Friday 06/24/2022

I had a commitment to a docent tour at noon, and decided to give myself a lazy morning before. So I hung around fiddling with this and that, including scheduling a meeting of the A/V committee, until 11. Then off to the Museum to lead a small group. It started at 10, but was only 6 at the end.

After the tour at 1pm I drove up Middlefield to FOPAL. Ate some lunch in the parking lot, then went in and processed another 3 boxes of computer books. Despite having done 7 in the last two days there are still 12 left.

About 4pm I decided that I wanted to eat at Casa Lupe on Castro street. I called Patty to see if she wanted to go, and she answered but told me sorry, I’m in Ashland just now. So I went by myself. This turned into a little adventure when I found (as I should have known, actually) that Castro street is closed at Alma street. Like every restaurant district around it converted to street eating and parklets two years ago. But if you are going South on Alma, and can’t turn onto Castro, your next opportunity to turn right is a couple of miles on, at Mary avenue. But from there you can come back along Evelyn, and turn into the parking areas near Castro. Which were almost all full; the street was jumping. However I parked quite close to the back door of the restaurant and had a very satisfactory plate of Chile Verde.

Thursday 06/23/2022

What a productive day this was. First off, out at 7:10 to once again register campers at Tara’s basketball camp. The “day camp”, for younger girls, was Tuesday and Wednesday, except on Wednesday, the Stanford campus suffered a major power outage. Besides basketball camp there were camps for every sport going on, and all of them had to be canceled. It wasn’t certain that today’s camp, the “elite camp” for older girls, would be held at all. However, there was minimal lighting inside Maples, and they decided to go ahead. So once again I was operating a table, this time for names A-E, along with a young woman named Cipria (?).

These older campers were a little spooky to me. These tended to be girls who had legit aspirations to be recruited by a college, and quite a few were tall, over 6 foot, taller than their parents. The thing is, they are very young, maybe 15-16? And they have these delicate child-like faces and child-like body-language, but tall wispy bodies… it must be very strange to be a parent to one of these. Look up some morning and realize your 15-year old is taller than her father…

By 9 they were all checked in. Back to CH where at 10am, Bert and I were scheduled to go into a resident’s apartment and break into her computer. Well, not exactly. But Janet had a stroke and is now recovering (and said to be quite talkative and cheerful) over at the SNF. Her daughter Lesley lives in Ohio. Lesley came out to visit last week, and wasn’t able to get into Janet’s Macbook Air. Janet, unfortunately, doesn’t remember what the password was. Facilities let us into Janet’s unit. Bert got Lesley on a speaker-phone whileI fumbled around with the Mac.

This was an interesting challenge. Janet had been quite tidy and organized, as shown by the notes and receipts she’d kept in a folder labeled “Macbook”. But none of the passwords listed in there worked to login to her Mac. When you can’t remember your login password, your Mac will prompt you to enter you Apple ID and its password. Your Apple ID is for Apple generally, apart from any device password.

We had Janet’s Apple ID, her normal email address. Unfortunately it seems that she’d changed its password, also, not too long ago. I bashed away at the Macbook, trying different variations of the passwords from Janet’s notes alternately on the login screen and the Apple ID screen. Did that one end in Ell Eye ess or Ell ell ess? or Ell ell Ess?

Finally it dawned on me to try the Apple ID on the Apple website instead, using my own laptop. Hah. Apple.com offers a very clear method to reset the password for your Apple ID; you only need the ID (which we had) and the phone number she’d used when she set up the account, which we hoped was her regular apartment phone. And it was. Apple’s computer rang the phone and read out a verification code to be typed in to the web page. And boom, we could define a new password for the Apple ID. That done, I could go back to the Macbook and enter the Apple ID and its new password. The Macbook contacted Apple which again called Janet’s phone with a new verification code. Enter that in the Macbook and it happily let us set a new login password. Job done!

With a major tech challenge conquered, I headed out to FOPAL. I didn’t mention on Tuesday that during that day, FOPAL had received a major donation from the library of Carnegie Mellon U’s Silicon Valley campus. Of which quite a bit was computer-related books. And now there were 17 boxes of computer books stacked up in my section. I processed 6 of them today, and figure to go back tomorrow and probably Saturday.

