Wednesday, 2/26/2020

Off at 9am for a haircut. Another CH resident, whose name I should know and can’t recall, was just finishing up in Chris’s chair. “Oh, hi!” um, you.

Haircut done, I drove down to Menlo Park to the Stanford Blood Center and donated a pint of my best. My 81st donation, the nurse told me.

With time in hand I drove the length of El Camino to get the car washed; the first wash it’s had in months. Discovered a forgotten energy bar in the center console, so that was lunch. Then off to the dentist to take care of the broken molar.

Dr. Kono explained that the broken off piece was “porcelain” from a crown. The main biting surface of the crown is the gold face of it. This piece, sort of like a fender, doesn’t take a lot of chewing pressure. The exposed surface is a bit rough but not important. So one of three things. One, leave it alone. I don’t like that, my tongue finds the rough edge. Two, replace it, cut off the old crown, take an impression, have a new one made, etc. Or three, glue this piece back on, polish the face a bit so it has less biting surface, and hope it sticks. “50-50 chance,” he said. OK, let’s go with that. So in a 15-minute process he glued the piece back on.

I thanked him and went out to pay the bill. $399. Pretty decent pay for a total of less than 30 minutes work.

Now, an odd thing here. I felt quite comfortable reclined in the chair with my head tilted far back, but as soon as I got up, I felt vertigo, the first in some weeks. Walking the five blocks back home, if I didn’t keep a solid visual horizon, I reeled like a drunk. By the time I was in my room I was getting actively nauseated, seasick. Not good!

But I reclined carefully sitting up on my bed with my head propped forward, and read a bit on the Kindle and napped for an hour and — all better!

Later, I filled out my California primary ballot. I went down to the dining room, looked at the menu, and didn’t like any of the selections. So I went back up and got the ballot, put on a hat, and walked out. Dropped off the ballot in front of City Hall, and had a hamburger and shake at Walburger’s.

 

Tuesday, 2/25/2020

Had breakfast here and immediately drove down to FOPAL to tackle the remaining wall of boxes, probably 15 of them. Which I did, over the next three hours. Ended up with eight boxes of “priced” books ready to shelve.

I took a break for a while, had a little lunch sitting in the car. Then went back in and reorganized the actual shelves. Any book that had been up three months or more at $3 or less, went to the bargain room. After that I went through the priced boxes again, shelving some, setting some aside for a future sale.

One reason for the second pass was, on the first pass I’d noticed a scattering of books about “Agile” development processes. Agile dev was a thing a few years ago, may still be a thing. On this pass I collected about 25 books on “Agile” and “Scrum” dev methods, and set up a special shelf for them. I like having a lot of books on one topic grouped. Last month I found myself with 20+ books on compilers and compiler technology. The month before I had a batch of stuff on ML (modeling language). This sale, it’ll be Agile.

Back to CH for a nap, forgetting all about the Mardis Gras party that was scheduled for the lobby, with a banjo band. I kind of meant to go to that, and zoned out instead. At 5pm it was time for the monthly A/V committee meeting. I signed up to do mics for two chamber music concerts. A/V-wise, that’s a really easy assignment, because they only ever need one, hand-held mic, for the person introducing the group. Chamber instruments are acoustic, and no vocals.

Walked over to the cleaners to fetch my black jacket, had supper with some different people.

A year ago I was getting a blood draw for an upcoming physical, and dealing with a flat tire and the beginning of the real estate sale. Hey, I’m getting a blood draw for a physical tomorrow! Although in fact, I haven’t scheduled a physical; I just got a notice from PAMF that Dr. Marx had ordered bloods.

Monday, 2/24/2020

Got a good night’s sleep. Might have gone for a run, but decided against it. I anticipate plenty of exercise for the day, because over the past few days I’ve been exchanging emails with fellow volunteers at FOPAL. Sometime while I was in London, a really huge donation came in, 30 or more boxes, and very heavily skewed to scientific and computers. I was warned there was a long wall of boxes of computer books waiting for me. Chuck S, who stood in for me, had already culled some and had filled eight boxes with books he thought worth keeping, which he had priced, ready to shelve. But there were many more boxes waiting.

