Tuesday 05/26/2026

In the morning I paid my estimated tax, and did some paperwork re a tour we are planning, and tidied the apartment for the housekeeper. And then wrote a short essay for the writers group. After lunch I had a good long session with the guitar.

Then at 4pm I attended the meeting of the Common Areas Advisory Group, residents reacting to Rhonda’s plan for the building upgrade. Today we talked mostly about the plans to add both a bistro/coffee shop and a bar, where they would be in the building, what they would serve and how that would affect dining services in general.

I left the meeting while it was still in progress at 5, to meet with Joanne. We went straight in to dinner and managed to get served and finish eating by 5:30. Then we headed for the car and drove down to the museum for an event. That started with a reception, a couple hundred people not one of whom did I know, milling around in the big meeting space. As I had sort of supposed they had food, a sushi bar and a slider bar, we could have skipped supper at CH and eaten here. But actually it was less awkward the way we did it. Walking around with a plate of sushi looking for a table with open seats among strangers? Nah.

We heard some congratulatory talk by the museum CEO — they passed $100M of donations this year — and then went into the big auditorium for the evening’s event. This was the author of the book Steve Jobs in Exile: the Untold Story of NeXT, Geoffrey Cain, moderating a panel of three people who worked with Jobs at NeXT. Those were,

• Dan’l Lewis, most recently the CEO of the Computer History Museum, but in the 80s, the head of marketing for NeXT,
• Avie Tevanian, head of software at NeXT and then at Apple where he helped create both MacOS and iOS,
• Bud Tribble, part of the original Mac design team, software lead at NeXT and later at Apple.

That’s three heavyweight computer people, all of whom worked along with, or reported to, Steve Jobs for many years. So it was a fun presentation hearing the inside stories of the rise and fall of NeXT and its reincarnation as MacOS.

One story: the NeXT cube (see above) was made out of magnesium for lightness. It was difficult to cast and technically, magnesium metal is flammable, although there was never a problem with a NeXT burning up. The contractor who made the cubes had to sand them to remove mold marks, and the magnesium sanding dust is definitely and easily flammable and they had problems with fires. Also magnesium is hard to paint, and it was difficult to get a good coating of that nice black color. The original budget was that the case would be a $50 part, but it ended up costing more than $50 just to paint it.

I knew the general outline of the story. One item that I had never heard, was that when Tim Berners-Lee was developing what became HTML, he did the programming work on a NeXT cube.

My own story of the NeXT is this: When I was working as a tech writer at Informix, Steve Jobs cane and did a personal sales job on the VP in charge of documentation, and sold him on the idea that his writers and editors should use NeXTs. I remember vehemently telling him, “No, it’s the wrong decision!!” He ignored me, and our department of maybe 8 people got NeXTs to make manuals with. Of course, all the development engineers and everyone else in the organization was using Sun workstations. So we couldn’t run or test the software they were making. Not to mention the NeXT was slow.

Monday 05/25/2026

It’s a holiday so dining services is off tonight, and giving out sack suppers in the morning. At 8:30 I went to the dining room and picked up a salad and a cookie for supper. The plan is for the 6th floor to share pizza, but if you want a salad or a drink or whatever, pick it up from the kitchen in the morning.

With that done I went back down and met Joanne and we went for a walk. Bought a couple of things at Trader Joe’s, then had a coffee and a chat. We needed to plan tomorrow night: we are signed up for a reception at the Computer History Museum at 6, so we needed to figure out how to work in supper ahead of that.

Joanne had the car for a lunch date with her friends, so after lunch I hopped the #21 bus down to FOPAL. The #21 runs direct from Channing House to a block from FOPAL. And with my senior Clipper Card, the ride is only $1.

I found a mass of boxes, at least 10. I processed 6 of them, then caught the #21 back home.

At 5:30 I met the pizza guy at the front door and carried them up to 6 where 10 or 11 of us crowded around the table in our floor dining room and gossiped and had pizza. Everybody paid $15 which ended up about $40 more than I had spent, so the excess went into the 6th floor petty cash fund. That still left $120 for me which I stashed in my desk, along with the wad of cash remaining from the last time I bought pizza. Problem is, I almost never spend cash for anything, I always pay with my phone.

