Category Archives: Paul Goldberg Blog

Isolation, Paul Goldberg Blog

Perils of Paul Continued

2 Comments

Haven’t posted one of these in a while. You would think that sitting still for week after week there would be nothing to go wrong, go wrong, go wrong!

Earlier this week Carol’s computer (new in November)  started having problems with using the power button to bring it up after a night’s sleep.  Then the WiFi device went away. Did all the usual hoops including reboot and uninstall reinstall the device, no go. Even spent time with Dan finishing some more esoteric diagnostics. There was no WiFi device to be found. Found a JCAT with an adapter from ethernet to usb and got her online.  Called Lenovo got a ticket number. They are backed up two weeks! Very next morning after the usual struggles to start the computer it came back on WITH wifi! Go figure. Will probably send it in for repair anyhow, it is under warranty. I have set it to NEVER turn off and it seems perfectly happy.

Went out to our shed and found the power was out. Did the usual, reset the breaker, no help. Decided to wait for a warmer, drier day to work on it. That was today. I tore into the box with the switch and the outlet and puzzled and puzzled. My meter showed power to ground, but nothing to the negative. Finally I noticed that the outlet I was holding in my hand was a GFCI and it was tripped. Reset it and put everything back together feeling just a bit dumb. There is now a great big label above the box “GFCI ” maybe I will remember the next time.

As we prepared dinner last night there was no hot water flowing from the water heater! It had been a bit erratic recently so this was not a total surprise. But it was particularly unpleasant as it was Friday night, of course. We went into “camping mode” and prepared to do without hot water until at least Monday. This morning while washing up I ran the hot water more as a joke than an expectation. And there was hot water. Maybe the fact that the rain has stopped and the humidity is returning to normal made a difference. I have no clue and no expectations other than we will now replace the water heater after 8 years of intermittent problems.

A final minor kerfuffle involved Zoom. I have a licensed account. I noticed when Carol installed her free account the application was a newer version than mine. When I tried to update I got a message “Auto Update Blocked, Call your IT Admin” I tried calling myself, then I called Dan, again, and we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to fix it. Even tried reinstalling it which did nothing. Eventually out of lack of anything better to do I, uninstalled the application and rebooted the computer. Then I went through a new install which brought me to the current version with all the new security “stuff”.

That was one week of stuff during which the temperature never rose above 60 and the rains were almost continuous and we were content to being Safe in our coach in our wonderful SKP Resort where the virus has not yet intruded.  At least I didn’t have a lot of time to develop cabin fever.

Isolation, Paul Goldberg Blog

A Strange and Painful Week

4 Comments

A week ago I moderated my first Zoom meeting. Today I am beginning to  feel like a pro – actually I paid for a Pro account to accommodate longer meetings. We like to talk when we get together and 40 minutes isn’t very long either  for family or JCATs. 

Early in the week we learned that our sister-in-law Natalie Rudin had a very serious stroke, at 85 this is not to be taken lightly. By Thursday she was in hospice in NJ and no way for anyone except her son to even see her. We gathered the family from coast to coast and NJ to FL on Zoom and spent time getting reacquainted and starting to share memories of Natalie. Friday afternoon we received word she had died. Shabbat precluded immediate sharing, we have received word the funeral will be Sunday and will be live streamed in some manner. Shiva, the 7 days of mourning in Jewish ritual,  will be on Zoom. It enables us all to be “present” and saves a lot of air travel. Would rather get on the plane, but . . .

Also during this week we learned that Carol’s dearest friend from before Kindergarten – even before me – is in hospice after a long time of in and out of hospital care and weeks of no news. 

Pile this all on top of quarantine and necessary supply trips and it has been an exhausting week. A week like we have never seen, a week of watching stock market gyrations that are making me sea sick and I don’t get sea sick on the ocean. Sometimes, unintentionally I hear the orange head proclaim something clearly contrary to fact and wonder how our nation will pull through both medically and economically. Many governors seem to be actually responding to facts and scientific reason rather than emotion and bias. That may well be the source of our recovery leadership. 