Before I could go tackle those, I had to wait for Chris of Facilities to come  up and install the

under-cabinet lights.

I really need this. The sink and countertop in my kitchenette is lit only from the ceiling, and when I stand in front of the sink, my shadow covers the whole counter. He didn’t arrive until after 10, and finally finished up after 11. The lights look good and work great, a nice hidden strip of LEDs that lights up the counter perfectly.

Also while waiting for Chris I put together the final version of my London pictures; and also called

the dentist

to make an appointment. At the A Capella concert Saturday, eating a peanut M&M, a piece of a molar cracked off. Fortunately it was a molar that had been rooted long ago, so there’s no pain, but obviously it has to be repaired (somehow) (probably very expensively). So that appointment is set. I felt very mature and responsible doing that.

Off to FOPAL where I did find

a wall of at least 20 boxes

lined up, partly encroaching on the neighboring Business section. First I went through Chuck’s eight boxes of priced books and ruthlessly pared them down to three boxes. Anything more than ten years old, if he had priced it at $2, went to the bargain room.

Then I turned to the untouched boxes. I processed, I don’t know, 8 or 10 of them. Much outdated and irrelevant stuff to Bargains. About two boxes worth pricing, priced. By that time it was after 3pm. I knocked off and went home, to rest for an hour before heading out for the SWBB game, the

last home game of the season.

Patti and Diane rode with me. Diane, because her husband Craig had a medical appointment and was driving separately.

This was a genuinely big game, against Oregon. The Ducks had trounced Stanford rather badly in Oregon. Could Stanford get payback at home? There was a major crowd, and even though we had left an hour before game time, the lot I normally park in was full. We crept through heavy traffic down toward the Baseball parking area; no, it was full also; we ended up in the trees beyond the Stadium. Inside Maples the crowd was much larger than normal, and included quite a few people in Oregon colors.

Oregon quickly got ahead and stayed ahead. Stanford closed to within 5, early in the second half; fell back; closed again to 9, and that was how the game ended, Oregon by 9. I had said going in, that losing by less than ten would be a respectable outcome.

Steph Curry and his wife were in attendance, sitting in the end zone. I am told he also attended Oregon’s game at Cal earlier in the weekend. He is apparently a fan of Sabrina Ionescu, Oregon’s star and the probable NCAA player of the year.

Just to review this past few days,

• Thursday flew  home from London
• Friday attended a SWBB game
• Saturday attended a concert
• Sunday attended an operetta
• Monday attended a SWBB game

There is nothing scheduled for the next two evenings.

 

Sunday, 2/23/2020

For Sunday morning coffee I walked to P.A. Cafe, and walked back, 3+ miles. Spent a couple of hours organizing my pictures from pictures from Bletchley Park into a single gallery that I can share with CHM people.

At 12 I left for the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, to attend the Lamplighters’ Princess Ida. Jean met me in the plaza; I’d invited her to join me. We went in early for a short talk by the former artistic director about the play. The original script treated the lead character in a misogynistic way. He described how a simple tweak to the script left her with agency and control, so the final outcome was that she married the hero by choice, not forced by the choice of the patriarchy.

The production was polished as usual, and the woman singing the lead had a magnificent voice.

I stopped at Creamery for supper. I went in with the intention of having one of their wonderful shakes, but sitting down to order, decided to just have a coke instead. Huh. Am I finally turning into an adult? How sad.

Back home and there was a tech squad call. Judy says her Mac complains, “not connected to the internet”. Figured that wouldn’t be too hard, and it wasn’t. She’d accidentally turned off the wi-fi.

 

Friday night at the late time of 8pm, SWBB hosted OSU. The Beavers kept it close, neither team getting more than 3 points ahead, until the third quarter when Stanford pulled out to 14 points ahead. In the 4th, they gave it back, and in the final seconds the Beavs trailed by three, with the ball, and in fact got the shot they wanted by their best shooter, but it was short.