Sunday 05/24/2026

Usual Sunday morning. Largely a quiet day, nothing scheduled. I do not deal well with leisure. Joanne says I am “task oriented”. Sounds right. I get upset and depressed at the end of a day when I realize I didn’t do anything I would call worthwhile. OK, I did practice guitar.

And I killed my Kindle. This was a Kindle Fire tablet, the original 9-inch tablet from about 2012. It was bought new by my late brother-in-law, and his wife gave it to me. I’ve kept it by my bed for bedtime reading for at least a decade.

But the battery was starting to fail, and Amazon has announced the end of support for it. I had started to read up on how to jail-break it, so I could read non-Amazon ebooks. But first I wanted to replace the battery. I bought a new battery install kit for it. Watched the video on how to do the replacement.

I did the replacement and it seemed to go well. When I hit the power button, it booted up, the screen lit up, all looked good. Then I discovered that the touch screen was not responding. However I tapped or swiped, no reaction. Unfortunately the touch screen is the only input it accepts. If you can’t tap or swipe, you can’t do anything. I took it apart again and reassembled it twice, checking carefully that I had reattached all the cables. No dice. “It’s dead, Jim.” I took it to the basement where Facilities has a closet for collecting e-waste. RIP Kindle.

Saturday 05/23/2026

Main activity today was to lead a tour at the museum at 2pm. Don’t remember what I did in the morning, but I’m sure it was terribly constructive. Oh, I remember. Actually this was yesterday: the pot containing one of my favorite plants just split, half of the side of the pot falling off. I didn’t actually notice that, what I noticed was that the plant was obviously water-stressed, leaves all limp. Poor baby, what’s wrong? Oh–half of your root ball is exposed. So I had to repot the plant in a hurry, and made a mess of potting soil and stuff on the balcony. So part of this morning was to sweep up the mess and generally tidy up.

Anyway, after lunch I hopped in Fred and off to the museum. Good tour, had a couple of people who were absolutely riveted by my spiel, watching and nodding at every word. Very flattering.

After supper I was looking through some of the old pictures on my Smugmug page, and casually asked Joanne if she would be bored by somebody’s 20-year-old vacation pics. She very generously came down and spent an hour looking at my old pics of New Zealand. So that was nice.

Friday 05/22/2026

Joined Joanne for our customary Friday “muffin mosey”. We sat at Starbucks and planned out a trip we may take next year.

At 11 I joined what was until now the AI interest group. As of today we have a new focus. We recently learned that the new Channing House IT director, the jolly and likeable Jean (French zhan that is) means to replace our old in-house resident website, fondly known as Resweb, with a completely new site based on the Cubigo platform. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to replace Resweb which has a rather endearing turn of the century look to it, but there are a lot of immediate concerns about the details. The AI interest group has spent a lot of time talking about the shortcomings of Resweb lately so our collective ears perked up.

Jean made that switch at his previous employer, The Forum, a much larger senior residence a few miles away. He replied to a query that there, they had a Resident Tech Committee that was, he says instrumental in testing and refining that system. Channing House has no such general committee as yet, so we have appointed ourselves the ad hoc resident tech committee and we will work with the Resident Association exec committee to get that made official.

Frittered the rest of the day away.

This post is created using my iPad. Looking ahead to possible travel, wondering if I could make do with just the iPad, or should I carry a real laptop. Answer: either get a real keyboard for this, or the laptop.

I had a couple of pics from the Wednesday hike that I forgot to post.

Thursday 05/21/2026

An unscheduled day, nothing in the Google Calendar. Simultaneously freeing and worrisome. Started with an early walk, out at 7:30, back before 9. Was catching up on email when there was one from Joanne, saying she was going to go and get Fred smogged, did I want to come along? Sure. So I rode along as she drove Fred to the Smog Check station. We walked around California ave, had a coffee, the station texted her it was done. Back to the car and home.

After lunch I paid a bill, mixed some breakfast shakes, and put in a good productive hour of guitar practice.

Nice supper with Mary and Grace and Andrew.

