Thursday 6/11/2020

Started the day with Veronica’s cardio zoom.

I put in two hours getting the FOPAL signup sheets like they want. Much of that was trying to prove that a signup sheet could be embedded into an existing web page. Unfortunately the only website I have write-access to is this one. But WordPress exerts a high degree of control over page contents. I put what is supposed to be my custom HTML into a page, and WordPress happily mungs it in all sorts of unpredictable ways. It turns what is supposed to be a <script...> statement and turns it into an <a...> anchor. So I couldn’t prove whether the given code to embed a sheet would work or not. But anyway, over to FOPAL except I will have to do a hand-off to someone else via Zoom at some point.

Next, Thursday means house-cleaning. Which I did. I have this down to a routine by now, a routine that takes about 90 minutes and is only a bit less physical than Veronica’s aerobics.

Feeling very accomplished I passed the afternoon reading.

Wednesday 6/10/2020

Went for a run; it felt fine.

Afterward I checked the hummingbird feeder. My feeder has been discovered by several birds who are cooperating quite nicely to drain it. Observe the blue mark: that was the level as of yesterday morning.

I did what little I had to do, to complete my tax return. Basically, sign two e-file permission forms and mail them to the accountant along with a check.

It was nominally car freedom day. However, my car is in the garage under the Lee center, and the hallway to that garage is now part of the access to the COVID-19 isolation area, and nobody is allowed to enter it except nursing staff working in the isolation area. So the only way for anyone to get to their cars is to request a Facilities person to go through the garage and open a doorway to the street, that only opens from inside. So I said, maybe next week.

I got a big windfall from InstaCart. I had put paper towels in my order. InstaCart shows this is “paper towels, 2 count, best available” because they are (still?) in short supply. While the shopper was working, the app told me that my paper towel order had been refunded because they were not in stock.

When the shopper arrived, however, there was all my stuff plus a gigantic plastic pack of six rolls of towels — and in my favorite brand, Viva, too! I said, the app said they were out of stock? and she said, must have been a bug. Later I checked, and I was definitely not charged for them. So I am the paper towel king of Channing House. We had a floor meeting via Zoom and I offered to share my windfall, and nobody took me up on it.

One of our residents, Betty, on Monday, got up quickly to answer the phone, stumbled over an afghan that was on the floor, and broke her hip. Her husband Jerry got to watch her leave for Stanford Emergency but couldn’t go with. Tuesday he got to wave to her through a window as she was wheeled to the operating theater. She’d busted the head of the femur. They put a titanium bolt in it. Today she moved to the Vi, the cross-town senior place whose rehab center is apparently better than ours (and not locked down for active COVID). Jerry was able to drive to the Vi and see her brought out of the ambulance. She’s in good shape, considering recent major surgery, and will probably be back soon. But these COVID constraints…!

I some work on the car model. I did a little detailing on the firewall, painting in the wiper motor, some wires, and some bolt heads, and then I dirtied it up.

Nancy of FOPAL wants more detail on how Slottr.com works, and asks me to set up the full schedule for the anticipated reopening. I will work on that tomorrow.

Tuesday 6/9/2020

Started the day with Veronica’s aerobics class, now at its new start time of 7:30, and yes, there was one additional attendee.

On and off through the day I worked on the model car. It was time to paint the body using my brand new airbrush. A tiny little spray gun, basically. I used my new “spray booth” which is a large cardboard carton I salvaged from the recycle area. I’m not too happy with the results. The color is good and I did a good job of masking the parts I didn’t want painted. But the final coat is not as smooth as I’d like. I’m especially disappointed in the clear coat. I used Krylon gloss clear spray, which I’d gotten for some other reason, and it didn’t come up glossy. Semi-gloss at best. I see there is a high gloss model clear coat paint I can order from a hobby store. So there will be another week shipping delay. Meantime there is just a wealth of very very fine detail painting to do, using my newly acquired set of very very fine detail painting brushes. Oh, and the chassis. I can make this one model into a career.