Saturday, 2/22/2020 love those deuces

In the morning I went out for a walk to deposit a check (an IBM benefits check, from the agency that just can’t manage to do direct deposit; I’m sure I carped about that last year) and to buy a couple of things. One thing I meant to buy was some dried apricots from the stand at the farmer’s market, but the ‘cot sellers weren’t there this week.

Off to the museum to lead the 12 o’clock tour. I had meant to try to have more of the easy, conversational style of the British docents I’d admired. I didn’t. I felt rushed even though I skipped a couple of points. OK tour, people clapped, but, meh. Not happy with myself.

Back home, I made up my mind where to hang the various prints I have. Facilities is to send someone to do the hanging on Friday. But I have green tape on the walls to show where they go.

At 5:30 I met with George and Betsy for dinner. Weeks ago I had learned about the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella. A sub-regional competition was being held at the Fox in Redwood City. (I learned about that because I’m on the Fox’s mailing list.) It sounded like fun. I posted the fact of the event to the house bulletin board, saying if anyone else bought tickets, we could car-pool. George and Betsy were the only ones to do so. So after supper we headed off in my car for the Fox.

There were eight teams competing, including two from UC Davis, three from UC Berkeley, and groups from Stanford, UCSC, and Diablo Valley College. George was interested because he’d been in a college singing group back in the day, the day in his case being the 1950s — he’s a bit older than me. The music was disappointing to all of us oldsters. The tunes were mostly pop songs from this century, which tend to be pretty drone-like and boring (IMHO). The kids had lots of choreography and good beat-box percussion sounds, but on the whole it lacked snap, sparkle, excitement. I seriously considered reading on my phone to pass the time in some numbers. We stayed through most of it, but when they looked like dragging the awards presentation out, we left without learning the winner. I’ll check online tomorrow.

 

I was expecting that the cold that I maybe got at Matilda on Tuesday, which developed into a good mucus flow Wednesday night, would make Thursday’s travel miserable, but in fact it tapered off into a once-every-30-minutes nose-blow and I felt pretty healthy throughout the flight. On arrival at SFO, I managed to complete the Global Entry application process, and now can come through returning customs more quickly than the average person. That will be a considerable benefit, if this return was any indication. The queue for regular returnees was quite long. If I had had Global Entry I would have saved easily half an hour. In fact, I think I spent less time waiting in a short queue for the Global Entry Interview guy, and being interviewed, than I would have spent in the regular queue.

So I was home by 8:30 (after a 7:15 touch-down).

Friday, 2/21/2020

Got a decent night of sleep and started out at 6am sipping coffee and putting stuff away, and adding something else to the to-do list about every five minutes.

I went down to breakfast at 7:30, and stopped for my mail. My physical mailbox was pretty full. I had been told if it filled up completely, the mail carrier would tell the front desk, and they would set the overflow aside in a locked room. That had not happened, however. After discarding all the advertising material, I had six envelopes to put on my desk for processing later. I did stuff all morning: two loads of laundry; walked to the frame shop to pick up the picture I’d had reframed; dealt with those envelopes; and worked my way through about 20 emails that I’d left in my in-box to be dealt with on return. Got most of them dealt with.

Also messaged my doctor to get a referral for an eye exam. Got the referral later in the day and then booked the appointment for that, at the end of March.

Later in the day Chris H. of facilities came by to estimate the job of putting under-cabinet lighting in my kitchenette. I really want that done. The new ceiling light works fine for the entryway to the apartment, but when I stand at the sink, it casts my shadow over anything on the counter. He thinks there was an under-cabinet light, probably a little fluorescent, before, and it was trashed during the remodel. I honestly don’t remember. Anyway, we agreed he would put in LED strip lighting on Monday.

Late in the afternoon I decided where to hang my various prints. I have set up a time for facilities to do that, next Friday.

