Monday 9/7/2020

Only “moderate” air quality and an early-morning temperature of 74º persuaded me to walk my normal jogging route. Still, thanks to the temperature, I managed to work up a sweat.

Following house recommendations I kept my curtains closed, which makes for a lot of gloom. I had a second go at the airbrush with much better success. It came with two sets of orifices, 0.04mm and 0.15mm. The 0.04 was installed out of the box, and it was that one that was so hard to use. I switched to the 0.15, and with properly thinned paint, it sprayed a nice, even pattern. I’m sure I can use that to apply smooth primers, color coats, and clear coats to a model.

I checked in with the meal delivery volunteers both at lunch and dinner to make sure they understood we have to use the freight elevator. One lady at dinner decided that she could not hack the heavy fire doors and she got a serious “danger” vibe (“I can sense danger, you know”) from the freight elevator, so she just said, “Sorry, I’m using the regular elevator and if the power goes out, too bad.” OK then.

Managed to get X-Plane properly installed and tried it out. The demo is quite impressive. I haven’t made up my mind if I would get $60 worth of entertainment out of it.

Marcia sent along an instruction sheet for using the house emergency radios that another resident had made, with a rather crude diagram. I was able to find online a Motorola manual for our (long discontinued) model of radio, as a PDF. From it I pulled a nicer diagram of the radio. I couldn’t actually get into the PDF, so I just zoomed it up to fill the screen of the laptop and took two screen shots, one of the top half and one of the bottom. Took those into a graphics program and rejoined them and tidied it up and put it into the document in place of the bad one. No big deal really (casually blows dust off fingernails).

Tomorrow is the writers’ group and I feel I have to produce something after dodging for the last 3 sessions. The cue is “September”. Here’s my piece. Short, but it makes up for it by being heavily over-written.

September, for me, is not a month, which is an arbitrary numbering of days, but rather an odor. The odor that means September and the onset of a new season can snag my nose in the first week of the formal month or as late as October. It always comes as a surprise, although as clear, as sudden, and almost as shocking as a fire alarm.

I used to encounter it first while cycling, long ago on my Schwinn after school, in middle age cycling for exercise around the Stanford “loop”. Now that I no longer bike, it has to come when walking or driving slow with the windows down. In any case, I will be out of doors, passing a place that has a ditch with standing water, and brown, dying vegetation, and there it comes: sharp, chemical, complex as brandy, the scent of leaves beginning to compost themselves — the aroma of autumn. It legitimizes the bureaucratic numerology of the calendar and makes autumn official.

Sunday 9/6/2020

Slow Sunday morning. No exercise because of smoky air combined with high temp (97º in the afternoon). I set to work to try out the airbrush, which is a pretty thing.

I ran into some problems with it. Connected to the compressor, it sprays a nice even pattern when loaded with water, at least when I hold it so I can see the mist coming out. But my first trials with real paint were not successful: no paint, intermittent paint, spattery patterns, various problems. I worked some of them by thinning the paint, adjusting the air pressure, etc. Fiddle fiddle. Sprayed a lot of scrap paper. I think I have it working but I need more trials tomorrow.

Rest of the day was pure boring, took a couple of naps just to kill time. And played Vendetta. And read. The X-plane user forum has no solution to the fact that it won’t launch; I’m going to delete it and re-download and install; if that doesn’t do it, I’ll give up. Unusual for highly-touted product (and not freeware, either, although I haven’t paid for it yet) to just not work on a major platform and nobody has a clue.

Saturday 9/5/2020

Pleasant early morning. The air was still cool-ish, around 70, at 9am, despite dire warnings of very hot heat to come this weekend (eventually it got up toward 90 in late afternoon). So I took a walk to Midtown, had coke and a cookie, and walked back.

The joystick I ordered from eBay arrived yesterday. I spent an hour trying it out with Vendetta, tinkering with the settings. I’m sure I remember being quite competent at killing ‘bots with it just a few years ago, but I seem to be back at the lower slopes of the learning curve now.

Then I thought, oh right, I downloaded a flight simulator, X-Plane. Since the new MS Flight Simulator isn’t available to me. So let’s try that with the joystick. Splat. Try to launch it; it crashes because it can’t find libfmod.dylib. What is this, the 90s? Search around. That’s part of some sound package called FMod. Why don’t they say they have a dependency? Fmod.com wants me to register before I download. Thank you I don’t care to register, especially when I doubt I need your whole package, only one stupid library. Find an X-Plane user forum and post a question.

In other news, the airbrush arrived in yesterday’s mail. Today arrived the compressor, a cute little thing half the size of a shoebox, and my cute wittle spray booth. It unfolds from a flat case like origami to make an open front box a bit bigger than a breadbox, with a filter and a fan at the back and a nice little turntable. Tomorrow I will read the manuals for all three products and I will be all set to start spray painting models.

One of my 6th floor neighbors, Patty, had a birthday, and our floor rep Jerry declared a zoom party for her. Thankfully we didn’t try to sing the song. Just chatted for an hour. Coincidentally Patty and I had agreed to go out for pizza tonight. I had the pizza delivered; we met it at the front door and walked three blocks to a park, and ate well-separated by the length of a park bench.

