Monday 05/20/2024

Took the standard walk. At 10:30 it was time for the monthly event coordinators meeting, always an interesting session.

Following that, down to FOPAL to process four boxes of computer books. I’m going to start adjusting my prices. For a year now, our pricing guideline has been. Find the lowest price on Amazon (or eBay if the book isn’t listed on Amazon). Mark the book at half that, rounded to a whole dollar. With a bottom limit of $2 for a paperback and $3 for a hardback. So if a paperback shows up on Amazon Marketplace at under $4, it goes directly to the bargain room, as half the Amazon price is less than the floor of $2.

Well, at the latest volunteer zoom meeting they went over our finances for the last fiscal year. And although we churn through a ridiculous amount of books each month, thousands literally, and although we generate enough money to give the Library over $100K a year — our main sale room, where my section is, where I put in all my labor, is only breaking even. The expenses of running the main sale room, rent, supplies, salary for our one paid manager, is only a bit less than our gross income from sales.

Where does all the profit come from for the Library? Mostly from the higher-value books that we sell via eBay and a broker who sells to Amazon. The monthly sales, to which hundreds of people come to shop, are just paying the rent on the building and other fixed costs.

This was very disappointing to me, and it seemed obvious that we need to charge more for our books. So starting today I began marking books a little higher. Not hugely, but an extra dollar for good condition, etc.

Back home played some guitar. Working on Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville”.

Television: I bailed on the rest of The Amazing Race. I’ve watched 20+ seasons of that show but finally decided I didn’t care any more. Also deleted American Idol from the DVR list. I really didn’t think much of the talent they were coming down to, and anyway it was all overblown. Last night I watched a PBS special, Audra McDonald. Now there is a voice. Or, Friday night, I didn’t mention it here, I put the SFJazz Friday Live Stream on the 11th floor TV to share with a few others. The performer was Samara Joy, another amazing singer. You would think that with all the auditions, Idol could have come up with one decent female voice, the kind of soprano (or alto, I’m not prejudiced) that just flows out and grabs you. Well, grump grump.

Sunday 05/19/2024

Watered the plants, did the crossword. Decided to do something I haven’t done in months (no I’m not going to look it up here) and walk to California Ave. for the market. Glad I did; the market is bustling and crowded and fun. It was busy even in the depths of later Covid, but it has picked up since then. Such a variety, not only of veg and fruit, but of prepared foods, preserved foods and bread and such. Took a Lyft back. Probably could have walked back but didn’t feel like it.

Met with Mary to rehearse our duet at 1pm. We’re starting to sound halfway good.

Happened to pass Peter in the elevator and he asked if I had gotten the event form for the party at 5pm. Nope. Well, his family is having a big party on 11 at 5pm and they did request AV help. So later I went up there and found his relatives, and we worked out what they needed, which was simply to connect a phone to the system so they could play music off Spotify. Easy.

Saturday 05/18/2024

Last night at 11:35, just as I was deeply asleep, the fire alarm went off. Our fire alarm is everywhere. Every room has a strobe that flashes and a horn that brays like an electronic donkey. Hard of hearing? You’re still gonna hear our fire alarm.

The problem, we learned later, was smoke from a utility closet on the 10th floor. Some electrical problem related to a coolant leak in the HVAC? Anyway, once triggered, the alarm can only be turned off by a fire department person. It was 10 minutes before the truck arrived, and another 15 before they found the cause and decided there was no need for the alarm.

My main activity today was to do a docent tour at CHM. But three CH residents came along with me, Lou and Alice and Howard. We went down early so they could see the 1401 demo. Unfortunately the 1401 demo was led by a couple of new docents who were having problems with their headset mics, very annoying. Anyway, they enjoyed my tour.

In the evening we had a concert by the Peralta Consort, a group of local classic music buffs including one CH resident, Romy, on cello. I left about half way through.

Friday 05/17/2024

That rarity, an uncommitted day. I did some guitar practice, and spent some time finding new songs to learn and printing them out for my binder of songs. The exciting thing was that I got all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed and was able to schedule the Keller Sisters for a concert in July. This is a thing. Historically all, or at least most, music bookings have come through Nancy, a long-time and highly respected resident — who has been a bit proprietary about this role. She likes classical and some jazz, and has done a really good job of keeping a string of concerts passing through. But she has ignored or dismissed suggestions from other people for different kinds of acts. In the past year or so, certain people, myself included, have been agitating for a wider variety of music. And that has happened to a small extent, and I think this event I have scheduled now is a bit of a breakthrough.

Also took a medium walk and had no problem with the hip. It isn’t completely fixed, because I am slightly aware of my right hip. Gone all my life and had no awareness of the operation of my hips. But I can just feel the right hip’s action as I walk. Anyway I’m calling it healed from whatever tweak I gave it last week.

Thursday 05/16/2024

This morning I attended a talk by my neighbor Lennie (Madeline). Lennie moved about the same time I did. Her career was mostly in librarianship, for a long time managing a piece of Stanford’s library system. At CH she has made herself central in the community, just entering her second year as president of the resident association, and managing the content of ResWeb, our in-house website, which she has made much more rich and useful. That was the subject of her talk, just a walk through ResWeb showing us what was there.