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Middle of that I got a call from Nancy, one of the principals on the FOPAL board, asking if I’d read the emails she sent me last weekend. Well, I had, but only in a cursory way. They were about plans for reopening book sorting and sales, and I just assumed I was being CC’d, because they knew I wasn’t coming back without a vaccine.

Well, actually, no, they were to me and there was a request in them for me to help assess sign-up and scheduling software. They want to reopen with a very controlled process, where buyers (initially only people who are actually members of FOPAL) sign up for specific time slots to enter the sale rooms. Turns out, there are roughly a half-bajillion web services to help you create sign-up sheets. She’d picked a few that sounded good and wanted me to help evaluate them.

Sure! So there went a good part of the afternoon. It kinda came down between Slottr.com and Signup.com. I set up experimental sign-up sheets on three services, and sent my notes and links to the created sheets, to her, to evaluate.

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My final tax return came from the accountants. Due in large part to the portion of my Channing House entry fee that can be assigned to health care, I get a nice refund from both the Federal and State, and apparently don’t need to file any estimated taxes for 2020, either. At least, none is shown in the accountant’s summary page, although I want to verify that.

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At 5pm came an email from Rhonda. I’ll quote the important bits, emphasizing the points that stood out for me:

As you know, a mass testing for COVID-19 was performed on Sunday, June 7^th for all workers who have been in the Lee Center in the previous 14 days and all residents who reside in the Lee Center. This mass testing was in response to the one positive test result for one of our Skilled Nursing residents.

Test results have been trickling in over the course of the day. As of now, we have two positive test results for COVID-19. Each of the positive results are for workers in the Lee Center. These workers are asymptomatic and are isolating offsite.

Residents who have been in close proximity to these workers have been isolated. They and their families have been notified…

We are scheduling another round of mass testing which will include all staff and all residents, including Independent Living. This next round of testing will be on or near, Sunday June 14^th. Planning is underway and we will keep you posted as details are arranged.

What’s interesting is that the two (so far) workers were asymptomatic. Just this morning on the TV news I saw a clip of an epidemiologist from WHO saying that asymptomatic transmission appeared to be unusual and not a big problem. (But now, trying to find a link to that announcement, all I get are links saying the opposite.) Anyway, given that we check everyone at the door for symptoms, asymptomatic transmission is about the only kind of transmission we could be open to.

Also interesting: going to test all residents including us IL people. That’s good.

Last night I snuggled into my bed and turned out the light about 10:30. Shortly I was annoyed to note an unusual light. There is a fire alarm device in the ceiling that emits a tiny strobe light about every five minutes. I have learned to ignore it. But now there was another, dimmer, blink from the ceiling. Of course it’s just a blur without my glasses. I get up and investigate. There’s a thing with two green LEDs that have never been lit before.

I turn on the light. It’s some kind of smoke detector, or possibly CO2? It never blinked before, but now it’s blinking. I stand on a chair and look for buttons or something. Nope. Well, I know detectors, I’ve installed them. I’m annoyed with this one, so without thinking it through, I reach up and give the sucker a twist and remove the active unit from its round mounting plate. I put it on the kitchen table and go back to bed, happy that the annoying light is gone.

Five minutes later my doorbell rings. And somebody knocks on my door. I get up, find my glasses, turn on a light, put on my bathrobe, open the door while grabbing a mask. It’s our night security guy who apologetically explains that there’s some kind of an alarm going off, indicating a problem in my unit. Doh! Of course, this isn’t a simple suburban home with a simple stand-alone detector; this is a recently-renovated floor of a group residence, and the smoke detector is wired to a whole security network. When I took it down, I set off a beeping red light on a console somewhere.

I explain, and the security guy has me wait while he sends for the night Facilities guy. He comes, looks, and goes away to see if he can find a duplicate detector. Comes back; no; the day Facilities manager will be in touch. I thank them and apologize and at 11:30, go back to bed.

Monday 6/8/2020

Went for a run, a few minutes earlier than usual so I can be back and showered and dressed before the Facilities crew starts work. Of course they don’t call until 4pm. That Facilities guy reinstalls the detector. Its two green LEDs are now on constantly. I ask if he has any black tape. He has, and does a neat job of putting little black patches over the LEDs.

