Sunday 03/22/2026

Usual Sunday morning. Lunch. Then at 2, met with Joanne and we walked down to the First Congregational Church. (Total of 3.7 miles for the day.) This was to attend a concert called The Bluegrass Mass. There was a chorus of about 40 singers, including two from Channing House, Jerry and Carolyn. And a 5-piece “bluegrass” band. Well they had a bass, guitar, fiddle, banjo and mandolin. I don’t think the musicians, except for the banjo guy maybe, were that experienced in bluegrass styles. But they did OK.

The Bluegrass Mass had the various sections of the Latin Mass, Kirie, Gloria, Credo, etc., each piece sung in Latin by the chorus, but this alternated with old American songs like Shenandoah and I’ll Fly Away (which is a fave of mine, I play it on the guitar). It was all nicely done and a good musical experience. Besides us there were at least another 8 CH residents scattered through an audience of a couple hundred. (It’s a big church, First Cong.)

Back in time for supper, which I ate with the Allens (who weren’t at the concert) and Lois (who was). Anyway.

Later I put the announcement of CMX, quote

This Tuesday evening, a group will meet at 7pm on the 11th floor to listen to a complete album of music by a musical artist from this decade.

We will listen to the music while reading the lyrics, and perhaps talk a bit about our reactions. The session will fill about an hour.

The goal is to become acquainted with the popular music of the present time. We may not necessarily like, or approve, or enjoy the music (but we might!). At least we will be able to discuss it intelligently with younger people.

Because the TV lounge area on 11 is small, there is a limit of 20 participants. There is a sign-up sheet by the stairs.

The signup has only been out 24 hours and I had not made any announcement until now. There are 7 names on the sheet as of now.

Saturday 03/21/2026

Nothing on the calendar. I took a modest walk in the morning. After lunch I settled down to finish editing and uploading a video . Then I did all the preparation for the event that I’m sponsoring on Tuesday. I had this idea some time ago for what I’m calling Contemporary Music Exposure (CMX) the idea being for us oldsters to sit and really listen to some music produced in (gasp!) this century. Maybe even this decade. But to listen to unfamiliar music you would also need to have the lyrics printed out. So I picked the artist and album and made up a printout of the lyrics for all 12 songs. And wrote a little 2-paragraph introduction. Yesterday I put out a sign-up sheet for the event, since I plan to use the 11th floor tv lounge which will only hold 20 max. So that’s all set.

Had a crappy dinner, first really poor food from our dining room I’ve had in years, so I’m grumpy now. So there.

Friday 03/20/2026

Morning walk with Joanne. Then at 11 the AI interest group; lots of talking to no purpose.

At 4 I met with Mary and Arlene to practice our Music Man number. Evening, Joanne came by and we watched episode 3 of Riot Women.

Well, that was about it.

Thursday 03/19/2026

Did little housekeeping stuff in the morning. At 10:45 I reported to the auditorium as directed, to take part in a marketing event. The marketing group has these luncheons periodically where they invite the prospective residents on the wait list, excuse me, members of the Advantage Club, to have a nice lunch and hear a talk about Channing House. They get one current resident to sit at each table. There were maybe 10 or 12, 6-person tables set up. At my table I sat with Tony and Gael Lee and a couple name of Lovin whose first names I tried to memorize but now I forget.

Anyway we listened to an over-long talk about the main features of CH and our new satellite, Arris. Then they served a very tasty lunch. We five had a nice conversation, and I think I represented the residents well.

Right after, I met with Jean on the 11th floor. We sat with our laptops and each edited a recorded talk. Spent two hours and neither of us finished. It really takes 4 hours to finish processing a one-hour lecture.

Early supper, then I set up the auditorium for a concert by The Rounder Circle, the group I discovered and who were here for a concert in November (Day 6.332). They did a great job, nice music, everybody was pleased. I had some problem with feedback, but talking to the group after, it turns out they have had that problem with their equipment before, so probably it wasn’t anything I did.

Wednesday 03/18/2026

Wednesday morning has been hiking day for a while. Today Joanne had asked Martha for a shaded route on what was forecast for a hot day. She suggested the Coal Mine Ridge trail, which was new to me. It was a nice trail, shaded most of the way. “Only” 500 feet of elevation gain, compared to 650 at Wunderlich last week. It wasn’t really hot, just high 70s, but when I got home I had to change shirts.

Later I answered a query from the income tax preparer and did a bit other stuff. Played a little guitar for the first time in several days. Studied some of the packages recommended by Claude. I don’t know; I think I need to give up. I’m not a programmer any more. Too out of date, and find it too hard to give it the intensive focus it needs.

Tuesday 03/17/2026

Today was the day I was to present my talk on the origin of personal computers, “1975, the year everything changed” for the Fellowship Forum (see 7.099). I carried my script on my iPad; I had already sent my slide package to the organizer. I met with David M and we walked up to the Sheraton at 11 am.

I don’t usually think of myself as small, but in a room with 50 other men all wearing suit jackets, somehow it seemed like almost everybody was at least 6 inches taller than me. Anyway, I gave my talk and it was well received, good applause, several people went out the way to say “great talk” afterward.

