Monday 05/03/2021

Today turned out to the be the end of the volunteer hosting program. At 7:30 I went down and with Marcia, performed hosting while also training Nancy. Kim the HR came by at the start of breakfast and agreed to talk to us at 10am.

We presented that we weren’t getting the number of volunteer sign-ups we needed, and that she and I were going to have to alternate working the meals for a week to get everyone trained. I urged that all they needed was about three more Alfonso’s. Alfonso is a 20yo college student that was hired to do the hosting job on weekends, and we found him a pleasure to work with. Kim agreed, and said she’d talk to Rhonda and other staff.

An hour later she emailed to say that yes, the volunteer program should end, and staff would take over Tuesday morning. I composed an email to everyone who had signed up thanking them. Marcia worked lunch, I went back to work the dinner shift along with our last volunteer, Colin (Colin is our 90+ tennis player). And that’s that for the Host program, which I found to be quite a relief; I was getting quite tired of it.

Also during the day I got in a medium walk and a couple of more coats of color on the Golf. For some reason the paint brand I’m using needs more coats to get a solid color. Or maybe it’s my spray technique. In either case, the new spray box is working very well.

Sunday 05/02/2021

I had to work the Breakfast and Dinner hosting jobs, training the one or two volunteers we have. Volunteers are not flocking to the sign-up sheet, for several reasons. One, in my opinion the feeling is different from last year, when staff shortages were due to a real peril, covid exposure. This staff shortage is due to a voluntary change in the dining services. One person said to me, “what are we paying for?”

Another is that hosting for 90 minutes or so is a real physical challenge for a lot of residents because they just can’t stand on their feet and be walking for that long at a spell.

Tomorrow I will talk this over with Marcia and I think we will ask management to bring back one or two of the staff people we are relieving. And strongly urge them to expedite the hiring process.

In between meals I worked on the Golf model. It is nearing completion. I have begun painting color on it in the revised spray booth.

That’s about it. I did some Sunday stuff, the puzzle, watering the plants, went for a walk.

Saturday 01/05/2021

Today was the start of the new volunteer business, acting as hosts or greeters in the Dining Room, and both Marcia and I worked all three meals, to support and train a few other intrepid volunteers. So that amounts to about 6 hours of standing around at the entrance to the dining room.

In between I finished the spray box. Here it is complete.

The fan pulls the cloth in. I will probably add two pieces of cloth flat on the sides. They don’t have to be sealed tight, just loosely attached flat to the box. When the fan is running it will pull the cloth tight against the open seams you can see.

Later I used the box to spray a first coat of color on the VW Golf GTI.

Friday 04/30/2021

Took a slightly truncated walk for the morning, then had coffee-and in the dining room. Following that I had an entirely open day until 4pm, and I had resolved to clean up the projects that were hanging around, and was very pleased with the progress I made.

First up was the Golf GTI upholstery. Since Day 2.133 I had been trying to reproduce the tartan seat pattern from a restored GTI. A decal didn’t seem to work, because the bright orange parts went all gray and blah when the wet decal was put on black plastic (see Day 2.138).

A few days later it dawned on me (well, I’m slow) that the problem was not the decal but the black background. If the decal had a white background…

And indeed on that background the orange stripes of the decal looked not bad. Here are the front and back seats with their upholstery, ready to install.

Yeah ok they look like shit, except the one front seat. Decals are really hard to place correctly. I am counting on these being completely enclosed by the body of the car, viewed only by peeking through the windows. They should pass then.

Next was to finish the spray box by making a fabric cover which will engage with velcro around four sides to close the front of the box, with slits for my hands to come through. I couldn’t get anybody around with actual sewing experience to do it, but I had managed to borrow a sewing machine.

I didn’t mention yesterday, that before going to FOPAL, I had detoured to Joan’s Fabrics and Crafts in Redwood CIty, and after much thinking, selected a piece of fabric that looked like it would be lint-free and I could work with it. It has a camouflage pattern, which is nice.

I figured out the dimensions including a hem; cut it out; hemmed the edges; installed velcro loop material; made slits and hemmed them. I had to replace a bobbin and had to thread the sewing machine twice. Got all that done in a couple of hours.

I used Marian’s sewing scissors and lots of pins from her pincushion, making me glad I’d kept a minimum of sewing supplies (see Day 131, April 2019.) Discovered another drawback of taking Plavix blood thinner: if you prick yourself with a pin, you have to stop and put on a band-aid, or you will bleed all over your work.

During Rhonda’s 4pm open meeting, I was called on to describe the new dining room host volunteer program. I gave it the best sell I could but so far the sign-ups have been underwhelming.

Thursday 04/29/2021

After aerobics I had some nice morning time to work on stuff. I did a little of this, a little of that. Worked on the car, worked on a programming project. Lunch was ok. The dining room experience is getting more and more like a real restaurant as the staff gain experience. (And as they hire more staff. I hear they took on six people this week.)