Friday 9/4/2020

Went for a run, which was fine.

About 2am I had a brief spell of wakefulness, during which I realized what I need to do for the volunteer coordination was to extract the data from the signup sheets and combine them to get a picture of how much volunteer activity we have.

Background. Volunteers sign up for two activities, meal delivery and package reception, using online signup sheets. I make a new sheet for each activity, each week, so now I have several old signup sheets that have served their purpose. I’d like to delete them, but then I’d lose the history. However, the signup software, slottr.com, allows me to export the content of any sheet to an Excel spreadsheet. And recently I’d coincidentally been reading about using Python to process Excel spreadsheets. Perfect.

So I exported each old sheet to a .xlsx file. Then, for a couple hours before lunch and again after lunch, I coded up a quick Python program to read the spreadsheets, extract the names of the volunteers, and tabulate their names and the number of times they had volunteered, writing another spreadsheet of my own.

About 3:30 I had the numbers: 58 distinct volunteers had signed up for a total of 240 activities (one or another meal or package shift). I sent that off to Marcia and to a couple of staff members and it was time to sit down for CEO Rhonda’s weekly meeting. 120 participants on the Zoom. There were two items of news.

Regarding the KPIX story on our antenna, she refuted the claim that residents never knew about the antenna: there’s documentation that residents and neighboring property owners were informed in 2006 when the contract was signed. (On the other hand, they never specifically informed anybody about it when they were buying in. It just wasn’t mentioned. But on the other, other hand, why would they?) The engineer’s report measured all EMF in the building, which includes wi-fi and other sources such as outside cell antennas. The total was a couple orders of magnitude below the FCC limit. No doubt that settles it and everybody is happy (not).

In nicer news, CH has leased all six units in a new apartment house directly across Webster street. These will be used to house residents from the 3rd floor for the next few months. That’s what will enable us to finish the remodeling of both 4 and 3 simultaneously, instead of one floor at a time as they’ve been doing for the last 3 years.

Thursday 9/3/2020

Did Veronica’s aerobics first thing. The KPIX News at 11 was on the DVR, so I found the lengthy (5+ minute) story on the “controversy” over cell antennae, a 5G one across the street, and the 4G “macro” antenna on our roof. Actually I thought it was a pretty decent piece of journalism, for a local TV station. They had the controversy, which is largely manufactured by the middle-aged son of a couple of CH residents, over the effects — we really don’t know what they are but they could be dire, except we’ve no evidence, but we are worried — of electromagnetic radiation, but they did a pretty fair job of putting into context of both science and the legal situation.

I made a transcription of the piece and had almost finished it when my phone alarm went off. I had set it to 8:50 to remind me of the Floor Reps meeting I and Marcia are speaking to. If I hadn’t set an alarm, I’d probably have been late. I’m getting sneaky about guarding against my bad habits.

The meeting went off well. Marcia, mostly, presented the “what to do in an emergency” sheet. I wrote the original first draft of that, then Kim Kurtis massaged it in PowerPoint to make a colorful, two-sided thing that, probably, will eventually be reproduced and laminated and given to every resident. The point today was to encourage the floor reps (elected captains on each floor) to promote emergency procedure awareness when they hold floor meetings. It was well received and several people praised it afterward.

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We are back to having rooms cleaned by Housekeeping, plus the housekeepers are back to their original assignments, so Wanda is back in place of Marta. I knew that Wanda was coming in at 2pm so after lunch I went and got the car, for the first time in a week? Two? I took it to a car wash. Then down to the Baylands for an hour walk looking at water birds and shit.

Returning to the car, I thought the tires looked a little soft, and why not, it has been half a year since it was serviced. So stopped at a station and yes, they were at 27psi or so.

That was the day, pretty much.

Wednesday 9/2/2020

I had ten hours in bed, mostly sleeping, and got up feeling normal. No run today, the AQI was “unhealthy” and a strong smell of smoke in my living room at dawn.

I didn’t mention that yesterday I went ahead and ordered an airbrush and assorted accoutrements. That was a bit spendy, several hundred more in support of being able to build car models. But if you look at the YT videos by car model builders, well, all the cool guys have airbrushes. I tried to get by cheap with the little one which was $70 worth of frustration.

Also this morning I ordered a joystick. Two ironies here. I bought a Logitech Extreme joystick back in ’17, used it extensively with various games. Then I let it go for cheap in the Tasso estate sale. Now I’d like one again, and they’re pretty much not to be had. Recently Microsoft released the new Flight Simulator for Windows and XBox, the immense success of which has caused a run on joysticks, it seems, and they are out of stock on Amazon, B&H, and so on. But I found one at a reasonable price on eBay.