David M had to sit with a committee of the F. F. so I walked back alone through 80+ degree heat. Got home all sweaty and tired. So I took a nap and then a shower and put on a clean shirt.

By arrangement met with Joanne at 5:30 and we went out for dinner. I had a yen to go back to Kirk’s burger joint. It moved to Midtown a couple years ago, I had been to that location just once. So that’s where we went. But probably not again. It’s just a typical sports bar, 6 or 8 screens showing different games. The burgers are nothing special and, the main problem, the room is noisy. I can see where they have put up some acoustic paneling on some parts of the ceiling. It ain’t enough. There were noisy family parties and… well, Joanne summed it up. As we were walking to the car, she said “You know there’s something wrong when you feel relief at leaving a restaurant.”

But we were back to the CH lobby by 6:40 and in plenty of time for the St. Pat’s day party. Hosted by the 7th floor and they did a great job, with Irish coffee and Irish Stout and lots of green cookies.

Monday 03/16/2026

Didn’t do much of anything at first. At 10:30 I attended the EvCo (event coordinators) meeting. Then off to FOPAL. Joanne had taken Fred for a car wash and gas-up yesterday so he was looking pretty.

Post-sale triage and processed three boxes of donations. Next time I go down I will have to replace all my section labels. I make these myself, print out labels and cut them into strips of paper about 15mm wide, which are attached to the front edge of the shelves with tape. The existing ones have gotten tatty, so I will have to redo them.

Back home, I practiced my talk for tomorrow. Passing in the hallway earlier, Martha mentioned that an internet search for something else had turned up this blog, and she had read the top articles. So of course now I had to do that, it’s been a year or two since I looked at them.

Sunday 03/15/2026

Normal Sunday morning routine. Then walked alone to Cafe Zoe for coffee. On the way back I realized the solution to the confusion I felt yesterday, trying to digest the use of, and relationships among, all those unfamiliar software platforms and packages. Claude confused me; get Claude to clarify.

So I sat down after lunch and had a long chat with Claude. I had it explain each of those things, what it was for, how they fit together to make a finished app. Much, much clearer now. And worked out probably a better, simpler approach. I felt much better after this chat.

I understand the Oscars are on tonight. I have no interest. Watch something else.

Saturday 03/14/2026

Yeah, you gotta be a geek to get that. 3.14 are the first three digits of the constant pi. (3.1415926 is all I ever memorized.)

Indeed I am a geek, but it turns out, not the geek I used to be. See below.

Nothing on the calendar. Took some clothes to the cleaners. Walked the local farmers market. I took the little Canon Elph (see 7.096 for a picture of it) and took a few pictures with it. I took the same picture with my iPhone 16. Here is a small section of the two shots.

If the 2000s call, they can have their camera back. We have come a long way, baby. (Plus, the entire camera hardware, lenses and all, of the iPhone is smaller than the tip of your thumb.)

Decided to get serious about Claude Code. First thing, you have to prepare at least some documentation about the app you want to build. I’d been working on that, so I spent an hour finalizing my requirements.txt and functional_spec.txt and set them up in a directory and invoked Claude Code and said /init. It spent 30 seconds reading my docs and presented me with a nicely organized summary of what I wanted to build. The requirements contained several open implementation decisions, and it provided suggestions on how to handle these.

Problem was, it was suggesting a bunch of open source platforms that I had never worked with and knew nothing about. So before I could approve its plan I needed to understand what it was talking about. For web hosting, Supabase, Huh? database, PostgreSQL. Hey I was an expert in SQL in, um, 1983. Code in Python, OK I am all over that; with FastAPI. What? Front end, React with Tanstack Table. Both new to me. Host the web app on Render. Wha?

And it says, shall I start building some code? No, no, wait. I have got to know what you are talking about. You could be hallucinating half of that. So I start looking up websites and trying to understand what these various platforms and products consist of, and cost.

An hour into this my brain is fried. There was a time when I could plunge into tech shit like this for hours. Not any more. My little gray cells, as Hercule Poirot says, they are weary.

Fortunately about that time Joanne texted saying, you want to take a walk? Uh, yeah. We walked up to Douce France for a cup. Funny thing. We were walking back along the bike path beside the railroad, holding hands, and a cyclist, not a kid, looked like a thirty-something athlete, zoomed past and yelled, “Hey, you lovey-doveys!” What, people can’t hold hands?

Friday 03/13/2026

Led a tour at the museum at 10am. I and another docent split a group of 30 comp. sci. students from a local school I had never heard of, San Francisco Bay University. Nice people, bit older than I expected, well, 20-somethings but looked closer to 30-somethings.

In the afternoon I did some av tech and also rehearsed my song, as part of our vest-pocket size version of the music man.

Out of that at 5, and at 5:15 got with Joanne and we drove to the AC Hotel (see 7.099). Got to their bar/lounge as the musicians were setting up. Ordered beers and a couple of tapas plates, and listened to the music for an hour. When the performers broke between sets we decided to go, and got home early, 7:30. But it was nice.