Steve and Judy's Travels!

This explanation from our grandkid Taylor in England:

Having worked at a hotel, yes, we did have a doodad to open those top locks. Well, us lowly desk agents didn’t have access to it, only the top manager had one. If they were on site and there was an emergency, they could flip open the locks. If the fire department beat the general manager to the hotel, they’d kick down the door, but the hotel doesn’t want to pay to replace doors and door jambs every time. There’s a surprising number of medical emergencies at hotels. And because different hotel brands have different configurations for those top/chain locks, the fire department isn’t going to keep copies of all the different tools they might need for all the hotels in the area. 

Oh, and yeah, the duty managers and maintenance did also have key cards that could override the deadbolt. Those cards were programmed with the name of the person permitted to carry them. The general manager had a scanner that could communicate with the door lock and print a report of all the keys used to open the door. I think it saved the last 20 uses? So if there was a dispute over who went in a room (also happened more often than one might expect) the general manager could print a report and show which keys had been used recently. Cool stuff. 

So, the locking door handle, the deadbolt, and the extra lock that only works from the inside are only protection from people willing to play by the rules.  If someone with bad intent wants to google the solution for how to get past all these security features, they can.  Aren’t we glad we asked!

Judy got three good years out of her artificial knee.  She’s had it for four.

We hiked and biked and walked.  It was great.  It worked just like it was supposed to.  Then the knee got a little loose and didn’t feel good anymore.  So today we were back up in Corpus and Judy got a knee tune-up.  A one component revision.  Some ligaments had stretched slightly and that’s what was allowing the wobble in her knee.  (This doesn’t always happen with knee replacements, but it’s not unusual for it to happen either.)  While the wobble was going on, some scar tissue, like a callus, formed.  So the challenge for the doctor today was to trim off all the scar tissue, and replace the plastic part in the middle of her knee with a slightly thicker one to stretch out the ligaments so they’ll work more like they’re supposed to again.  He said the surgery went really well.  We expect a lot more good years out of this knee.

Judy got released from the hospital early in the afternoon.  I checked us out of the hotel room we had been in for a couple days getting everything together for the surgery.  We drove back to the Valley and were home by dark, both of us a little on the tired side (We were at the hospital at 5:30am.) but as comfortable as we can be.

When we stay in a hotel, there is the lock we can use with the keycard.  There is the deadbolt we can turn from inside.  Those two locks can probably be overridden by hotel security in case there is an emergency inside, and the guest is unable to open the door to let responders in.

There is always one more lock though; something that can only be operated from inside for that last level of security.  Something like this, the top lock.

There is no access to this top lock from the other side of the door.  Which makes me wonder: Are all these locks just the illusion of security?  Is there actually some secret workaround to open the door from the outside in case of emergency?  Surely the hotel doesn’t rely on law enforcement to break through the door and blast out the door jam to find out what’s going on inside when they need to.  Right?

Posing

Looking magnificent.

And looking at you.

The white tails don’t show when they’re perched, only when they’re flying.

Nature’s most perfect outdoor temperature.

Sit outside on the deck in the shade.  It’s comfortable.  A breeze comes up.  No wind chill at that temperature.  It’s still comfortable.  Nature’s most perfect, right?

Set the inside thermostat to 86 degrees.  OMG, that would be awful!