However, and I feel very guilty at being so ungrateful, I kind of miss the old cafeteria-style service. Not the Sodexo food, which was average at best and repellent at worst. The new food being served now is really well prepared and nicely plated.

No, I miss the informality and simplicity. I’d take my full tray and wander toward an empty table, maybe sit by myself, or sit with people I knew. The deal now is, you end up seated with whatever people came in just before or just after you. So it’s a mixer. And you make conversation, often ten minutes or more while you wait for your order to come. That wait, with nothing to do with your hands, nothing in front of you, just socializing — wasn’t there before.

After lunch I went down to FOPAL and found only a partial box of computer books. Processing that took 15 minutes. Then I spent half an hour sorting, which I haven’t done in months. I am not supposed to lift over 30 pounds, but I compensate. I move books instead boxes, and slide boxes along tables. And I lift some, for brief moments.

Then I realized that the CHM Volunteer meeting was just 15 minutes away. Ack! I drove back to CH, hitting a lot of green lights along Middlefield, and just made it into the meeting maybe 2 minutes late.

This meeting was a disappointment. They said nice things about the volunteers, and how eager they were to get us back to work, and how many donations had piled up that needed cataloging. But there was no timeline for that. Heck, we are all vaccinated. Let us in!

They talked vaguely about the new scheduling system that would replace Volgistics, the previous software we used to sign up for volunteer shifts. But they couldn’t demonstrate it, “it still has a couple of bugs we need to work out.” That has been in process for a year now! And they talked about the plan to replace Mimsy, the museum database we have been using since 2005 to catalog artifacts. Except that there still is nothing to demonstrate. The head of IT talked a lot of jargon about how they were “partnering” with Microsoft and a database company called Terentia to create a buzzword-heavy “cloud-based digital asset management platform” that will have an “API” and maybe will do automatic translation to other languages.. Also in the talking stages for at least a year. I smell vapor-ware and have great skepticism.

And the news about reopening the museum to visitors, and restarting docent tours, was even more vague, if that’s possible. I came away with no idea when that is likely to happen. And there were remarks about how they are rethinking the “museum experience” and there would be some retraining. I may never get to be a docent again. That’s a bummer.

Wednesday 04/28/2021

Went for the walk, with about a half mile of jogging in it. On return I was disappointed to find that the coffee and pastry service in the dining room was not on today. So I sat at a table for the proper breakfast which was a waffle with berry sauce. The staff are looking and behaving more like proper waiters every day.

At 11am I had a date with Grace to commission her new phone. This took a full hour. The very clever iPhone “quick start” thing at first didn’t seem to be working, but on the 3rd or 4th try it suddenly worked. Eventually, exchanging emails with Craig who understands our Clearpass wi-fi system, I got it all working, talking to AT&T and to the building wi-fi and all.

After lunch Marcia called with a wonderful new idea. I guess. To relieve pressure on the dining room staff we will enlist resident volunteers to act as hosts and seat people. It’s a call-back to the volunteering last summer and fall, with a sign-up sheet and everything. I am to compose an invite/announce email, and Rhonda will announce and appeal for volunteers Friday. Like the volunteers who delivered meals to rooms, this won’t be forever.

At 5pm I met with Marcia and social director Elizabeth to be trained in this job. It is extremely easy. As people come in, check off their names on the five-page single-spaced list of names — that’s the hardest parts, A, knowing the names, and B, finding the names on the list — and then grab a menu and seat them. Try to fill up a table before starting another, except if people insist, they can sit where they like, or wait for friends.

I worked at assembling the spray box. I decided that no, dang it, I want cloth to cover the front. I worked out a simple pattern, and in fact I think I can sew it myself if I had a sewing machine. Coincidentally Peter came to return the scanner I loaned him months ago. I asked if he had a sewing machine, and he does and is quite sure his wife doesn’t need it for the next month. So I went to his room and borrowed it; it is a tiny little thing. Now I just have to get a piece of cloth. I have thread and other sewing stuff.

I believe I have a breakthrough on the VW Golf upholstery but I will report on that tomorrow.

Tuesday 04/27/2021

Did the aerobics class. Afterward, treated myself to coffee and a croissant in the dining room. There I was waylaid by Grace, who has a new iPhone SE which was sent to her by ATT, because they are withdrawing support for her old phone. That was nice of them.

What wasn’t nice was, that the box contained no charger, only a cable. The cable had the usual Lightning connector to go in the phone’s butt, and on the other end, a USB-C connector suitable for plugging in to a MacBook maybe. Only problem is, Grace has a wall adapter to charge the phone, which has a standard USB-3 connector. So she couldn’t charge the new phone, which had her troubled in mind, because Last week she had made a date with me to help her transfer data from the old phone to the new one, tomorrow. But the phone wouldn’t charge.

Not an issue, I went upstairs to my room and got one of the several Lightning-to-USB cables I have in a drawer and took it down to her place and bingo, the new phone was ok again.

