Thursday 10/15/2026

Busy all day doing stuff. Started out with a pleasant walk to Zoe, but then starte4d crossing off items on a to-do list that kept getting longer.

I have to show a movie next Thursday night. Sophia, who is sponsoring the movie, got me the dvd from the public library. It looked well-used, some fine scratches. Would it play? I hate it when a DVD stops playing in the middle because the player can’t read it. So embarrassing when you have a room full of people. Only way to know if it will play is to play it, so I started it running and did other things.

There was the pile of guitar books and loose-leaf binders I mentioned a couple days back. I had gotten permission from the people that gave it to me, to dispose of it any way I thought best. I went through and recycled all the loose stuff, somebody’s years of hand-written notes and xeroxed songs. That left about 15 actual published books, like Mel Bay’s Guitar Course #2 and such. Just for fun I started checking their value at bookfinder.com and hey, they actually have resale value. So I noted the values on post-its on the covers, for use by the person who handles music at FOPAL.

Joanne had taken another test of her VO2 Max given by our fitness instructor. I reminded her that she and I had tested our VO2 Max just a year ago. I had the spreadsheet file where I’d recorded our numbers. Then I went looking for it and damn if I can find it. But fortunately I had put the numbers in this blog! Incidentally the fitness guy told her she “absolutely crushed that test”, meaning her fitness is off the charts for her age.

We are to visit cousin Darlene this weekend and I need to get in touch on that, so I emailed her. No response yet.

At 11:30 I went to the auditorium and helped Dean and Ellen rehearse for their upcoming presentation this Sunday. Then lunch.

Mary the Chorus director sent out a list of the dates for all the rehearsals through December and I needed to check they were in my calendar.

The DVD finished OK, it is playable, so I wrote to Sophia to tell her that.

At 1pm I attended a Webinar on zoom put on by my financial advisors, the quarterly outlook. They don’t think there’s an AI bubble.

After that I finished recording the Olivia Rodrigo performance and edited into a nice video to show during the next CMX. Then supper. Then Joanne came around and we watched one more of our Great Courses videos.

Wednesday 10/14/2026

Out for a hike at 9:30 with Joanne and Martha only, other regular hikers flaked this week. We went to The Dish. This was my choice; we hadn’t done the dish in months. Last week the crew ruled it out as too hot, because there’s almost no shade on that walk. But the high today was to be 70º. We found a good parking place right away, which is good. This is a popular trail and it is not rare to have to park half a mile down the road.

Around the Dish Walk in an hour and a half, 3.6 miles. In order to breath at a comfortable rate going up hill I shortened my steps, and let the two women pull ahead of me. I’m just pleased I can do 3+ miles with about 500 feet of elevation gain and feel comfortable.

In the afternoon I started working on capturing the video of Olivia Rodrigo’s appearance on Austin City Limits. I want it on my computer so I can edit it. I mean, I could just show it from the web. But I’m a nerd.

We had the monthly 6th floor meeting at 4:45, nothing special. Then instead of joining my neighbors for the monthly floor dinner, I went out with Joanne to Kepler’s bookstore again. This was for a talk by film-maker John Else on his book Frenchman Flat, a history of the atomic bomb. Else, 40+ years ago, made the famous documentary The Day After Trinity, and a number of films since. He was interviewed by a Stanford history prof, forgot his name, and they both talked about nuclear weapons and testing and so on.

That was at 6 to 7, then we had supper at the adjacent Cafe Borrone. Nice day in all.

Tuesday 10/13/2026

Took a standard walk, starting early, back by 9am. Tidied the apartment for the housekeeper. Then settled down to take the video of yesterday’s AFKO event and cut it down to a short highlight reel that Kass can show at a staff party. Apparently watching the residents beg each other to give money to the staff appreciation fund, goes over big with the staff. I had about 35 minutes of video and in the end got it down to just over 9. That took a couple of hours of work, split either side of the writers group meeting and lunch.

I spent some time going through a big pile, and by big I mean it is a pile of magazines and papers at least 15 inches high, that was handed to me. Somebody died and gave all their music stuff to neighbor Tom. Most of it is about studying guitar: books on guitar, notes on courses, hand-written notes, xeroxed song sheets. Tom plays the accordion, not the guitar, so he gave it to Lynne. Lynne plays the ukulele, so she didn’t want it, so she guilted me into taking it. I went through it. About 2/3 is for recycling, but some of it I will take to FOPAL

After supper, at 6:30 I met with Joanne and we drove to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park to hear Chris Gardner talk about his new book, Food Sense: What to Eat and Why. Gardner had given a talk at CH a couple of years ago and it’s in our collection of videos. So I knew he was an engaging speaker. He is known for doing randomized controlled trials of various diets, and for writing and teaching about various food myths and mistakes.