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Got an early email from Kim H.R. asking me and Marcia to a meeting. Turns out she wanted to get our opinions on a new staff program. A couple of weeks back, management paid to have Sodexo prepare stuffed 150 shopping bags of household goods to give to staff as thank-you’s. Since then, Rhonda encountered a local farmers’ cooperative that makes up boxes of seasonal produce, and they offered her a deal, $30/box off from $40, if she wanted multiple boxes. So they are thinking of giving 50 produce boxes to staff members, rotating through the staff. Kim wanted our opinion on whether residents would go for funding these.

My immediate thought was, why are you asking us, we just organize volunteers. The proper channel would the Residents’ Association, who actually have a budget, and a monthly meeting at which to propose this to everyone. Marcia, who is involved in, well, everything, had the immediate reaction that in just another month the RA would be starting the annual campaign for donations to the Appreciation Fund, the annual fund drive that compensates for our no-tipping policy. And any extraneous appeals for funds would conflict with that. They settled that the October house newsletter (Marcia is on that staff too) would do a story on the box giveaway to staff but leave the appeal for funds implicit.

She and I conferred about the Floor Rep meeting tomorrow. Which brought me to 10am, phew.

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Spent some time on Scribophile, a site where writers critique each other’s work. I’m building up karma points there, so I can post my novel for critiquing. Maybe. I enjoy doing constructive comments on other people’s work, anyway.

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Back on 1.220 I talked about the controversy over the T-Mobile antenna on our roof. On 1.248 I mentioned that Certain Residents had tried to interest KPIX 5 in the issue. Scott writes he saw a teaser on KPIX for the story, although he thought they mentioned “5G” which I believe our antenna is not. Anyway, set the DVR to record news on KPIX. Beyond that there’s a new sitcom to try, “transplant” and some other stuff.

Tuesday 9/1/2020

Did Veronica’s aerobics. Then faced a day with only one scheduled activity, the Writers’ Group at 11. I basically burned the time until then. I had no writing to contribute. Hey, I’ve been writing, just not for that. I wrote a lengthy & informative piece about Senate races yesterday which I posted to the in-house Opinion list. And have received several thank-yous for that.

In the afternoon I am feeling a bit “few”. Where did we pick that expression up? I think it was from Wes Shadduck, my late sister’s husband. “I just feel a bit few” was his version of “a little under the weather”. Bowels a bit uneasy, energy level low, no appetite. And now that I think of it, my temperature, when I reported it on the daily web form we have to fill out, was 98.5, about 0.7 higher than usual. If this keeps up I might have to report a “symptom” tomorrow. That will probably get me an instant visit from a nurse and 3 days isolation for observation. Hmmm.

Sat a while on the balcony and watched the hummingbirds swarming the feeders.

Oh, in the afternoon I went down my list of Senatorial campaigns and donated money to several, in amounts from $50 to $200. So that’s done.

Going to loll about watching TV for a bit and go to bed early.

Monday 8/31/2020

Went for a run, felt ok. then sat down to clean up my email. Which only took like 2 hours. People wanting to change their meal delivery assignments. Working out with Patty what day to go out for supper. Arranging to meet with Marcia. Commenting on Jerry’s new “how to use the radio” video, and then following up with a phone conversation. Drug insurance is all panicked that my credit card is expiring, so got online and updated that.

Then got an assignment from the tech squad: lady has a problem with her fairly new iMac. The screen started filling up with patches of color and now when she reboots it, it shows the apple logo, the progress bar, then goes solid chartreuse. My advice? I wanted to say, “In technical terms, your mac is fucked.” But I said “busted” instead, and she needs to call Apple. Which she said she would do, right after the yoga class she is following using Zoom on her iPhone. (Channing House people are technically pretty with it.)

Met up with Marcia after lunch and finalized what we need to do for the Floor Rep meeting on Thursday. I suggested she do the talking, and she said “OK” and that was that. No false modesty in that girl. The meeting I missed on Sunday involved Facilities manager Chris B taking the four people who had volunteered for the maintenance inspection task for a tour. They all got the use of an app the Facilities staff is using, by which you can take a picture of a problem like a stuck window blind or whatever, add a description, and upload it into their database for action. They also got a tour of the refurbished Facilities spaces in the basement. Marcia was very impressed by that, and took me down to show me. Chris B, whose prior experience was facilities management of a chain of hotels, has been upgrading the heck out of the basement area for his staff of five. Workshop much improved, organized, lighted, and a nice conference room.

In the afternoon I spent two hours organizing my understanding of Senate races this November. I want to contribute some money to campaigns, but which ones? I decide to contribute to Senate races where Democrats are in close contests, so presumably contributions might help swing a result. Here’s my spreadsheet. The polling numbers are the current values from fivethirtyeight.com. I’ll update them once in a while. There’s some kick-ass women in there: McGrath, first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marines, and Hegar with a DFC and a Purple Heart. Most interesting candidate, Bollier of Kansas, who was a long-time Republican in state politics, and switched parties when the Repubs went tea-party crazy a decade ago. Now running as a Democrat and has a chance of being the first Democrat to be a Senator for Kansas in over 100 years.

Tomorrow I’ll get on ActBlue.com and donate some bucks to most of those.