3.195 laundry, docent, meetings, tech

Wednesday 06/15/2022

Today is laundry day, but I had things coming up in the usual 10-2 slot so I bopped down the hall to the laundry room and yes! nobody has claimed the 8-12 times, so I slid my markers up, and quickly sorted my two loads, and started one going. Then out for a walk.

By the time I’m back that load is long finished and I can start the second. I set a 40 minute timer on the phone and spend the time polishing the damaged windshield on the t-bird. First wet-sanding the clear plastic with 1200 grit to smooth out the pock marks left by the cement that I clumsily smeared on it. That makes the clear windshield all matte finish of course. Then wet-sanding with 2400, then 3200, then 4000, then 6000 and finally 12000-grit. Each one takes off the scratches left by the prior one and leaves a finer and finer matte. After 12000 it is nearly clear.

At this point it turns out I’ve been hit with a washing machine problem. Others have complained about this but I hadn’t seen it. The machine stops with a couple of its LEDs flashing and the only way to clear it is to unplug it, plug it in, and start a new cycle. So I have to reset my 40-minute timer. Fold the dry load, then spend the rest of the time polishing the windshield about 6 times with two grades of model polish to make it clear.

Now I’m running up against the clock. I change from jeans and tee to my CHM Docent red shirt and nice trousers, then pick up the take-out lunch I ordered and eat it while the dryer runs. There’s no time to fold socks or hang shirts, I just pull the dry clothes into the basket and leave for the Museum.

I am to do the 2pm tour but there is a FOPAL zoom meeting at 1pm. I get to the museum at 1pm, and watch most of the meeting on my phone, sitting outside on the patio. At 1:45 I go in and start schmoozing with guests gathering for the tour.

The tour is over at 2:55 and I send them off to see the 3pm demo of the 1400. I head out the door and join another zoom session on the phone. This is a talk back here at CH, by Jim Gibbons, who is the Emeritus Dean of Engineering at Stanford. In 1957 he was a grad student and was tapped to work at Shockley Labs, learning how to make transistors from the people who were just then inventing how to make transistors, and then to set up a solid state device lab at Stanford. This gave him first-person insight into his title, “The Brief but Dramatic History of Shockley Labs”.

I wanted to hear this talk because this was a first-person account of the start of every damn thing, transistors, silicon valley, computers, all of it sprang from that one place and time. I got the very beginning of the talk on the phone and listened as I drove home. The audio broke up a little bit as I was walking through the basement. Then through the lobby, paused outside the door of the auditorium to end the zoom on the phone, and walked in and sat down to hear the rest in person. Slick! David M. was running the sound and zoom.

The talk was over at 4:15 so I could go upstairs, hang up my nice Docent clothes and change back to jeans. A few minutes to rest then I had to go back to the auditorium to hustle David M. out, where he was methodically putting everything away, so I could set up a couple of mics for the people who were doing the monthly Birthday Dinner at 5:15. They were having a sing-along with flute and ukulele accompaniment and wanted mics. I set them up, then up to my room to fold and hang my dry laundry and have a PBJ for my supper. At 6 I went down and put that equipment away, and my day was finally done.