 

Thursday, 02/20/2020

Yesterday evening my cold began to develop. Thanks maybe to tylenol PM I got a lot of sleep. Now at 8am, I am packed, had a light breakfast, and am ready to go… for my 4pm flight. Sad emoji here. I plan to get an Uber to Terminal 3 around noon. Until then, I shall recline on my hotel bed and nap. I shall update this post if anything interesting happens, but hopefully nothing will.

Haiku for an upper respiratory infection

---

Beautiful bronchus

Air glides smoothly in and out

of the right nostril

---

The Uber was a nice Mercedes driven by a guy who didn’t mind not talking, and did a really nice job, working through very thick traffic with patience and skill. I tipped him 5pounds.

When I bought the sweater and the hat, I was given long receipts for claiming back the VAT. As you approach the door of Heathrow Terminal 3, there is a special door signed “VAT Refund” and nice clerks (mostly women with headscarves, multi-cultural London again) process your paperwork. I got $25 in US money, and another 2 pounds  in coins because she didn’t have USD smaller than a 5. And so into the terminal after a fairly tedious security check. They really, seriously, want all your liquid bottles out of the toiletry bag and into a plastic bag. And take your watch off, it won’t go through the magnet check.

Terminal 3 is like a crowded shopping mall, with lots of retail and restaurants all around. The gates are far off and mine won’t be posted until 3:15, an hour before scheduled departure time.

Terminal 3 Haiku

---

Duty-free beckons

Hey world trav’ler, put on cool

Got booze! Got candy!

---

 

Wednesday, 2/19/2020

The only scheduled thing today is the “Behind the Scenes” tour at the Victoria & Albert. I’ve been looking forward to this inside look at the conservation departments of a real museum, and my friends at CHM were envious.

Big disappointment right off the top: no photos allowed! Our tour group with a nice docent lady was escorted by Robin, a burly security guy in a blue suit, who had the keys to open all the “staff only” doors for us. There were so many times in this hour when I craved to take a picture, and couldn’t!

There are several conservation rooms, and they look alike. That’s because the North (I think? or maybe East) end of the original building was originally the School of Art. The original purpose of the V&A was to teach and promote British artists and artisans. The collection was to provide examples for study. To give art students the proper working conditions, they were provided with studio spaces, and these are very high-ceiling rooms (25 foot at least) with windows from five foot to the top. These bright tall spaces are now the conservation rooms. (They didn’t call them “labs” although that would be appropriate.)

We went through the paper conservation room, the book and painting room, and the fabric and clothing room. All were these tall rooms with tons of indirect light. All had lots of open tables or benches, and lots of storage cabinets. An unexpected feature of all the rooms were “elephant-trunk evacuators”. Hanging from the ceiling on pantograph arms were six-inch corrugated ducts. A worker can reach up and pull one of the elephant trunks down to provide a flow of exhaust air, to carry away dust or solvent fumes.

The paper room had a stack of “carry boards”, big flat boards painted red. Conservators could stick a poster or print down to a carry board with dabs of wheat gluten paste at the corners. Then any opening in the print would show the red color through. We didn’t see anyone actually working on paper.

The book room had a lot of steam-punk looking screw presses and an awesomely large paper cutter. It also has some kind of computerized machine for making their own, custom-sized, acid-free storage boxes. I thought the docent said it was the “Kund machine” but that doesn’t google, so maybe I mis-heard her.

The painting department was at the end of that room. They had a bunch of big wooden easel/frames that could adjust to hold a painting. Off to the side I noted a binocular microscope mounted on a mobile, vertical frame so you could scan it up and across the face of a painting. Only one painting being worked on, a gentleman in a suit who showed an elaborately flowered waistcoat under the suit coat. What made this special was that the family that donated it, had preserved that waistcoat for 200 years, and donated it together with the painting. So now I guess the conservators were using the original garment to color-check the painting.

