 'well, that doesn't sound good'. But 20 minutes later they did call her and they had her stuff (laptop was in bag and some other things including keys). This was not the first time she had lost something on public transportation (or at a station). Another time she had lost her keys. She had a small sheep toy attached to it and described it to a station employee. "Yep. We have it. Come by and pick it up." was the response. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. Fortunately, she lives somewhere where people turn lost items in or, in the case of cell phones, wait until the owner calls their own number (a good reason for remembering the number).
I was on youtube looking at an image of the ice on Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. I was also eating popcorn from a large post popped bag I had purchased a day or so earlier. As I was watching the video, youtube suggested I might want to watch a video of what happens when a large pile of post popped popcorn is left in a forest. This video was uploaded to youtube earlier in 2025. The forest image, a cute little chipmonk enjoying the snack, is from the video that youtube recommended to me. Btw, deer, racoons and squirrels also enjoy the popcorn.
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For what it's worth, I'll also include a snapshot of the scene at Lake Mendota.
This is the second time that youtube made an apparently odd recommendation to me that I really liked. The first was several years ago when youtube thought, correctly, that I would like to see a parody of the Alanis Morrisette "It's Ironic", where two young ladies corrected the use of the phrase. Their video is at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32LCwZFoKio&t=23s
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The letter in the image is from a real estate investment firm. Their version of holiday greetings is to ask me if I want to sell our house to a real estate investor. They use a very nice font and have their phone number, 301 945 7329, twice in the letter. They have a nice name too. MarketProHomeBuyers,com .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... On the reverse side they promise a stress free sale, transparent pricing, a closing on my schedule and help moving. Well, it is nice to know you home is wanted.
Hardward Store Stops An Assassination - in my Dream
In my dream, I had already bought everthing I needed. I brought the shopping cart to the loading area. My car was already there (I can't explain that, perhaps I had an automatic driver system). Just as I pressed a button to get my hardware into my car, three guys, armed with knives, attacked the car. The hardware started flying toward the car and disabled all the assassins. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ I don't have a clue as to why they wanted to assassinate me.
Meira has been hospitalized with Rotovirus. Almost every child gets a rotovirus infection before age 5, some have symptoms that basically resemble a mild cold, some have it worse. Meira was in this latter group. Tamar was pregnant in 2024 and didn't get the RSV virus because of that. She is fortunate that she has neighbors who are very friendly and take Oz to school and otherwise are helpful. .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. Meira seems to be doing OK though and probably will be discharged in a day or two. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... She was discharged on Dec 19.
Montgomery County Prepares to End Plastic Grocery Bags
The image shows an unhappy planet. Maybe earth likes plastic bags. Anyway, as of 1 Jan 2026, plastic bags will no longer be allowed in Montgomery county, except bags for fresh vegetables and a few other uses. Also, the paper bag fee doubles to 10 cents per bag. Half of the 10 cents is for the merchant, half for the county government. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I recall reading about how much the county was pleased with the decrease in litter after the 5 cent per bag policy. But I suppose it didn't get the county enough revenue. Let's see: About 1 million people in the county. Assuming 3 bags per week per person (a guess) that's 150/year per person. So about $7.5 Million for county government.
We had about an inch or two of snow last night. This is the second snow of the season (the other one was also relatively light). However the temperature has been a lot below normal, probabliy 2 stand deviations or maybe more for the first 2 weeks of December. At 4pm today the temperature was 20F and wind chill 2F at Rockville's recording station. The image (click to enlarge) is of my two door away neighbor's giant outside Hannukah monorah. He'll light the first light tonight.
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This is a cartoon in the paper today about Hannukah. I don't really get it. Is "Len" the name of the octopus or the turtle or the dophin or the seal or one of the two crabs? And is the banner a 'present'? Does the Octopus's eight legs have anything to do with the eight days?
