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FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | AUGUST 2026 21 By Steve Beno How do I come up with a different topic for my monthly article you might ask? I say "might" as no one in the 10 years I've been writing this column has asked me that question. Did you notice that I wrote "article" in the first sentence and "column" in the second? I was reading e New Yorker magazine … wait just a second. Now that I'm retired, I guess I have time to actually read e New Yorker instead of just searching out the cartoons. But how do working stiffs find time to actually read it?! Anyway, there was an article on Henry W. Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, first published a year after the magazine's founding in 1925. Fowler (as the book is still called) became the magazine's reference book for grammar and writing style. Fowler criticizes using synonyms as unnecessary "elegant variations." Another tidbit I picked up in the article relates to the word decimate. The original meaning of the word was to reduce by a tenth. What I regarded as modern usage has largely turned that upside down to mean reduce by nine-tenths or a very large amount. I hereby state I am no longer bothered by that usage having found that a century ago Fowler said such usage was OK. By the way, one of his preferences has thankfully not caught on – he preferred using "&" to the word "and." Back to how I come up with a column topic. On occasion, I have to rack my brain for an idea. Sometimes it just f lows from one piece to the next as all those Jewish columns I did in 2024. Rarely – come on people, help me out – one of you responds to the last line in every article. If only there were more Elizabeth Westbrooks. Often an idea will just pop into my head, and I'll run to my computer to get it down in writing. And sometimes what seemed like a good idea won't pan out at all and I'll just scrap it. This article was inspired by an email from Waste Management. It was about its app which it describes as "Your community page with WM is your go-to resource for managing your WM account and finding essential service guidelines." This led me to think about the apps that apply to each of us living in Four Seasons. Of course, there are many apps that meet that criterion — weather, traffic, the excellent City of Beaumont app. But I'm thinking of apps that serve us as residents living in our community. DL Mobile is our excellent dwellingLIVE gate app. If you're at Best Buy, for example, and have just arranged for a delivery of your new washer and dryer, you can use this app to allow easy access to Four Seasons. You can designate a visitor as one day only, a set period, or permanent. The guard will usually send you a text once entry has been granted. You know that a property management company runs our community on a day-to-day basis. Back when we bought our house, there was a sales office with a big model of Four Seasons in the center. That became the management office, and just about every person who works in that office and those who sit behind the desks in our community buildings is an employee, not of Four Seasons, but of FirstService Residential, our management company. And, lo and behold, FirstService has a Connect Resident app which gives "residents instant access to your community … Easy navigation and 24/7 availability means you can quickly take care of community business at your convenience. Key features include access to forms and documents, account history and payments, the opt-in resident directory, and a lot more." You can set up gate entries on this app as well as DL. And if you've never dealt with a digital assistant, you can try querying HODA on the app. Back to the impetus for this column. The then-new Waste Management app. It's nice and well-designed. But I don't need the convenience of an app for things I can do on the WM website. On the other hand, if you haven't established credentials for the website, the app is just as good. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! From taking out the trash to taking care of business

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