Carol and I feel safe and secure. We are still under quarantine from our return from Panama, only yesterday was our scheduled return. We made a trip into town on Thursday to get hearing aids for Carol and pick up some last minute necessities – Yellow Dot Irish Whiskey is clearly a necessity isn’t it. We also bought supplies for a neighbor. We have daily offers to run errands and help us with things we cannot do in quarantine. As soon as we hear of someone having a need it seems a member will supply the need, even to an internet router replacement.  

I attended two events in Rochester. On Monday I attended a meeting of the Rochester Jewish Community Board of Directors by Zoom like all the other members. Yesterday afternoon we attended Shabbat services at Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, it was a bit early, but we needed the break and the sanity and even more it brought us back to the community where we have spent most of our lives. We do miss it, but not quite enough to give up our current lifestyle and venture back into winter.

Isolation, Paul Goldberg Blog

Living the Remote Life

1 Comment

I have time on my hands and very little really happening. I have the computer on my lap and feel the urge to communicate. We are travelers, no surprise to most of you. We live for the next trip/adventure. There has been something planned for the not to distant future since we got our first motorhome and foreign travel has been an annual, at least, experience since I retired/sold my practice in 2012. 

There is a flight booked to Charlottesville for April 6, somehow I don’t have great expectations that we will be going. I just checked and Delta is expecting us . We had planned to drive to Alaska leaving Jojoba Hills on April 26 , that also seems unlikely since the border with Canada is closed to all traffic other than necessary commercial traffic. We talked about booking a trip to Sicily in the Fall, unlikely. I am feeling a bit stranded. Even a trip into town for medical or supplies requires intense thought and planning to get the most out of the time with the least contact with other people.  No surprise, supplies for staying safe are not readily available. Forget toilet paper and hand cleaner. Facial tissue is almost unavailable as well – I saw a box of 75 sheets for over $10 on Amazon, price gouging much? This was an outside seller delivering through Amazon. 

My expectation is we will be here through the summer. As we adjust to the new way of living, it will get easier for us. I am grateful we are retired and not dependent on work to keep food on the table and rent paid. Too many people are without work and without income. We are concerned about our staff, most of whom are laid off as “non essential”. We are paying our monthly maintenance fee based on paying their salaries, shouldn’t we just keep paying them? That may be an existential question to put to the board. Glad I am not on the board now.  

Tech is king now. We Zoom to get together and to have working meetings.  Even our Happy Hours include gathering around the computer screen with Zoom with drink in hand. We have apps for the stores where we will shop so we can preorder and have the order waiting at the pickup location for us. We email, text, message and write blogs to stay in touch. We even make phone calls! I know there are many other social apps people are using, but it’s enough to keep track of the ones I mentioned.

What am I doing? Washing my hands, watching PBS News Hour, watching movies and series, reading books and writing here and on a variety of forums and FB groups that I participate in. If you want to talk, send a zoom link, send a text or just call me at 585-721-2355. Do remember I am in California so 10 AM on the East Coast is 7 AM by me and I might be a bit out of sorts 🙂

 

 

opinion, Paul Goldberg Blog

In Quarantine!

2 Comments

We are living in our 300 square feet of motorhome. Somehow it feels bigger than the hotel rooms we were in. The outdoors is visible no matter where we face and we can walk out if we choose, so long as we keep our distance from others. Our 2 week quarantine is not much different from those around us who are living under the Stay Safer limits everyone in California faces. 

We went shopping on Wednesday morning before settling in. We found most of what we were looking for, even some paper goods. Then yesterday I got online and ordered almost everything else we needed. Even bought two 30 gallon propane tanks so we can return to using propane to heat. It’s a price thing! 

This morning I attended my first Zoom JCATS meeting. I expect we will gather at the usual time 3 times a week to discuss technical matters in the park and how to keep people’s television, internet and phones functioning without being able to go into their rigs at all. It could get interesting. 

I spoke to my Uncle Josh, in his 90’s in a new home. He seems to be getting on well. Followed up with a Zoom call later. Getting very tech these days. 

I just received the propane tanks, labeled them and took them up to the refill station. For my next venture out of doors I plan to take a walk avoiding getting within 6 feet of anybody. Then later today we may have a Zoom Happy Hour. I’m waiting for Carol to try  working with Zoom.  

Reality check, we are very social people and miss the company of others. Even when we are no longer quarantined we will still need to practice social distancing. It is really hard to converse with a group who are all so separated. I guess we will have to learn a new way of living. 