For many years I was unable to drink coffee slowly. Thus some coffee conversations I had were with people who were still sipping while I had finished and, somehow, I felt this was wrong. Anyway, starting a few years ago I have been able to sip. Lately, I nurse a 20 ounce drink for about 90 minutes. It helps that modern coffee mugs hold the heat or the cold. ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I don't remember where I bought this. It may have been in 2022 at the Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH. This mug is fabulous for both cold and hot. Several times in the summer I remember waking up in the morning and finding that there was still some ice in the mug. I have to admit that even the less insulated cups used by, for example, Starbucks, work pretty well too. I haven't tried a hot liquid time trial test yet.
Back in 1992 after the election of Clinton I had a Dulles Airport nightmare where I was trying to go to National Airport but it was closed and I was going to have to drive to Dulles. I woke up and shouted 'No. No.'. Ann asked, "What's wrong?" and I said, "I dreamed that I was going to have to use Dulles Airport". Anyway, last night I had another Dulles Airport nightmare. This time I had been lured into some sort of job interview and they told me I was selected and my job would be to plan, design and build a 5 star hotel with walkway access to Dulles Airport. The map in the image shows how difficult this was going to be ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... In my dream, they showed me the map of where the hotel was going to be and I felt horror as it seemed impossible to fit a hotel in there...
For several years I've been looking for a kosher Rocky Road ice cream. It was going to be a challenge because the marshmellow manufacturing infrastructure had been making marshmellows for many years using pig bones to make the geletin that acts as an aerator in the marshmellow. It was going to be hard for an ice cream company to go up against Big Marshmellow. However, for what ever reason, the company 'Blue Ribbon' decided to use fish bones to make the geletin and thus the product was kosher dairy .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. ............................... Unfortunately, the ice cream, while good, is a bit too creamy for me. I bought it at Fresh Market in Potomac Crossing, a location former Giant Foods.
We are having 4 of the top 5 Thanksgiving side dishes
I finished almost all the cooking abut 130pm today but still have a few things to do (gravy has to wait until just before eating). I just noticed that our side dishes are among the most popular. I don't make mac and cheese as a side dish because of kashrut and also, I don't understand why you need that with the heavy carb dishes (stuffing and potatoes). --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- btw, it seems that somehow mac and cheese moved up in public preference this year
Yesterday as I was shopping I put some loose green beans in a clear plastic bag. They were marked as $1/79/pound. When I got home I noticed that the check out clerk thought it was from the wing bar and charged me $9.99/pound. Since I only bought about a half pound I thought of just letting it go but then I realized I needed to buy some more stuff today at the same store. As I was in line, it took the customer service person quite a while to work out the compensation transaction. I apologized to the person next in line saying, "Sorry, its only a $3 mistake". She responded, "Well, mine is a $2 mistake." .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I estimate I used about 10-15 min to save $3.50 or so. Anyway, it was an egregious error but I should have looked at the grocery check out slip before I left the store. I'll try to remember to do that going forward.
Note that yesterday, the Tooth Fairy asked Oz to write a note
Well his note is below
and today Oz asked me what kind of sickness does the tooth fairy get; ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Oz also said he has a friend who told them there was no tooth fairy
When Tamar was young I told her about the tooth fairy. To give it some extra flavor I described the tooth fairy organization with the tooth fairy assistants contracting out payment for teeth throughout the country and with the tooth fairy organization having offices in all the State capitals except Maryland and Iowa. At the time the FHWA had offices in Baltimore, Md and Ames, Iowa (about 30 mi north of Des Moines) but otherwise the State Capitals. That of course was in the early 1980s
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Now, Oz has decided that the tooth fairy owes him for a recent loose tooth that fell out. He pitched something of a fit when Tamar told him the tooth fairy was unavailable that night and he would have to wait. Hence the note.