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I write a lengthy argument in favor of an in-house TV channel and send it to the Tech bulletin board, plus a few other people. Over the course of the day there are responses, the most important being from from Vanessa, our staff IT manager. She says in fact she has been working with Comcast and one other vendor on creating just such a channel, and should be able to present their offers soon.

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At various times I work on the car model, finishing the interior. Here are some pictures. The main pieces before assembly.

The interior assembled.

And how it will look installed in the body. All that detail, hidden.

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For a few weeks my hummingbird feeder was pretty much ignored. Then, about a week ago, I began noticing a hummer on it frequently. And as of today, they are lowering the level in the jar about an inch a day. Sitting on the balcony this afternoon I observed a lot of hummer activity. There are at least three working this face of our building, maybe more. There are no doubt hummingbird feeders on many of the balconies, but the little buzzers still have to argue over them.

Sunday 6/7/2020

Usual pleasant Sunday morning activities: big crossword puzzle, watering plants. On the plant front, the wood-sorrel that I started last fall from a cutting taken from a street planting, is just growing insanely. I put it in a large pot; it has filled it and is pouring down the sides. And it has never stopped putting out a profusion of little yellow blossoms. (With very little trouble I just identified it: it is “Volcanic Sorrel” aka “Wood Sorrel var. ‘Zinfandel'”.)

I cut back the dragon-wing begonias to short sticks in December just as Marian used to do, and they have boomed back with a yard-high solid block of their (dragon-wing-like) foliage, and both pots have started the first blooms. The two fuscias I bought at the nursery just before the lockdown are healthy and continuing to bloom. So.

I took a longish (well, 3-mile) walk. Along the way my eye was caught by this explosion of bougainvillea.

On the way back in I picked up the package of model paints that was delivered yesterday.Over three short sessions (allowing paint to dry between) I did the seats and door panels of the interior in two shades of gray, matching the design from the factory brochure. Actually now I see that the factory shows the carpet in a different tone than the dark color on the upholstery. Tough. I’ve got a dark gray and light one and that’s that. After a little touch-up tomorrow I will use the “chrome pen” I bought to color the door hardware and rub strips.

Doctor Marx wrote back with info on ‘rona testing at PAMF:

Hi David,
Right now (as of today; this could change anytime), Pamf/Sutter does not have the capacity to test asymptomatic people at all (including us staff!). However, if you ever have even the slightest of symptoms (fatigue, headache, fever, cough, body aches, etc), then please contact us so we can get you an appointment at one of our very safe, outdoor respiratory clinics.

Sincerely,
Julia Marx, MD

So I have to have a symptom. But, but, but… if some rando sneezes on me, I can be infectious for days before the symptoms appear.

Saturday 6/6/2020

Did the laundry, yay.

Stirred some pots via email. One resident, a doctor, wrote at length to the CHBB advocating that IL residents ought to be tested. Which made me wonder, how exactly would I go about that? It isn’t obvious. The SCCDPH has a site with a helpful map to locate testing sites. There are five sites near me. Four are various parts of the Stanford health organizations and it isn’t clear who they will accept for an appointment or under what criteria. One appears to be a branch of PAMF although the name is different. The PAMF (Sutter Health) website says zilch about testing. So I finally used that site to send a message to my primary care physician Julia, asking her to explain how I could get tested if, for example, I thought I might have been exposed.

Wednesday I wrote about the Resident Association exec committee worrying about the minority of residents who can’t participate in meetings for lack of technical skills or equipment. Today Dennis said something that reminded me of a thought I’d had months ago: our building-wide Xfinity service should be able to generate an in-house channel. If we had our own channel, it would be easy to put an image of a Zoom meeting on it, and everybody has a TV and ability to turn it on. It wouldn’t be interactive but a person could at least follow what was being said.

So I proposed that in an email to the exec committee. They seem to like the idea. One said, she thought somebody was working on that, and gave a couple of names. I will continue to follow up.