The apparel department was the largest room, and it was jammed with all sorts of mannequins. The V&A has a very large collection of garments. There is a rotating display of clothing, on mannequins, just off the main entry hall. We were told that each garment can be on display no more than two years out of any ten years. The other time it is in storage away from the light. So when a dress or suit comes out of storage, they need a mannequin of the proper size to stretch it out on and tidy it up.

The apparel department was busy because they were just at the start of taking down the current special exhibit of Mary Quant styles (remember Mary Quant? I did not pay the extra fee to tour that exhibit) and getting ready to put up a special display of kimonos. We were told the museum has a big collection of kimonos, but for this exhibit they are getting a lot of loans from private collectors. We got to look at one of these: a blue silk kimono with embroidered humming birds and flowers. The flowers were orange, and we were told that it was safflower dye, which is “insanely light-sensitive” so it has to be kept covered most of the time. Do you ever wash them, one of the guests asked. Shake of the head from the conservator, we only very rarely put water on anything. She went on, “You see these gold threads?” (in the kimono) “They are made by wrapping paper around thread, and gold leaf around the paper, and if they get wet the paper dissolves and the gold goes away.”

We couldn’t get into the sculpture conservation room because some kind of training class was being held. But they had big tables for work, and lift-tables much like one at our warehouse, for raising heavy objects to the work surface. Oh, I also spotted a couple of vacuum cleaners like the one at Yosemite. And there were a couple of electric fork-lift trucks out in a hallway. And I spotted twill tape in the book department, used to tie bundles of pages together.

I wanted to ask about how they track the location of objects. They have roughly 50 times as many artifacts as CHM does, a few thousand on display, and from what I could see, probably a few hundred circulating through the conservation department. What is their computer system like? How do they keep locations updated? I wasn’t able to ask anyone who knows. There were many computer screens around, but I did not see a single bar-code or bar-code reader, so probably not that way.

The tour was over; it was after 12. What should I do now? I thought I might go hat shopping. I’d noted the addresses of a few men’s hatters. One was not too far away, so I walked there, near Harrod’s, in light rain. Unfortunately from the street it appeared to stock only, or at least mainly, women’s hats, so I came away. I got some lunch at a rather posh tea room: soup and a side of chicken liver pate.

Now what? OK, a definitely gentlemen’s hatter was Bates, over in the posh shopping district off Picadilly. I walked back past all the museums to the South Kensington tube station. Passing the block-long massive queues of parents and kids outside the Natural History Museum in the rain. Note to self: never go to London in the half-holiday week.

At Bates I only bought a cap. I’ve been wanting a British cap for some time. They also had a lot of really intriguing fedoras, but I just didn’t feel like trying to select one today. I was getting pretty tired (huh, what a wus, only gone 10,188 steps/4.6 miles) and came on home. Later tonight I’ll go out somewhere local for supper. Then try to plan something to do in the morning, before starting for Heathrow at noon.

 

Out at 5-ish for supper and a show. The show, Matilda the Musical, was at the Cambridge theater, in yet another part of London I’d never seen. It’s the Covent Garden district, although not the actual marketplace; the Seven Dials, where seven streets radiate out from a common point. Look it up on the g.map. Street view shows it nicely.

I wasn’t sure where to eat supper, so strolled around up and down the radiating streets, and found the Seven Dials Market, a large, two-level, food court, similar to a food court in a mall, maybe a bit edgier in tone and, big difference, no chain outlets, all local entrepreneurs. I walked all around and finally settled on a big bowl of ramen with chicken. Japanese food, but no asians in sight.

Then back to the theater for Matilda. This is a very silly fairy-tale story by Roald Dahl, staged with huge energy and enthusiasm. Here is the official trailer, although the images in that are out of sequence and jumbled. There is a plot and a flow, which you would never guess from that video. The kids in the show, maybe 10 of them under the age of 12, are amazing. They execute long, complex, athletic dance sequences in perfect unison, and act and sing. The lead role is apparently rotated among four girls. The one playing Matilda this night was excellent.