It was a good talk. Lots of interesting little things, like he approves of coffee, either regular or decaf, and in any case coffee or tea has to be better than any soda. After studying many diets he finds there are four things that all diet plans agree on: more vegetables and whole foods, less sugar and highly-processed grains.

I’ll report on the whole book after I read it.

Monday 10/12/2026

First up, the monthly Resident Association meeting. Nothing very significant there.

Immediately after I got in Fred and headed to FOPAL. This was the post-sale-weekend cleanup, where I look at every book in my section and send the ones that have not sold in 3 sale weekends, on to the bargain room. Four boxes of them. It wasn’t a great sale, I didn’t move many books.

Then I processed 4 new boxes of donations. By 1pm I was out of there and headed home. Got in a nap, then at 2:45 joined Bert in the auditorium to set up for the AFKO. I’m sure I’ve talked about this before. There’s no tipping or informal gifting of employees here. So annually we have this big drive where everyone is urged to contribute to the Appreciation Fund. Yet another program that is entirely run by residents, without staff input.

The Kickoff is a short half-hour presentation in the auditorium, followed by a major drink and snack event in the lobby. For the event, I was creating a Zoom feed so it could be watched in the Assisted Living section in the Lee Center. But their events are staff-controlled, specifically by the person in charge of Life Enrichment, and that role had just changed. So Jennifer who just got that title was hard to get hold of. With half an hour to go, I had the zoom running, but couldn’t reach her, so I trotted the rambling route through various corridors and stairways to get over there. I found her, and watched as she got onto zoom and got the picture on the big TV in their lounge.

Then back to the auditorium, I swear that’s a 2-block walk inside the one building, where I ran the cameras, trying to show the remote audience the song and 3 skits that were the entertainment.

Then because the wine and snacks in the lobby were the job of the 6th floor, it being our turn, I went out there and helped people find tables, and picked up plates and stuff.

So it’s 7pm and I’m in my room and I ain’t leaving it until tomorrow. G’night.

Sunday 10/11/2026

Yesterday evening Ian reported that when he was cleaning up the auditorium, there was an accident, and our cheesy little lectern fell over and the top broke off. Cheesy or not, that podium is needed for the Appreciation Fund Kickoff event (hereafter AFKO) which is to be rehearsed today at 1 and performed tomorrow at 4.

So after watering the plants and doing the crossword — priorities! — I went down to have a look.

The top is chipboard with veneer. It had been held on by eight little screws into the chipboard. All 8 had stripped out and were loose in the box. No hope of putting it together with screws. I thought about it and then I walked to Ace Hardware and bought a roll of double-sided tape. Which I learned is now called Mounting Tape. Whatever. I put tape all around the inner box rim, stuck it on the underside of the top, and put the sucker back together. It should hold together a while.

After lunch I set up the auditorium for the rehearsal. All 8 microphones in use for once. And of course a problem: one of the body mics was making terrible scratching and popping sounds. The mic fits over the performer’s ear and lies beside their cheek. A delicate wire goes to the transmitter pack. And that wire is easy to stretch so it stops making good contact and makes horrible noises. Fortunately we had a couple of spare mics. In the end there were two where the wire had been pulled or stretched and they made noise and had to be thrown out. There’s no way to fix it.

Anyway we got through the rehearsal so that was fine. In the afternoon I proofed 3 more documents for Scribble & Sketch. That’s my role, proofreader. I found a couple of typos, so I earned by big salary.

Dinner hosted by Jerry and Betty, with me, Joanne, and Kay.

Saturday 10/10/2026

Today’s big adventure was a long-planned trip to the coast, to hear the Keller Sisters at the San Gregorio Store. We’ve been there for the same reason at least twice before. This time there were seven of us. The Goldens, David and Helen, rode with me and Joanne in Fred. Joanne the other one and her partner Erika, and Lois F, rode in their car.

The music was excellent and it is always fun hanging out in the General Store, which has an interesting selection of food for sale as well as hats, hardware, and books.