The package of paints I’m waiting for was nominally delivered by the USPS at 6:20pm. However, all packages have to be disinfected by house staff before they can be picked up. So as of 8pm that hadn’t happened.

I played Psychonauts a bit more and quickly fell into a deep hole that I can’t see how to get out of. So I looked up a Youtube walkthrough and watched it and decided not to continue playing it. It’s a “platformer”, a style of game where you use your controller to leap about through various mazes and obstacles finding things. Watching someone who is comfortable with that style of game is awesome but in the first five minutes she had visited places I had no idea were there. What, you can jump onto the roof of the cabin? And there’s something to collect up there? Oh and if I climb that tree it leads to a cliff with a cave that contains…

Friday 6/5/2020

Went for a run as usual. Fiddled around until afternoon. Spent an hour editing the novel. Feeling down about that.

I’ve got several orders outstanding, with various hobby materials and books. One is coming by Fedex, and the Fedex tracking page is just fascinating. Here is the progress of my shipment:

• Monday 6/1 5pm, received at Berlin, WI.
• Tuesday 6/2 2am, left Berlin WI.
• Wednesday 6/3 2am, in transit, Countryside, IL
• Wednesday 6/3 2pm, in transit, Orrick, MO
• Thursday 6/4 2am, in transit, Mooreland, OK
• Thursday 6/4 2pm, in transit, Jarales, NM
• Friday 6/5 1am, in transit, Needles, CA
• Friday 6/5 1pm, in transit, Turlock, CA

Quite a fun road trip! 2,590 miles, 40 hours driving time, Google maps reckons. And only 100 miles to go now.

In Rhonda’s 4pm meeting, not a lot of news. Our one positive case is asymptomatic. Re-test being done. All SN and AL patients and all 170 staff members being tested this Sunday, under supervision of nurses from the county health department. Contact tracing has been unhelpful. We have good logs, and we know all the maintenance, housekeeping, and nursing staff with contact with that person and all have tested negative in prior tests. “We’re a bit befuddled,” Rhonda admits. Possibly a false negative; possibly a staff member will come up positive in the next tests.

That person is now isolated in our COVID-19 center, being attended by staff who have volunteered to live on-site in ground-floor guest units to protect their families. The only physical access to the Lee building is via the basement where you are logged and can only enter with an N95 mask.

The response to this has delayed the planning to allow more garage access, and the planning to allow family visits, which would be outdoors (patio) with plexiglass dividers; expect updates next week.

All staff including IL will be tested soon, but still no plan to mass test IL residents. Positive tests from Sunday’s tests (results expected Tuesday) may change that.

Yesterday I forgot to mention the real big news: Channing House has its first COVID case.

To my surprise it was not found among staff or the 200 independent living folks, but in the skilled nursing facility. It was found because, in obedience to health department requirements, we’d begun testing all SN and AL patients. The administration moved fast at that point. Since yesterday physical barriers have been set up on all access ways between the “tower”, independent living, and the Lee Center where AL and SN are. The only access is through the basement past a guard who registers anyone going in or out. The staffs had already been divided but now they don’t come into contact at all. One hallway with guest rooms in the tower has been barricaded; those rooms are in use to house Lee Center staff who are sleeping on-site.

It hasn’t been said (I hope this will come out in Rhonda’s phone meeting tomorrow) but I assume intensive contact tracing is going on. It should be possible to know who had contact with our patient, either a relative or the small number of staff. Lee Center staff was all tested at the same time as the patients and I believe have been cleared.

Thursday 5/4/2020

Did Veronica’s 7:15 aerobics, and suggested to her that it might be better at 7:30. Michelle, the one other joiner, agreed.

This being Thursday I had a bag of fresh linens outside my door, and between 10 and lunch I did the housecleaning. That was about the only useful thing I did today. I didn’t work on the model because I’m waiting on paint colors, which should arrive this weekend.

Wednesday 5/3/2020

Started with a run. Then about 10 took the car out. Well, I lie. At about 10 I made my way to the garage ready to take the car out, but the Prius said, “Key not detected”. So back through four doors, up the elevator, to my room, take the car key off the desk, and about 10:10 I took the car out. Just drove around the back roads, up Page Mill, along Altamont, back on Foothill. It was a brilliant warm day and there were several bicyclists along the route, and in fact I was recognizing parts of the streets as ones I had last been on, cycling, maybe 5 or more years ago. When I cycled.

