Friday 05/23/2025

(oooh sneaking up on a full house, 5/25/2025)

Took a nice walk with J in the absolutely beautiful morning. Trying to be consciously thankful of being able to walk, in health, in lovely weather, with a friend.

Before going out I moved all the furniture off my area rug. At 10 a housekeeping guy came with the carpet cleaning machine and shampooed the rug. I can’t find the blog post where I got this rug; I know I ordered it from Amazon and it went down very soon after I moved in. This would be its first cleaning.

While he worked I talked to Dr. Margaret down the hall, trying to get some background on Dennis’s medical issues so I could talk sensibly. At lunch time I drove out, picked up a burger at Jack, and drove on down to Dennis’s place. Chatted with Toni then had a long conversation with Dennis, trying to be helpful about his situation.

Back home I wrote two extremely sensible emails. One was to Rhonda and our lead marketer. This was a response to the idea that, because our building has a majority of studio and 1BR units we are at a marketing disadvantage. My proposal was that they hire an architecture design firm, to do attractive renderings of different imaginative ways that an studio apartment can be arranged with custom furniture and professional use of color and texture.

The other email was a response to a question from another resident about AI and the prospect of AGI, artificial general intelligence. I gave my reasons for thinking the present AI systems have no chance of improving to that level, some other design approach would be needed.

Thursday 05/22/2025

Didn’t leave the building today, I realize now at the end. Neighbor Jeb dropped by. He wants to scan some 35mm slides. Yesterday I dug out my old Canon scanner from my storage cage downstairs, which is very good for that job, and tested it. So I showed him how, and talked about the process, and then he said he would need to reorganize his office space to make room, but he’d come back to borrow it later. So now I have the scanner in a box cluttering up my bedroom. Oh well.

At 1 I attended a lecture on how to approach and live with dementia patients. I left early; it was going too slow. Actually all the good advice was on a single-page handout.

At 3pm the Good Times committee met to start planning our September event, which will be a celebration of the best Broadway show tunes. We came up with an initial list of 25 or so. I helped Lou set up a Google Sheet so we could avoid the method used previously, Lou maintaining an Excel sheet and sending out revised copies by email. Everybody can view it and see updates instantly.

Then I spent an hour looking at websites with names like “best 100 broadway tunes” and so forth, auditioning songs on YouTube. There’s some crappy songs that are celebrated now. Like “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King. It’s a comedy routine, not a song. Or “Memory” from Cats — boooring. “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, SUPER boring. Meanwhile, “Let It Go” from Frozen is as good a female anthem as anything Broadway produced.

Wednesday 05/21/2025

First thing was to join a hike arranged by Joanne. Of the 6 people she invited, only I and Martha showed up. We went to Wunderlicht park, where I had never walked before. It turns out to be a redwood forest on a steep slope with gullies. Very scenic, basically the MacOS Sequoia screen saver brought to life. The three of us walked along up and down steep slopes, about 3.2 miles in all, and back to CH by lunchtime.

I had a nap and slept longer than usual so I was late in joining the monthly FOPAL volunteer zoom meeting, but I didn’t miss it completely.

Then it was time to collect my guitar and go and perform in the assisted living recreation room across the campus. Audience of about 15 people, maybe half in wheel chairs. They are great, very appreciative and enthusiastic. I didn’t screw anything up and it all went pretty well.

Before and after that I ran my two loads of laundry, so I got that done as well. Dinner with Susan and Harry and there we are.

Tuesday 05/20/2025

Early on in The Rundown (AI newsletter) I saw a link to a new company that makes videos based on a photo and a script. You upload a head shot, you paste in a short script (longer scripts require the paid tier) and choose a voice, and shortly, you have a video of that face saying your words. I found a picture of Lord Byron and supplied the first stanza of “She Walks in Beauty” as the script. Voila, Lord Byron reciting his best-known poem. Can’t include it here but just go this link.

Before the writers meeting I practiced my set for the performance that is coming up on Wednesday which is, erk, tomorrow. Writers meeting, not much to say about it.