Messed around with the spray box. I had to take my larger pieces down to the shop and cut off a corner with the jigsaw. Next I can glue some parts together, but I didn’t feel like it.

Attended the writers group although I hadn’t written anything.

Ate lunch and supper in the dining room. The servers are getting more and more like real waiters, and the food is coming out faster.

Drove to FOPAL and spent two hours processing five boxes of computer books.

Went for the walk, wearing tennies and jogging approximately half a mile of the distance. A few weeks ago I found a piece of art on a limb stump alongside the creek (Day 2.124). Today I found another one, half a mile away.

I wonder how many there are?

Yesterday the sheets of plastic I need for the spray booth came, so today I took them down to the Residents Workshop in the basement and cut out my pieces on a jig saw.

I also re-made my tartan pattern using drawn lines and brighter colors for better contrast. It still didn’t work. I don’t understand how a bright pattern that looks contrasty against white paper can just disappear when on transparent film and a black background. It looks bright and contrasty against a black background on the computer screen or when printed. I am going to try making a decal with a black background (instead of transparent).

Sunday 04/25/2021

The crossword tournament resumed at 11am EST with puzzle #8, which was the puzzle that would be given to the three top scorers to determine the winner. For us not-top-scorers it was just for fun and would not alter our final scores. It was a bear, I thought, and 25 minutes in I just gave up and clicked “submit”, getting 36 correct out of 90 words.

That left 3 hours before the final segment of the tournament where the top 3 solve a final puzzle. I wanted a walk, after spending all day yesterday in my room, so I walked to the farmer’s market on California Ave and got a pastry from The Midwife and The Baker’s booth, then walked home (4.1 miles, go me!).

It was quite astounding to watch the final showdown between the three top scorers. Their screens were recorded while they solved the same puzzle. They were not informed of their times right away. Instead, their work was replayed as part of a webinar with live commentary from a couple of NPR people.

So picture three crossword puzzle grids across your screen and you can see the letters as the three guys type them in, and their cursors sweeping back and forth, flitting from word to word. They filled in that 15×15 grid only a little slower than I could have typed it, if I were copying from the solution sheet. The same puzzle that I gave up on, half filled, after 25 minutes? The finished it in under 6! There were 8 seconds between the winner and second place. Actually one guy finished first by almost 20 seconds, but he had left a typo in the bottom right. That made two words incorrect, and by the scoring system they use, that cost him two minutes. He noted that if he had taken 30 seconds to check his work and fix the typo, he would still have lost to the guy who won.

How did I do? I came in at number 776, out of a field of 1,032 contestants. So, you know, not last. I think I could do better, maybe making it to the 600s with a little luck, but winning? No bleepin’ way! The people who ended up in the top 10, the top 50 even, are just in a completely different league. Seriously, like getting to play a little basketball in the backyard against Steph Curry and Draymond Green.

I had skipped the dining room for breakfast and lunch, but went down at 6pm as arranged, with Patty, Gwen, and Dr. Margaret. The dining room is trying hard to be classy. Tonight’s special was prime rib roast, and they had an actual cart with a shiny chrome hood that they rolled around to the tables to carve off a slice of the roast to your order. They still have a bit to work out though, as first, one cart was not enough to keep up with a full dining room, and two, they didn’t coordinate the cart with the delivery of the plates with our veggies and starch, which sat and got cold while the cart wandered around the other side of the room. Well, the new director and chef were making the rounds and we discussed it at length when they got to our table. Feedback.

Saturday 04/24/2021

Today was the real start of the crossword puzzle tournament. Between 8am and 1pm we — about 1,000 people who had signed up — did six crosswords, ranging from hard to very hard. The scoring is based on time and accuracy. There is a maximum time for each puzzle, between 20 and 30 minutes typically. For every minute left on the clock when you click “submit” you get points. But you lose points for every incomplete or misspelled word.

After all 6 puzzles, my total score had me firmly in 723rd place, out of 998. So, I’m a leader in the last quadrant.

Other than the tournament, I went to two meals in the new dining room. It is kind of annoying but interesting to watch the ex-sodexo people trying to learn to be real waiters. Some of them don’t seem to be catching on. Like, at supper, a lady at my table had finished her soup. She moved the bowl aside, and said to a server who was standing beside our table, “I’m finished with this.” The server smiled, looked confused, and walked away. The bowl was still there several minutes later when I excused myself and left.

I mean, this is Waiter 101 stuff. A diner says, “I’m finished,” you automatically say, “Oh, let me take that away for you” and move it.

In model news, I now have the stuff to make decals. I had a last-minute thought about the tartan pattern. My image had black with orange lines, but the decal will be going on a black plastic seat, so shouldn’t I remove the black and just print the orange lines on clear? So with some screwing around I managed that,

I printed that on the decal paper, sprayed it with sealant. After it dried I cut one out and made it wet and slid it onto the rear seat.

Well, that sucks. The orange hardly shows at all. Also, the decal is just a little bit too stiff to settle into the grooves of the seat. This is all very disappointing.