Worked a bit on the car model. The next phase is to assemble the interior. It’s quite detailed. Here’s the dashboard, for example, and a real one for comparison.

OMG I just noticed the handle of the parking brake in the real one. I don’t think that’s in the model.

So I clipped all the interior parts off the sprues and sanded off the flashings and then contemplated. There is a heckuva lot of detail to paint. Which is in a way, wasted effort. This model doesn’t have opening doors. Opening hood, but not doors. So whatever detail I render on the interior will only be seen through the little windows, i.e. not very well. So I was thinking how I could paint the dash and then rub the paint off the little radio buttons so they would be white against the paint like the real ones, and then thought, oh really? Why? Well.

Also thought about paint colors, and then spent 40 minutes or so at various websites assembling an order with suitable light and dark grays to paint the upholstery and the top of the dash. Oh, and while there I found a pre-mixed acrylic in a green that is acceptably close to the body color. So I won’t have to mix.

Three PM was the Residents’ Association Executive Committee meeting. I’m the treasurer as I mentioned a few weeks ago. The topic was changing the wording of the Handbook describing how to use the in-house email bulletin board. There are two, CHBB for general interest, and CHOpinion which is supposedly were anything that might offend anyone goes. There have been a few Incidents in which people Offended. So we approved more explicit wording on what’s acceptable and recommended use of CHBB.

Spent most of the time talking about what a couple of members said was widespread feeling of not enough communication. Pre-virus there were monthly R.A. meetings in the auditorium, attended by pretty much all 240 residents. There is now Rhonda’s Friday afternoon Zoom call, but that gets at most 150 people signed in. There is at least a quarter of the residents who are just not capable of attending an online meeting — where they were capable of getting themselves to the auditorium and feeling like participants. What to do? Not at all clear. We can’t have physical meetings of any size, so what can we do for that minority who can’t do online?

On Reddit, saw a thread on “what TV series should everyone have watched” and made a list of ones that sounded good. Then searched my Xfinity system. Several are Netflix: Avatar: the Last Airbender, Black Mirror, Bojack Horseman (which I’d never heard of), Derry Girls. A couple are on HBO: Chernobyl, True Detective, The Wire. I could re-watch all of Orphan Black on BBC; I loved that series the first time around. I can access Mr. Robot but I gave up on it after two episodes when it ran the first time. BlackAdder is on Amazon Prime along with The Expanse, the latter has been in my Prime watch list for months now. Also on Prime is a movie, Cas & Dylan, which stars Tatiana Maslany, the wonderful actress who played eight different clones of herself on Orphan Black.

I watched one and a half episodes of BlackAdder tonight. It is a very silly show. Sometimes I am tempted to upgrade my Xfinity to add HBO, SHO and Netflix. And then I think, I don’t watch the ones I can access now, so really?

Last night’s demonstration of a couple of hundred people blocked 101 for a while, shot off some fireworks, and ended peacefully. Also, I don’t know it happened, but I had that post ready to go at 7pm and never published it. So it went up 24 hours late.

Tuesday 6/2/2020

Did Veronica’s aerobics at 7:15. We had 3 this time, that’s a 50% increase. Later I went for a mile and a half walk, deposited a check. At 11am was the Writer’s Group. The “cue” for this week, James Russel Lowell’s line What is so rare as a day in June, did nothing for me. So I had nothing to read. But before I actually had to admit that, Zoom froze, so I just turned it off.

Spent a few hours finishing up the engine of the Chevy model.

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On the right side, I would love to work out some way to create spark plug wires from that teeny little distributor to the six spark plug holes. But jeez, that would take jeweler-level skills. Anyway, on to the interior.

I didn’t touch the novel, although it was on my mind. I’m doubting myself. Damn it, it’s good. But reader reactions have been lukewarm at best. !2-year-old me would have loved it.