Sunday 09/06.2026

Today was the day of the memorial for Rajat Deb. I never met the gentleman, although after hearing all the things said about him, I wish I had. Dr. Deb had a career first as a professor of comp. sci., partly at Stanford, and then as an entrepreneur making custom software for the electric power industry. My neighbor Rich worked for him for more than a decade in the 80s-90s. He was asked to speak, and the family asked him to also give some kind of history of Silicon Valley for the non-technical people in the group. Rich had volunteered me to do that part.

I was also to drive, and neighbor Peter, who knew the Deb family well, was going to come. This morning Peter called to beg off, not feeling well. So Rich and I drove up to the Fogarty Winery on Skyline blvd, arriving about 2pm. What a gorgeous place. Their event space is a huge roofed deck looking out on a fabulous view of the southern half of San Francisco Bay (click the link for a pic). We were there a couple of hours. Could have drunk a lot of wine but had coke instead, as I still had to drive down very twisty roads.

Gave my little talk, Rich gave his little talk, we at some snacks. Rich of course knew many people in the crowd of over 100, while I of course knew nobody. But it was ok. Everyone was very nice.

Saturday 09/05/2026

Went for a bit of a walk in the morning. At 11, headed out for the Museum. Led the Noon tour, had a big group, maybe 30 at the start, still 22 or 23 at the end, very appreciative group.

At 5, Joanne and I drove to one of her favorite places, the Parkside Grille in Portola Valley, for a nice supper, outdoors under redwood trees. As usual we talked about our neighbors… Edie passed yesterday… Phil fell and broke a hip… Joanne had been at Patty’s 90th birthday lunch… gossip.

Friday 09/04/2026

Joined Joanne for our usual Friday morning muffin walk. Later in the day I assisted Lenny to practice for her upcoming book talk.

Practiced some music. Read a couple chapters of a book. Quiet day all around.

Thursday 09/03/2026

Took a standard walk in the morning. Then at 11am, met with Joanne and we hopped in Fred and drove down to Mountain View to have lunch with my sister-in-law Jean. Jean is 98, in good health, walks with a cane, still drives her car for local errands. We went to her favorite lunch spot, Eric’s DeliCafe. Had a nice chat for an hour.

Main excuse for the visit was to return a book. A younger relative, J.P. Lacrampe, published an SF novel recently. Jean had been given a copy, read it, sent it along to me. Now I had finished it so I was returning it. I had tried and failed to explain to Joanne how I was related to J.P., so it was good to work through the connections with Jean.

(Octavie and Leon Lacrampe had four children. The eldest, Henri, died young but had one son, Pierre. Pierre, now a retired oral surgeon living in Danville, had four children of whom J.P. is the youngest. He is now an instructor at SCU. So J.P. is my late wife’s nephew’s son. Makes him a cousin by marriage, I guess.)

I had said I really needed to buy a new pair of black loafers, my good old Mephisto pair were just really worn out. Joanne said I needed adult supervision for that, so, being out in the car and with time to kill, we drove to Los Altos to Footwear Etc. I bought a pair of Ecco shoes. Then another errand and home.

A part of the later afternoon I spent watching the oral history video of famous Apple programmer Andy Herzfeld on the ComputerHistory.org YouTube channel. Mainly I wanted to verify what I sometimes said in my tours, that when Steve Jobs saw the Xerox Alto and decided to emulate it as the Apple Lisa, he had some of the Apple programmers with him including Herzfeld. Well, Andy does not mention that in his interview. He says he was working at upgrading the OS for the Apple II when Jobs hired him to work on the Mac. The Mac came a year after the Lisa. So pretty clearly, he wasn’t along on that crucial visit where Jobs saw for the first time, an OS with windows and menus and a mouse and such. So I have to stop throwing in that factoid on my tours.

Wednesday 09/02/2026

Went for a hike with Joanne and Martha in Edgewood park. 3.6 miles there, 4.0 for the day. Came home for lunch and a nap. Then took care of a Beatles video issue: Lou had spotted a typo in one line of the lyrics I had added. Also took care of a couple of other minor issues. I think that is ready.

Spent some time playing guitar and singing. Days when my voice is working, I get enthusiastic again, maybe I could perform around here. But I know that every time I have, I’ve been disappointed in my performance. I should sell the guitar and forget about it.

Tuesday 09/01/2026

Went for my standard walk first thing. Back by 9 to tidy the apartment, Tuesday being housekeeping day. At 10 I joined the zoom meeting for the writers group, so that Betty could make me host and leave for a family outing. The writers were kind of slow in joining the meeting which is supposed to start at 10:45. At 10:50 we only had five. Eventually we got to a quorum and read our pieces. The cue was to write about some object that you have kept and value. I wrote about a chest of drawers, one of 3 pieces of furniture I retained from the old house.

After lunch I joined the Line Dance exercise class.

Leaving the Line Dance clase, Joanne said she felt like a walk, let’s go get iced chai latte’s. So we did, a nice walk up to Town and Country and back.

Later I looked at the Health app and found that between two walks and Line Dance, I had run up 14K steps and 6.4 miles.

Played a little guitar in there somewhere. Trying to get the right rhythm for “Angel from Montgomery”.

Monday 08/31/2026

Did my gym session at 7:30. Then drove to FOPAL and worked from 9 to noon, processing 10 boxes.

Back to CH, did some reading, watched some videos, napped. After supper, Joanne came around and we watched the next lecture in the Great Courses series we are watching, Music and Mathematics.

Sunday 08/30/2026

Somehow I spent the entire day alone. Almost. After watering the plants and doing the puzzles, I took a modest walk, and then did some writing. I looked over the notes that Prof. Deb’s daughter Anjuli had made on my talk for her father’s memorial. Good comments, and I used them to shorten the talk and add a point she wanted.

Funny thing, I went down to the dining room for the brunch service at noon. Filled my plate, sat at an empty table for 5, ate my lunch, nobody joined me. Still alone at the table when I finished up. I do not think this was personal, just chance.

Played some guitar, read a little, wasted time on the internet, served myself a sandwich for supper and that was the day. Joanne texted about 7pm asking if I was alright, so I called her and assured her it was fine.

Saturday 08/29/2026

At 11, drove to the Museum to lead a tour. Joanne tagged along as we were planning lunch and a movie after. She waited outside while I led the noon tour. Big bunch, 20+ people. Appreciative.

Then we got lunch. Would have gone to Cucina Vente across the street, but it turned out they didn’t open until 4. So we went to the Sports Page bar near the theater.

Then around to the Century 16 to see Coyote v. Acme. It’s a cute movie. I agree with Joanne that it dragged a bit in the middle, but it was fun. I had gotten “premiere” seats and it turns out, the “premiere” seats have built in effects, they bounce and jiggle with explosions and such effects. Frantically pushing buttons in the dark to figure out how to turn the effects OFF. But did it.

Friday 08/28/2026

Took a Friday morning walk with Joanne. Then went to work finishing up the beatles video. After lunch I had a meeting with Stew and Lou. Got there approval of some things I did with the video, how I closed it out. Evening, watched some TV: the CNN series “Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever”.