Ann had a prolia injection in mid May. It was administered by an RN. I watched and it seemed pretty straightforward, something that I could do. I then watched several youtube videos on the subject. Apparently, non medical people do injections a lot and with the intramuscular injection, it is the simplest to do since the needle is 90 degrees to the skin surface. In the case of the prolia, the needle is only about 0.75 inches long so there isn't much risk of other damage. Anyway, I ordered the medicine which was delivered to one of Ann's doctors and I picked it up and did the injection. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... not really much to brag about (I don't think I would try in intravenous) but it did save the trouble of making phone calls and scheduling and of course the RN fee.
I recently had a hardware fix to my laptop. It was done by UBreakIfix, which is, a subsidary of another company but seems to have some sort of partnership with Google and/or Apple. My laptop had a problem with the touch/mouse pad. They did a pretty good job at a reasonable price on the touch pad. However, the next morning I noticed that the time was wrong by one hour (showed Central time - one hour behind ours). I did some work in the am and came home and started to look at how to reset the time. However, to my surprise, the clock fixed itself while I was out in the morning. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. Perhaps it gets a signal each day at noon or so that resets any errant computers.
When Ann was admitted to Hospice status in January 2025, JSSA had the DME company provide a medical bed and oxygen. In September 2025, Ann was removed from Hospice status (to Hospice transition status) and DME was no longer allowed, per their contract with JSSA to provide the bed and oxygen. The oxygen situation was easy to fix and we got a new supply of oxygen equipment quickly and then had DME take away the old oxygen supplies (concentrator, tubes and tanks). The bed was more difficult to switch out. We finally got a new bed delivered yesterday (company called 'Affirm') and tomorrow DME will be removing the old one. But for now the old bed is in the kitchen (easier to use that space than any other). ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ One person I told about this issue said, "Well, for now, after you cook a meal you can take a nice nap.".................
Also, DME picked up the old bed 13 Nov, so we only had two hospital beds for about 48 hours or so.
Last week a private package service dropped something off at my house. It was a small light weight package and the service that dropped it off was one I never heard of. The package wasn't addressed to me and it wasn't addressed to my house. It had a destination address of 8273 Postoak, an address that doesn't exist. I tried going to the website of the delivery service. They had a chatbot but the chatbot (which only worked during daytime hours) said they couldn't help and that I should contact the merchant (distributor of woman's sportwear). I tried the merchant, who also had a chatbot but they didn't even respond, although they told me they would send me an email if they did respond. I showed the package to George. He found a person with the same last name who had an address on Postoak. It was 8723 which is just two digits reversed from 8273 (he may have learned this skill from playing 'where in the world is Carmen SanDiego) or from his work at the retailish law service. .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... I delivered the package to that house today (knocked but no one responded so I left it by their door).
New Time Change protocol and some time change memories
The new car changed the time by itself so the new protocol for that is: nothing. Just have to do the stove, the microwave and a few other little things.
Anyway, the time change reminds me that once Ann and I were on a cruise from the Netherlands to the Baltic and back. As you can see from the map the time zones are close together at that latitude. When we were on the way west from Saint Petersburg, we set out clocks back 2 days in a row as I recall.
Another time we were on a land package in Spain. The time change from Daylight to standard occured the day before we crossed into Portugal so we had two days in a row of time change.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Since the time changes all resulted in 'an extra hour of sleep', these two stories are not traumatic.
Interesting License Plate: What was the reason for it?
Saw this earlier today. Perhaps the owner wanted people to be afraid of his Tesla. Perhaps he was just a fan of J R R Tolkien. I do note that there were, at one time 9 Nazgul. They were created in the 2nd age of middle earth and had major roles in parts of the 3rd age of middle earth. The chief Nazgul was killed during the siege of Minas Tirith by Merry (hobbit) and Eowyn (daughter of King of the Horsemen). The other 8 Nazgul were destroyed when the one ring was melted in the lava of Mount Doom ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Tolkien didn't have any connection to Nicola Tesla as far as I know. Tesla did have a mystical obsession with the numbers 3 6 and 9 however.