Pessimist here! I think that many of the changes we are making are long term if not permanent. I cannot imagine  a time when we will be able to get to Rochester or Charlottesville. Vaccine is a long way off and even treatment is strictly supportive care to relieve symptoms so far. This virus will not magically disappear. It is doing just fine in Panama where daytime temperatures are in the 90’s and it cools off to high 70’s, so the arrival of warm weather here will not stop it. Not to contradict the president of course.  Once it has run its course, many people will have acquired immunity, maybe, but the surviving elderly who successfully avoided it will not benefit from that supposed immunity.  We will remain vulnerable to grandkids and passing strangers. 

I need my mask and gloves, long term.

Panama - Columbia, Paul Goldberg Blog

Life in Jojoba Hills

1 Comment

Our winter home base, Jojoba Hills SKP Resort, is a place of transitions. Members leave for travel, return from travel, change their location in the park and leave the park either to be closer to family, or because the they are no longer willing or able to live the RV lifestyle. Last year 8 members died in the park. Visitors come and go and as fast a space opens up due to a departure a new member arrives and enters the community bringing different talents interests and abilities. It has been said that if the park has a need of a talent or skill not found here, a new member will arrive to fill the need. 

Sometimes it’s a matter of a current member finding an ability that has laid dormant for a lifetime waiting for the call. I have found my niche in the tech side of things. I wonder how it is that I am chairing a committee to research a new phone system for the park. I will not be doing this alone, the entire JCATS crew are in on the task. For those who have not seen that acronym before Jojoba Communication and Technology. Not sure where the S came from.  We service and maintain the TV, Phone and Internet service to each pedestal in the park. From college days I learned to wire phones in my dorm room because the phone company never provided a long enough cord and there were no jacks. TV I have had to learn since the system encompasses 283 sites spread over acres. Internet is the easiest, usually, because the signal propagates over the phone lines and either it works or it doesn’t, mostly. Running these wires through an RV is another matter and often we suggest bypassing the internal wiring and bringing a cable in the window.

No surprise to myself I also serve on the Finance Committee and the Marketing Committee. In between meetings and travel I play bridge. 

We are preparing to go on another trip in a week. We leave for Panama on the 9th to complete the trip we had to leave last year. Watch this space for details as we travel. In addition to Panama we will go to Bogota and  Medellin before returning to LA  on the 27th. Our return from Ethiopia landed us at LAX on Friday at 1 PM after 48 hours in transit and we spent a miserable 5 1/2 hours driving a normal 2 to 2 1/2 hour drive to Jojoba. This trip lands us in LAX at 1 PM on Friday. We have taken a hotel room near our son for Friday night and will drive home Saturday morning after a good nights sleep. 

Paul Goldberg Blog

Two Days with Friends from College

2 Comments

Each year the Londons come out to Palm Desert for February. We look forward to spending time with them when they are here. This year they had a large house with spare bedrooms and bathrooms and we were delighted to drive over the mountain and have two days and an evening with without having to drive back over the mountain in between.

We started with the Palm Beach Air Museum located adjacent to the airport.

We are in front of one of the few remaining B-17 Flying Fortresses from a fleet of over 12,000 built during WW II housed at the Palm Springs Air Museum.

Carol and David in the radio room of the plane

Our next event was a jazz concert by Houston Person at Pete Carlson’s Golf & Tennis. Yes that’s right the venue is a Golf and Tennis shop by day and often after dark a jazz venue.

The Jazz was wonderful as was the venue. We were surrounded by a seemingly endless array of golf accessories not to mention clubs and ball. 

Before that we stopped at Palm Springs Art Museum in Palm Desert. There we fell in love with an exhibit of photography themed around History, Memory and Social Justice. We recognized many of the photographers and enjoyed experiencing work that we had not seen (or didn’t remember seeing).  

The next day, Thursday, brought more interesting  stops. First we went to Sunnyland, built by Walter Annenberg where 8 of the last 9 presidents visited and made use of the house for important conferences and just to relax. We toured the gardens and the visitor center which did not require advance purchase of tour tickets.

After swinging by the house to freshen up and meet David we set out for the Palm Springs Art Museum, where we arrived just in time for a docent tour with Ann Loeb, the same docent we toured with a year ago. wonderful energy and excitement about the art she chooses to feature.