I spent some time working on some AV questions, like how to share the screen of an iPhone with the Zoom Room systems that are in five of our public spaces. And why there have been complaints of Zoom audio being too low. No answers but I learned a lot.

At 1pm I met with Mary to practice yet again the “Old Fashioned Wedding” number. As former chorus director, she gave me good pointers and helped me understand the correct timing. Since it is basically a duet where each voice is singing a different song, getting the timing right is important for it to sound correct, and funny.

After a casual supper in my room, I drove down to CHM to attend an event, a preview of an upcoming PBS “Nova” episode on data sharing, and how everything you do online is harvested by corporations. They showed the first 20 minutes of the episode, then there was a panel with several experts who are interviewed in the show. (info including a youtube link)

Another thing I did was to write to the contact point for the Keller Sisters, the music act I’d seen most recently in April (Day 5.135). Late in the day Sheryl Keller wrote back, saying the price of their 3-person concert was $300, which I thought extremely reasonable, so now I have to answer. I’m not sure what dates to suggest, so I fired off emails to Kay and to Pam, event managers, asking advice.

Wednesday 05/15/2024

Did the laundry. Broke off from that to help Sandy start a zoom meeting in the Activity room. That didn’t go well, apparently because the Palo Alto Library guy initiated it as a zoom “webinar” which our zoom room handles differently from a regular meeting. He also talked too fast.

I was supposed to attend another zoom meeting for FOPAL and I forgot to do it, tsk tsk.

In the evening I was invited to join the table hosting our evening speaker, sports broadcaster Ted Robinson (known for announcing Giants baseball, Stanford football, and some Olympic events). Very affable, entertaining guy, he gave an excellent talk later. His picture of the state of college athletics, and the poor leadership that led to the breakup of the PAC-12, was entertaining but very sad.

Tuesday 05/14/2024

Last Friday, between the morning and evening performances of the musicale, something happened to my right hip, so it was causing enough pain to make me limp a little. I’ve been coddling it ever since. Today I took a short walk (1.5 mi) to test it. OK. With a little ibuprofen after.

On the walk I concocted something for the writers group. The prompt this week was “Why are you in the witness protection program?” What I ended up with was more about why I was in protective custody, but it was funny and got a lot of laughs from the group.

In the afternoon I practice some music and arranged my collection of songs. And found a better score for the number I’m supposed to do with Mary next month.

Here’s the writers piece. I checked later and to get to Area 51, you would actually have to drive North out of Las Vegas, not East. Oh dear, fact-checked.

Monday 05/13/2024

Started the day with the monthly Resident Association meeting. I wasn’t running AV but I came early and got called in to help. For some reason the mics wanted to feed back, creating an annoying mosquito-like whine. Not sure what be we got it tamed more or less.

Then off to FOPAL for the post-sale-weekend cleanup. Three boxes of books that had not sold for 4 months off the shelves. Processed two boxes of donations. Did a little sorting.

Back home and scheduled a docent tour for Saturday, and a couple of guys from CH are coming along. Then sat down and edited Connie’s book talk video and got that uploaded. Had dinner with Marc and Sophia, new residents. They haven’t sold their Palo Alto house yet, still working on cleaning it out and getting rid of stuff. I sympathized.

Sunday 05/12/2024

Did some general housekeeping shit in the morning. Also, somebody after the concert had told me I should check out the songs of John Prine. I’d heard some of his, but spent an hour going through them on Ultimate Guitar, where I get my guitar music sheets. No. I can see the relation in style, but No. Only one I recognized from the rad-io was “Illegal Smile“. That’s typical of most of his songs, silly word play mostly. Some of them are real downers, like “Hello in There“, man I wouldn’t sing that to a Channing House crowd.

At 12 met with Jerry and Betty and new-ish residents Dean and Ellen. Nice lunch. The dining room was maxed out with tables full of families, it being Mothers Day. Extra nice menu, mimosas or champagne.

In the afternoon I was responsible for bringing in pizza. This was one of the holidays where the dining staff gets off early, and supper is a picnic. Rather than get the usual sack suppers, the 6th floor voted to have pizza instead. I met the delivery at 5:30, five large pizzas, and 15 of us chowed down in the floor dining room.

Saturday 05/11/2024

At 10am I set up the auditorium for Connie to re-do her book talk, the one of last week where I messed up and failed to get a video recording, even though she specifically wanted one (Day 5.157). She volunteered to re-do the talk today, and did, to a small audience of friends. And I got a recording, which I will edit tomorrow.

Later I edited the video of last night’s Musicale and made it available. I also edited out just the 10-minute clip of me performing and that is right here for my legion of fans.

Watching that I am shocked by a couple of things. One, how many people praised me for it, at the reception last night and again today. People really liked it. Two, how different the reality, as recorded by the camera, is from what I hear in my head. In the recording I can hear all kinds of vocal flaws that I am not aware of as I hear it inside my head. Y’all are missing a great performance, the one that happens between my throat and my ears. Anyway based on what I hear in the video, I’m giving up any hope of auditioning for American Idol. For sure.

Connie’s book, the one she read from, is The Muse of Menus, a nice personal memoir of feeding her family, and I thought it would be appealing to Toni Mills, who is in the hospital, so I took a copy down to Dennis for him to take to her.