We were back by 2. Then I followed up on an announcement I had seen. We have a new Palo Alto Museum that hasn’t quite opened yet. It’s in an old building near us, and they have had multiple problems rehabbing the building But they are trying to build up interest before they open so they held the first of a series of outdoor concerts. This was in a section of Heritage Park, a green space two blocks from us.

Well, we had bought two new folding camping chairs just for events like outdoor concerts, so we got them out of the car and hiked off to hear the concert. The chairs worked fine, easy to carry and easy to set up. The concert wasn’t so great, the music not terribly interesting. There was a second band but it looked like it would take them half an hour to set up, and we were hungry.

So we folded our camp chairs and hiked off a few blocks to Joanne’s favorite restaurant, Vino Locale. We had a nice supper off a selection of aappetizers, walked home, and here I am.

Friday 10/09/2026

Friday means a muffin with walk with Joanne. After that, I took care of a piece of pending business: I went to the basement and found Jonathan the Facilities manager and asked to have the caulk around the base of my shower renewed. It has developed quite a few spots of black mildew. I had the same job done a couple of years back (no I am not going to search the blog on “mildew” to see when). Yesterday I walked up to Ace Hardware and bought a couple tubes of bath sealant “guaranteed” to never mildew. Jonathan said, we’ll use your sealant if you want, but they always mildew eventually. Anyway at some point they’ll come do that.

Later I emailed the top lady about my refrigerator. I’m tired of that never defrosting and dripping water inside all the time. She passed that to Jonathan also, who contacted me later to say that probably it just needed to be pulled out and the coils cleaned. I don’t think that’s the problem, but whatever.

I got a lot of reading done, and watched a video on how an AI “agent” is programmed. And started reading a book that Joanne had lent me. At 7pm we had a monthly Singalong, which is always nice. And that’s a day at the old folks’ home.

Thursday 10/08/2026

An uncommitted day, what to do with it. Checked in with Joanne and we decided to run away to Half Moon Bay for a walk on the cliff tops and then lunch. Which we did. Foggy at first, then the sun came out, the temp was in the 60s while it was 80s over this side. Very nice.

I got a couple more things done and completely killed a to-do list I had started a couple days ago. After supper I picked up my mail and here was my ballot. So I filled it all in (I had made my choices a couple days ago in the voter info pamphlet).

Then Joanne came over and we watched the documentary Music of Strangers, Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road ensemble. Joanne had seen it before, 15 years ago, it was one of her favorites. I had not seen it; it is very nice: bunch of nice people who are also good musicians, with interesting stories.

It’s available on more than one streaming service. On Amazon Prime you have to pay a few bucks. Through my TV I can get the Tubi service, where the movie is free, but they show a little bunch of short ads every 15 minutes. That was ok.

Wednesday 10/07/2026

Took a standard walk early on. Not early enough, I meant to work a couple of errands and a cup of coffee into the walk, but had to skip all those just to get back by 9am, because I had to do AV for an event at 10.

Well, I thought I had to. The event was a regular speaker here, Jeff Woods, talking about “Giving with Purpose” on the ins and outs of charitable giving. I was all set up, mics, screen, everything. Then it turned out that staff had also planned to make it a staff-run event, and had published a zoom link. I was set up for a normal resident-run non-zoom event.

Andrew the very likeable young IT guy came in and managed to get the official zoom going on top of, or under, my setup. Anyway we recorded it.

After lunch I spent a couple of hours editing the video together. Here it is. At 3pm I met with Jerry and Bert in the auditorium to work out things for the appreciation fund kickoff.

I had thought I had another event to run tonight, but it was a complete mistake in my personal Google calendar. The kind of stupid mistake that makes you think, “hmmm…’

Tuesday 10/06/2026

Tuesday is notable for being my laundry day in alternate weeks, and the day of the writers meeting, and the day for line dance class. All of that happened today. I got going on the laundry before 8, and wrapped it up, or I should say, hung it up, at 10:30, just in time for the writers meeting.

Between loads I wrote a couple of paragraphs because I hadn’t written anything in two or three weeks. The cue was “betrayl” and I couldn’t think of any time I had been betrayed by someone else, but then I thought of the frequent and on-going self-betrayals when I don’t do what I know I should, or fall short of my goals out of laziness, so I wrote about that.

Line Dance was fine, and after I walked through the 85 degree heat (in October — tell me climate change ain’t real) to pick up a prescription at CVS.

Now it’s after supper, and soon I will go downstairs to watch a screening of Day of the Jackal. Does it hold up? Report tomorrow.