The picture is mostly to provide an overview of the space from the mezzanine looking up to the 2nd floor. We decided to take in a special exhibit where we found this sign:

Carol and I were quite excited as we drive through Anza just about 12 miles from our home park often and are less aware of the Cahuilla Indians than we might be. 

After a light meal in the gallery courtyard cafe, Carol and I said good by to the Londons and headed over the mountain to Jojoba Hills SKP Resort. 

A small story of coincidence: Last May we attended my class of ’64 Reunion and I served as Class Marshall. A photographer  took pictures of all of us in the regalia of top hat and cutaway. I have sort of been waiting to receive the promised print. When we arrived at Toby and David’s in Palm Desert, David handed me an envelope addressed to him, mailed just before they left Providence with my picture and a letter of thanks to David! I sent an email thanking the university alumni association for the unique delivery method, only wondering how they knew we would be together, on the west coast in February.

 

Morocco and Ethiopia, Paul Goldberg Blog

Returning to US

1 Comment

We are in travel mode heading back to California. We have been in Morocco with our family for 2 glorious weeks, about which much more later. We spent 3 days in Tel Aviv at the 
David Intercontinental on the beach relaxing and recovering in preparation for 10 days travel in Ethiopia. The latter was among the roughest travel we have undertaken. After three luxurious nights in  the Addis Ababa Sheraton we went to Bahir Dar, Gondor, Lalibela and finally Axum. More about that later too, but note we moved every other day until Axum which was the departure point for the long days of travel we are in the midst of.

Wednesday morning we flew on a Dash 8  from Axum to Addis Ababa. Eyob, our guide, split the group, taking those of us flying onward immediately, the Poleshuks and Barb, to the International Terminal for our Ethiopia Airlines flight to Tel Aviv. We left the hotel at 8 AM Ethiopia time and arrived in Tel Aviv at about 8 PM TLV time total travel 13 hours. We said goodnight and farewell to Joyce and Vic as we went to our rooms. They flew out early this morning. 29 hours later our next flight is 1 AM to Paris 5 hours and following a 5 hour layover we finally arrive in LAX at 1 PM after a 10 hour flight. 49 hours from departure in Axum we will rent a car in LAX for the 2+ hour dive to Jojoba Hills. 

The original plan was to do the whole trip with no break, but I messed up and added a day in Tel Aviv by mistake. I am grateful as we both needed a good nights sleep in a comfortable bed. Vic located this hotel, Sadot, on TripAdvisor and we are happy. It is quiet, comfortable and has a free shuttle to the airport. Breakfast is excellent. The hotel is on the top 2 floors of a mall in a medical center, not a tourist location, but perfect for our needs. 

opinion, Paul Goldberg Blog

Thoughts on a Dark and Stormy Night

12 Comments

It hardly seems like SoCal with the temperatures in the low 50’s and rain squalls passing through. But it is early December and this is what we are experiencing in Jojoba Hills. By Monday we will be back into the 70’s and clear and sunny.

I only wish our country could pass from the dark and stormy period we are in to clear and sunny as easily. I find myself reading New York Times far more selectively than in the past. I listen to NPR with only half an ear, waiting for stories that do not relate directly to politicians, even a nasty story about Bishop resigning is a relief from the drumbeat of politics – not that it isn’t political but it is different. On social media I immediately skip over any threads and people who insist on pushing whatever side of current politics they favor. 

I am not indifferent, quite the opposite. I value balanced information. I really like facts. I welcome a healthy discussion of ideas with people who are open to considering alternative points of view. I can change my mind if presented with facts and ideas that suggest I consider alternatives. Too few people I talk with are willing to listen to open their minds. I fear I too must look like one of them because so much of what is presented to support the alternative is fact free, and  even contrary to fact . Or it starts with statements about the past and about people that are built around conspiracy theories. I disengage  in these circumstances.

Here in our park politics and religion are forbidden topics in our common spaces. It is helpful. When people who cannot seem to express a thought without bringing in current politics speak up, I remind them of our agreed upon restraints. This enables me to engage and work with people with whom I disagree.