Nevertheless I wouldn’t give it more than four stars, first because the plot is just silly, and second because I had a lot of trouble following the dialogue. I doubt I got half of what was spoken, and less than a tenth of the song lyrics. Fortunately all the lines were backed by lots of body language and mugging, so it wasn’t hard to follow the action; but it was frustrating.

So that was Tuesday; tomorrow is the penultimate day of the trip.

Tuesday, 2/18/2020

Had a hard time going to sleep, awake past 1am. Too energized by the music, I guess. Sitting in the theater before the show started last night I was hearing cough, cough from several points around me. One gray-haired lady a row back and a few over was definitely coughing openly, not even trying to cover her mouth. This morning: I have a scratchy throat and a runny nostril (only one, go figure). I had been congratulating myself for several days prior on not catching anything; remarkable given how many handrails and door handles I am touching in public places, and riding in crowded train cars. Welp, finally caught something.

Today I was booked for Tutankhamun: treasures of the golden pharaoh (scroll for pictures and info) at the Saatchi Gallery. Centenary of the opening of the tomb, etc. This was the first attraction I’ve visited that had a queue to get in. Later in the morning I would learn why.

Fashion digression. Before I came I was a little bit concerned about not bringing any dressy clothes. Just chinos and turtlenecks. Well: no worries, mate. Nobody dresses up, not for the theater, not for a restaurant, mostly not for work, although I see a few commuters in suits or dressy-looking skirts. Jeans go pretty much anywhere.

Also, see picture, people wear ski parkas outdoors in winter. Girls are especially fond of the faux-fur hood lining, and there are lots of wooly hats. (Frankly, this is overkill. The lowest temp I’ve seen is 40F, and my simple windbreaker, zipped up, is fine.) And many people tote backpacks (see picture again) wherever they go.

Back to Tut. There were some pretty things, all nicely presented in glass cases.

But I felt a bit cheated in that some things were not here, in particular the famous gold mask.

I also had bought the “3-D experience” which was interesting. We wore Oculus (I think) VR goggles, but also sat in zippy looking chairs that moved and tilted to assist the feeling of flying or turning. What we saw was a 7-minute documentary “flying” in and around the tomb to see the artifacts in their original positions. Marginally worth the extra ~20$ ticket.

Out at 11:30 and hungry, so had a snack and a soda at a nearby Pret a Manger, a chain of healthy fast-food restaurants that are all over this town. Then: I have time for another museum, which? Well, the Science Museum of course. I decide to cab it, as there was a cab rank right outside. The cab drops me in front of the Natural History museum, next door to the Science museum, and I am amazed to find a massive queue of people, a double serpentine barrier a block long. What’s happening, I say, and the cab driver says, Oh, it’s hoff-term holiday. The UK school system runs three “terms” (we call them “quarters”) and each one is broken by a one-week holiday, mid-October, -February, and -May.

So the massive queue at the Natural History museum and also next door, is mostly parents with grade-school age kids, having a wholesome activity. Booooo!

OK, I do not want to wait in a long queue or share a museum with lots of kids. Where can I go that won’t be as popular with parents? I get out my phone and go into Dropbox and pull up my file of museums and attractions. Pleased to note I’ve been to almost all the A-list. But… oh yeah, Tate Britain. I went to Tate Modern, but Tate Britain is a different building with a focus on British art from 1700 to now. I work out a Tube route and off I go.

Tate Britain also has a school party, but only in one gallery and they are focused and also cute.

After spending an hour wending my way from 1700 to 1850, and not half done, I was feeling a bit tired. It was approaching 2pm and I had a decision. Do I stay and look at “the world’s largest collection of Turners”, or stay and take the docent-led highlights tour, or do I start for home? Turner… I’ve seen enough misty landscapes by him and many others already this trip. Tour was tempting, but it would be at least an hour, and I wouldn’t be home until 3:30, and I have to leave again at 5-ish. So I wimped out and headed back, leaving the Tate only partly tapped. Tut, tut.