I omitted to mention something yesterday. Since the TAVR I’ve been taking Plavix so basically my blood doesn’t clot, or clots slowly and reluctantly. Which means every tiny nick is an annoyance that needs a bandaid. Also as I learned a couple years ago that a nosebleed when you can’t clot is a bad thing (Day 1.345 for gory details). So Tuesday morning, half an hour before I was to go down and give my grant pitch, I blew my nose and got blood from the right nostril. How very unfortunate, I said although not in those words. I made a small pad of toilet paper and soaked it in styptic fluid and pushed it up there. But it would take a while to work and I didn’t have a while, I needed to go give my pitch. Oh wait! We will all be wearing masks! I’m saved! So I gave my pitch with one nostril blocked by a toilet paper plug, and nobody knew because I was wearing a mask! Thank you, Covid!

The wad of styptic-soaked tissue did the job, clotting me up nicely and the bleed never developed.

Wednesday 06/22/2022

This morning I was to take the Prius to the dealer for service. I had foolishly selected the first, 7am service appointment. Oh well. That meant leaving without reading the paper or drinking but a sip of coffee. From the Toyota place I walked 1.5 miles back to Philz Coffee, which I haven’t been in since at least 2017, and had a nice sit on their patio with coffee and an almond croissant.

During the mid-day, waiting for Toyota to call, I knocked off several items on the t-bird punch list. When they hadn’t called by 2pm I called them, and the service writer said he’d call back, and didn’t blah blah. So it was almost 4 before I called a Lyft to go down there, and then the Lyft did that crazy thing I’ve seen before, where they have picked the driver and he is on his way, and two minutes before he’s due, they suddenly re-book the ride with a different driver who’s 15 minutes away. I canceled the ride and used Uber instead which wasn’t really any faster but I felt better. Anyway, Prius is back home and in great shape and ready for a road trip.

In between, we had a speaker at 3pm, Don Peterson, who was a partner in the engineering firm that performed the Channing House Seismic Upgrade. This was done between 1998 and 2002, a massive job. I knew it had been done; in fact it was the determining factor in my choosing Channing House. That they would spend $18 million (I learned the amount today) for seismic safety, told me the place was run by a Board that was truly focused on the well-being of the organization and residents, and not on profits.

But I had not realized the scope of the work. The 11-story building had existed over 30 years when they started. They got under it and sank pilings 60 feet down to anchor massive beams. Then the whole building sits on flexible cushions on that beam, except for some outer walls that sit on “sliders”. The whole building is surrounded by a 38-inch wide “moat” and in principle the entire building is free to move 17 inches in any direction. (That means that every pipe and conduit that crosses the moat has to have a flexible U-joint in it to allow movement without breaking.) The building originally stood on 30 or 40 thick cement pillars. Each one of those had a section cut out with a huge diamond saw and a flexible pad inserted into it. It was an awesome job.

Tuesday 06/21/2022

I had to get going early. I was due to join some other volunteers at Maples Pavilion to help register girls for Tara’s summer basketball camp, at 7:30am. There were me, Lily, Harriet, and three others whose names I didn’t get. I was assigned to the “H-L” table. Between 8 and 9am I registered 25 or so girls. See the camper’s vaccination card, see their proof of a recent negative Covid test, give them their name sticker, tell them where to go next. Easy.

By 10 am I was back. Now it was time to meet with the committee that evaluates Heritage Circle grant applications. They were going through all the applicants and had assigned each person a ten-minute slot between 9:30 and 11. I had the 10:40 slot. I had practiced my ten-minute pitch — actually 8 minutes with time for questions after — several times in preceding days. But I changed it a bit on the day. As I was waiting to go in, my neighbor Joan came out from giving her pitch — something about improving food services — and stopped to remind the three of us waiting, that the committee was mostly board members who don’t live here, and don’t have a lot of familiarity with the details of our life. So keep it basic and don’t assume they know everything. A very good reminder.

The committee was friendly and seemed very appreciative of my explanation of our plan for technical improvements in the auditorium.

The rest of the day was pretty easy. I put in another hour on the t-bird model. I can see the end of that project, see it well enough that I made a punch-list of the items yet to do, and it was only one page.

Monday 06/20/2022

Went for the walk first thing. Back in plenty of time to do a couple of things to the t-bird before the Events Committee meeting. When that wound up at 12, I went down to start the the car. It started, which was a small win. Because yesterday, when I parked the car after coming back from the theater, there was a message on the dashboard, “Key battery low” and I couldn’t lock the car. Fortunately I have a second key fob in my desk. But it hasn’t been used in years, was its battery ok? As I entered the garage I clicked the unlock button and across the floor, the car beeped. So that was OK.