Wednesday 05/20/2026

First thing was a hike with Joanne, Joanne, and Erika. We went to Wunderlich park in Woodside. Been there at least 2 times before. The hike is basically up for a mile and a half, then down. It’s only — did I really say “only”? — 600 feet up, heck that’s only fifty fucking flights of stairs, no problem, right? Just under 4 miles for the day.

Quick lunch, then the 1pm FOPAL volunteer zoom. And a solid nap. And then another meeting, Leah Lin had come in to chat with the Tech Squad, me and Bert and Craig. Leah of course is the person I contract with to hold my medical POA. She has the same relationship with Joanne, but this was about her providing technical help to Channing House residents. She’s working with several of our neighbors on various issues.

Answered some emails, practiced some guitar. Ate dinner in my room.

Tuesday 05/19/2026

Up and about and because neighbor Patty is away, I could start my laundry at 7:45 and had it all done and put away by 10:30. In between loads I tidied the apartment and wrote a piece for the writers group.

After lunch, about 1:30, Joanne and I went for a walk and coffee and a talk. That was nice. Then I put together some info for the AV team and wrote a long email for them. After supper it was time for the classic movie. The movie committee had decided to start a 4-film series of the best of Fellini, beginning with La Strada, which I had never seen. Welp, now I’ve seen it. I don’t plan to see it again. Nope, not a fan.

Monday 05/18/2026

Started the day with an early walk, out the door by 7:30, back by 9. That was 2 miles, but somehow through the rest of the day I have added 2 more.

At 9:30 I joined the Event Coordinator’s meeting. Made notes so I can have an AV meeting later. At 10:30 I left that to help a speaker set up in the auditorium. David G. had agreed to fill in for me in this job so I wasn’t really needed. Between us we got that speaker ready for his talk at 11.

At 10:45 I scooted out the door and walked to our new “satellite” which is now named Arris by Channing House, at 436 Forest Ave. I timed my walk, it was just under 6 minutes. But Sally, who walks slowly with a cane, timed herself and for her it was a 12 minute walk.

Anyway, the Transition committee assembled in the patio area of the Arris complex, two buildings sandwiched on to a couple of standard city lots. The building is about 4 years old, so very modern. Rhonda told the group that it will be ready for showing by the first week of June. We first looked at one of the two townhouse units. A “townhouse” is a 3BR, 2BA apartment on two levels, with rather a steep long staircase from the dining-room living area up to the BR area. I told Joanne later that the walk-in closet off the master BR is about the same size as her entire studio apartment.

Then we checked out one of the 2BR apartments, of which there are 10 in the building. Easily more square footage than our entire house on Tasso street. Then we looked at the 20-car underground garage, and finally, ta-daa, the pentouse. This is the third floor of the main building. It has 4BR and 4 baths, walk-in closets, not one but two entire kitchens, wine racks for at least 100 bottles… And there are several people who have put down $1000 to be on the “interest” list for it. Unbelievable. I said, if it were up to me, I’d form a commune, maybe three couples, buy it and share it.

I’ve got pictures but you know, who cares. Anyway, back to home, and immediately out again in Fred, down to FOPAL. Couple energy bars from the store, processed 4 boxes and tidied my section up, back by 3. Just time for a nap then it was time for Rhonda’s monthly open meeting, covering two upcoming changes. One, package delivery. They are going to an automated parcel locker system. When UPS or Amazon deliver, the package goes in a locker and you get a text telling you how to open that locker. And the elevator rebuild has started. For most of the next 12 months we will be without one of our three elevators, as they progressively replace them one at a time.

Quick supper, then at 6:30 met Joanne and we walked to the Aquarius theater to watch The Devil Wears Prada 2. We watched the original last Wednesday. Hard to believe those actors have aged 20 years since the prior movie. It has a lot of scenes in Milano, and Marian and I spent a couple days in Milano about 2015, so I recognized a lot of scenes. I cannot believe they actually shot a dinner party in the room where The Last Supper is on the wall. No, they did not:

The dinner scene in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie was filmed on a set built to three-quarters scale, including a hand-painted replication of Leonardo da Vinci‘s The Last Supper, by a team of craftsmen led by a woman who manages set design for a Roman opera house.

Anyway, fun movie if you see the original recently enough to remember it.