Village News, 10/1/20

Dear Village Neighbor / Friend,

Rolling Road – Have you noticed the work now ongoing on Rolling Road? Surely hope you saw the posted signs prohibiting curbside parking as they resurface the road. Principal Maureen Boland offered the Rolling Valley ES parking lot to those who may need a space to park. It will be a good trial run for us living along side streets to accept cars normally curbside on Rolling Road. Be warned, beware and be careful.

 

October Membership Meeting – Next Thursday, 8 October starting at 7:30 PM. It will be another virtual, online, zoom meeting. At this meeting, we vote to ratify the FY20 audit of our finances, vote to pass a marked up budget for the next FY and vote to elect a new Board of Directors (President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer). Please let me know if you want to nominate yourself for one of the BOD positions.

 

Bob Havey, our Webmaster has set up the Zoom and invites us to join the meeting

 

Topic: CAWSV Fall Meeting

Time: Oct 8, 2020 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

 

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89803036028?pwd=dFVGOTVRM3R2b3o3dkpPSFlXdGp5dz09

 

Meeting ID: 898 0303 6028

Passcode: 137758

 

Dial by your location (for land line access instead of computer or smartphone)

        +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)

 

Meeting ID: 898 0303 6028

Passcode: 137758

 

I’ll forward Bob’s step-by-step instructions to anyone needing help.

 

COVID-19 Update – Case counts in Fairfax County remain stable and relatively low. The percent positivity rate dropped to below 5%, now at 4.2%. That came from the Board of Supervisors Chairman; latest can be found here.  The COVID-19 Information Page on FaceBook is great single source:  https://www.facebook.com/coronavirus_info/?page_source=bookmark.

 

What Do We Do About Halloween? Our annual Halloween Party is cancelled. I know it is a ways off, but I don’t think we’ll have much change in the virus between now and Halloween. I know that parents will make the decision for their children, but village wide – we need to know if we should stock up on treats.

 

Options:

 

  1. No door to door trick or treating – we’ll get some even if we decide not to.
  2. Trick or Treating with all wearing masks and using hand sanitizer with no-contact social distance distribution of treats
  3. Limited trick or treating (immediate neighbors / friends) in appropriate masks and other precautions.
  4. What if we did a trunk or treat in the pool parking lot, and the cul-de-sac/street leading into the pool. Cars  could be decorated, the candy could be out for the kids to take, people could step back and there could be some crowd control so not everyone goes in the at the same. 
  5. Halloween Parade in lieu of Trick or Treating

 

If you do allow your children to trick or treat, remember that a home without an outside light on means they have no treats or are saving them for themselves.

 

Seamus O’Connor is working on an alternative plan and needs your help. Read the next article.

 

Halloween Parade? Seamus O’Connor wants to have a parade this year instead of the normal trick or treating due to Covid-19. He will host a Good Meets meeting at 5:45 PM on 2 October to discuss if and how we can pull this off safely. If you are interested and willing to help with the planning, please email Seamus at seamusoc@gmail.com.

 

Nightmare Alley Drive Through Terror - Workhouse Arts Center is doing a Nightmare Alley Drive-Thru Terror on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 2 October – 31 October. Learn more about it at https://www.workhousearts.org/nightmare-alley/.

 

Real Estate Market Report – courtesy of Tim Royster (tim@roysterhearthgroup.com, 571/275-0871), of The Royster Hearth Group. The real estate market continues to gain momentum in Northern Virginia as buyer demand continues to outpace supply. The average days on market for homes in August 2020 was 16 days compared to 22 days in August 2019. This shows that buyers are snapping up homes and in many cases, buyers are competing in multiple offer situations. We are also seeing a steady increase in new listings, which is good news for buyers.

 

It continues to be a hot seller's market. The median sold price of homes in August rose by 9.61% compared with last August from $540,000 to $592,500. The demand/supply imbalance is the main reason for the rising prices.