I drove to Ace Hardware and bought two 1623 batteries. Then on to FOPAL. I bought some lunch food next door and ate, then went in and processed 6 boxes of books.

Back home, I changed the batteries in both key fobs, and put the one I had been using in the desk, and the one from the desk in my pocket. After that I had a short nap and then it was time to go downstairs for Rhonda’s open meeting. It turned out that this was where she presented the Strategic Plan, developed by the committee I was on over the preceding months. She did a nice job of the presentation, I was impressed by what good work we had done. Not that I feel like I contributed anything much to it.

Shortly after that was over it was time to meet with Jerry Betty Gwen and Caroline for supper. This was nominally to send Caroline off for her ankle replacement, actually day after tomorrow. This will be her second ankle replacement. Apparently she was satisfied with the first one.

By the time we finished eating it was almost time for a concert, jazz piano and vocals by a couple of local doctors. They were really good amateur performers.

Sunday 06/19/2022

Went to the museum at 11 to lead the noon tour. Quite a large group, 25 or more, and I kept the attention of most of them to the end.

Being a holiday, the dining room was closed after lunch, with sack suppers distributed. So again the 6th floor had a group picnic in our dining room. I had to eat fast, as I had tickets for Ragtime at Theaterworks at 7pm. Patty, being quarantined with covid, had given away her ticket to Florrie, and I offered her a ride, so I had company on the trip.

The production of Ragtime was very professional, all the singers spot on and all the stage moves precise. I thought very poorly of the book, just a random string of highly improbable coincidences. No way could that ever happen, I was thinking over and over. But pleasant music.

Saturday 06/18/2022

In the morning I walked over to the farmers market, in part to hear the Peninsulaires, the men’s harmony singing group that my neighbor Bert belongs to, who were being the free music act at the market. I also bought a pastry of course, and another one plus some cherries for lunch.

At 3pm I was the AV support for showing a movie in the auditorium. The movie was Cruella, with Emma Stone and Emma Thompson having a diva face-off. (Note, I do not select the movies.) I was all excited thinking the younger one was the Hermoine from Harry Potter, but no that is Emma Watson you dummy. The movie was scheduled for 3pm, so I showed a 1952 MovieTone newsreel at 2:30 followed by a Three Stooges short. (I have no shame.) It’s really easy; takes like 2 minutes to lower the screen and set up the projector to mirror the screen of a laptop. Then you have the whole world of youtube to choose from. I would like to show a Loony Tunes cartoon, but the ones I find on YT are really crap low-res transfers. The movie is a CD from Netflix, which I play from an external CD player.

For supper I walked up to The Creamery and had a sandwich and shake. Completing a very pleasant day.

Friday 06/17/2022

Went for a walk. Fiddled around with the car model and reading. At 4:30 went to the TGIF. Everybody’s wedding pictures were adorable as expected. Then to the auditorium to turn on the system and supply mics to three entertainers who performed a concert/reading of the Irish immegrant experience at Ellis Island. Too ra loo ra loo ra. They were nice people.

Thursday 06/16/2022

A lightly-scheduled day, yay. I had several hours free and wasn’t sure what to do, other than to start gluing the t-bird windshield into its frame. Then I was reminded by a conversation in the elevator, that there is a TGIF party tomorrow, and as a gimmick the organizers are urging everyone to bring a wedding picture to show. Do I have any wedding pictures? I was pretty sure I did, I could mentally picture one in particular, but when I checked the digital archive of scanned pictures, I couldn’t find it.

Well, ok, I have two bankers boxes of memorabilia preserved from the old house. I pull them out and look. Aha, there is an album. Probably prepared for us by my mother — it looks like her work. Big photo album with thick paper pages. Definitely not archival quality, the pages are already brown and brittle. Well, “already”? It has been almost exactly 50 years since December 1972. The snapshots that were carefully archived in it have suffered a bit from their environment, showing some fading. However, there is the one that I remembered.

There was another very nice shot that I do not remember. Somebody at our reception was shooting black and white. (Possibly the Snows?)

Anyway, I got all these pics scanned. It was easy to restore the faded color of the snapshots. I put the actual pics in a baggy and put them back in the memorabilia box.

And now it was nearly noon. Right on the dot of noon, Scott rolled up in his BMW and we were off to Oakland to have lunch with Tom. Nice lunch talking about old times. We came back the scenic route, through the City and down 280. And that was the day.

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.