Next morning, view of Palomar with our Jeep in foreground

Paul Goldberg Blog

Loving Life in Jojoba Hills

1 Comment

Its amazing how a retired guy sitting in a motorhome going no place can find so little time to sit and write a blog post. In addition to more committee work to help keep the park a place I want to be there are endless activities. And if none of those are on the agenda for the day there is Bridge most days from 1 PM until 3:30 or so. The other things that are keeping me busy are preparing for our travels to Morocco, Israel and Ethiopia This December and January. 

Carol and I just realized we don’t have any more travel booked after this travel so it is time to plan the return to Panama to complete that trip and  to continue on to Columbia as originally planned. 

Add to that our desire to return to Alaska this coming summer and I will have my hand full with planning. Ordinarily the Alaska trip would be a matter of getting the books and maps out and some minimal prep of the coach and Jeep and done. But we think we want to take the Marine Highway which requires making reservations which requires actual planning. This has not been our strong point in all our years of RV travel. We are more the “wing it” type as anyone who has read these blogs for a while must recognize. 

I have laid out the beginning of the trip using a new, or at least new to me, online package called RV Trip Wizard. My first use of this web site was for traveling from Rochester to Jojoba Hills. This was an easy test since we have driven this several times and could probably do it without a map. It did simplify determining where we would stop each night. This became especially important when our plans were disrupted by the mechanical failure on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Sitting in the coach with the site running I was able to easily reconfigure the trip and plan the visits we still wanted to make.

For Alaska I have put in the big jump from Temecula CA to Prince Rupert Sound, at least a month for us right there, to get us to the initial ferry ride. The Alaska Marine Highway is actually a ferry system in case you didn’t know. Then I started laying out the routes we thought we wanted to take. Oops, can’t book any of that online with a coach over 30 feet long. More oops, they don’e have the schedule online beyond April, yet. That gets us as far as Haines from which we will travel ??? actually haven’t a clue. We know we want to get to Seldovia and Anchorage is an interesting place and so is Fairbanks and Denali NP is between them. But my route planning stops at the last ferry ride to Haines. 

Back to today. The coach and jeep are freshly washed and waxed by Red White & Blue Detailing, I would rather write a check than spend hours pretending I can do as good a job as 2 guys who do it all day long. I have a planning meeting for a project related to Finance Committee and then a meeting to requalify as a tour guide before we go to a Last Friday Dinner being held on the 2nd last Friday of the month because next week is Thanksgiving and we wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity for another reason to get together and eat and dance. 

I have spent altogether too much time listening to hearings, listening to and watching analysis of those hearings, not talking about it with others since we do not necessarily agree and we are a close community. I even read the New York Times mostly “below the fold” to see what else is going on in the country and the world. I doubt our national misery will end any time soon. We are too badly fractured and no one wants to even consider what the other side has to say. 

Paul Goldberg Blog

Home from Limbo

1 Comment

A lot of road has passed beneath the tires since my last post from Livingston TX. 1,573.1 miles to be precise. We made stops in McKinney Falls SP to visit a former rabbi who has a post in Austin.  Then a stop at Walmart in Fort Stockton TX, if this isn’t the middle of nowhere, you can see it from here. A couple of nights in Las Cruces NM where we had dinner with our friends Leora and Stu and attended , almost by chance a day of the Dead celebration and folklore performance in Mesilla Square. See Carol’s blog at http://cgstudio.net for more details on that. Then  Benson AZ, Saguaro SKP Coop for one night before heading to Catalina SP for 3 nights and dinner with Elly and Kelly from our trip to Thailand and Vietnam. 

From Catalina SP, outside Tucson, we opted to take the southern route on I 8 to El Centro and then into the desert to stop for the night at Peg Leg Smith Monument. I have written about this place a few times in the past. You could google it. Since it was Friday night of Veterans Day we expected the place to be packed. it wasn’t. Actually there was enough space to swing the coach around with the Jeep attached and find a level spot with no one near us and easy egress. The price is always right there – $0.0. From there it was less than 60 miles to Jojoba Hills SKP Resort and by noon we were set up on our site and had arranged for a gang to come over at 4 for Happy Hour.  Parties are always good!

We are still doing the small stuff to make this space home.  I have started connecting with my volunteer activities. Looking forward to bridge, JCATs, and general trouble making as we go forward for the next 6 weeks, until we leave for Morocco.