 

If you are contemplating moving and selling your home, you have a great opportunity to sell now. Buyers are actively looking for homes but it's hard to find homes to purchase due to low inventory

 

Yard Sale - Jenna Barron and Amy Killion  are holding a joint yard sale at 6901 Vancouver Road, this Saturday, 3 October from 8:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Items include:

 

  • Kitchenware- some of it rarely used
  • Books
  • CDs
  • Home decor- lots of pieces, including a very heavy brass chandelier!
  • Home furnishings, Garden items
  • Jewelry
  • Kids toys
  • Clothing- shoes, bags, clothes
  • Bedding
  • Vintage Norwegian pewter
  • The list is kind of endless...

 

Metal Recycling – Brent Guernsey recommends recycling metal instead of taking it to the dump. You can pick up a few dollars for unwanted metal (think office chairs, metal shelves, and other household items) instead of paying money to put it in a landfill.  Potomac Metals is located in Springfield off Backlick Road in an industrial park. They pay for metals by the pound, and it is a shorter distance than driving to Lorton. 

 

Security – rather than waiting for the horse to leave the barn (again):

 

  • Lock your cars to include those in your garage and
  • Don’t leave valuables in plain sight even in locked cars.
  • Secure your personal items such as bikes.
  • Look out also for your immediate neighbors’ family and property.
  • Drive around on village streets, especially when most of us are asleep. You might just see someone doing something they shouldn’t. Do not confront them, but do record as much detail about the person and their car (make, model, color and ideally license plate number) and call the police.
  • If you become a victim, even if you failed to secure your car or left valuables inside the car - report it to the police, non-emergency number (703/691-2131).

 

Congratulations! Bruce & Suzanne Slawter reported they now have their 6th grandchild – Everett James Slawter arrived last Friday, 26 September. Mom and newborn are doing splendidly.

 

The French Alps – Bruce Slawter also shared his new video and photo album of a hiking trip that he and his wife Suzanne made in the French Alps a few years ago. You can view these – recorded around the beautiful village of Chamonix and the spectacular Mont Blanc massif – by clicking on this link to a new blog post:

 https://bruceslawter.com/2020/09/25/alpine-dreamin-chamonix-and-mont-blanc-france/.

 

I viewed both and can say that the video and the photo album are spectacular and well worth your time. 

 

The Cloud – I use my computer primarily for communications and data management which means I know little about “backing up my stuff on the cloud”.  I do so using Carbonite, but now wondering how I access my stuff on the cloud. So I asked Bob Havey (Rolling Road), our Webmaster, Owner/Operator of D2D Computer Services and Resident Computer Whisperer how do I get back whatever Carbonite placed in or on the cloud. Bob responded as though he had assumed I would need help. Here’s his comments:

  1. Look at the icons in the notification area (click the ^ on the far right of the Task Bar) or find the Carbonite icon on your desktop. In either case, you are looking for a green ball.
  2. Double click either icon. A box will open.
  3. Click either “Get My Files Back” or “View My Backup”.
  4. If you click “View My Backup”, the Carbonite website will open in your browser.
    1. Log in with your email address and your Carbonite password. Use “Forgot Password” if you don’t remember it. Don’t forget to check “I am not a Robot”.
    2. Once you are logged in you will be presented with a set of directories that work pretty much like the familiar File Explorer.
    3. Navigate to the file that you want. To download a single file click the “cloud” icon to the right. To download multiple files (or folder contents) check the box next to the desired files or folders and click the Download button that appears.
  5. If you click “Get My Files Back”, a dialog will appear asking whether you want to get a few files or your entire backup.
    1. If you click “Choose Files”, the Carbonite website will open in your browser.
      1. Proceed as in step 4
    2. If you click “Get All of My Files”, a dialog will appear asking whether to put everything back where it was or to download to a folder on your desktop.
      1. If you elect to put everything where it was (for a clean installation), everything will be put back where it came from.
      2. If you elect to download to the desktop, you will be able to inspect everything before you put it away.
      3. Note that in either case you will be required to log in to Carbonite.

 

Please renew your membership and enjoy the cooler, fall weather. Stay safe, happy and healthy.

 

John Cooley, CAWSV

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