After lunch I grabbed a short nap and then met with Joanne for a short walk and chat. There were a couple of things I wanted to share with her, then we just walked and chatted. We went by the Episcopal Church where the Palo Alto photography society is showing a bunch of prize photos, including several by CH residents. And we got iced teas at Peet’s and sat in the park to enjoy the absolutely perfect weather, my gosh it was lovely.

At 3:30 I met with Kass to show her how to connect her laptop to the big rolling TV. The Fifth Floor is having a party and the theme is “somewhere over the rainbow” and they want to show the Judy Garland clip. This turned out to be complicated by the TV’s interface and the MacOS interface but we finally figured out how to do it. Then she played the clip off YouTube and it starts with an ad and ends with a bunch of extraneous stuff. So I went to my room and using the foxy little web app I found, I downloaded the clip as a .mp4 file and sent it to her. Fuck Youtube, just run the video.

Monday 05/19/2025

Took an early walk, out the door at 7:30. Back in plenty of time for the Event Coordinator meeting at 10:30. Afterward, I zipped down to FOPAL and spent two+ hours processing computer books.

Back in time for a short nap and then Rhonda’s open meeting at 4. The main topic was CH strategic planning, one possible strategic move will be to acquire a “satellite campus” of another building, or other buildings. Lots of discussion followed of course.

Weird phone call today. About 2:30 while arriving back from FOPAL, my pocket phone rang. Screen says, “No Caller ID”. Assuming it would be robocall or a scam, I answered just for fun. The voice at the other end was that of a person having a stroke, or similarly disabled. Struggling to say any words, just Uh, Erk, Wubba kinds of syllables. I said, you have the wrong number, but it sounds like you need help, call 911. And I disconnected. Phone rings again, same deal, no caller ID, incoherent noises. I said the same thing and disconnected. Phone rang a third time, same deal. This time he (pretty sure it was a masculine voice) might have said “Mary”. Wehwee. I said there is nobody here named Mary, you really need help, dial 911. No more calls. I wonder what kind of life event I was a bystander witness to. I’ll never know.

Sunday 05/18/2025

Usual Sunday morning stuff. Then put on my red shirt and at noon, headed to the Museum. My job was to lead a private tour for a group from Google, supposedly 10 people. Only four had shown up by 1:10 and I wanted to leave by 2:30 so we started. A fifth person joined us a little later. Nice small group. I had expected, or rather hoped for, programmers, and I adjusted my usual tour to emphasize how software development was different in every era, but basically always the same: edit, test, repeat. Anyway they seemed to enjoy it.

Back home changed out of the red shirt and met with another David, David Greene, to attend a house concert. I had bought two seats to this and then found there was a conflict with Joanne’s book group, so after some thought I asked D. Greene to join me. He is an expert in pop and jazz history, but had never heard this group, Dirty Cello. I’d heard them multiple times (Day 4.136, Day 3.192, Day 2.332 and a couple of times before the blog began). They gave a great show this time and Greene was an instant fan, bought a CD and signed up for their mailing list.

Saturday 05/17/2025

The adventure today was to visit SFMOMA (museum of modern art) to see the retrospective of the works of Ruth Asawa. Joanne and I left at 9, and were parked and ready to go in at 9:45, but the museum didn’t open until 10. We walked around the garden at the Yerba Buena center across the street to kill time.

The exhibit was excellent, they covered Asawa’s career from college days — intricate patterned calligraphic drawings and watercolors — through her major career, making these intricate woven wire hangings, and later life with other things.

Had a nice lunch in the MOMA cafe. Then we drove to Golden Gate Park because I had a notion to see the rhododendrons in the Rhododendron Dell. Every road in the park was solidly lined with parked cars but we lucked into a parking space along one of the roads. It was well past peak rhodie season but we had a nice walk anyway. Back home to CH by 2pm.

Did a guitar rehearsal of the full program for the Lee Center, it comes to just the half hour I wanted.

Friday 05/16/2025

Started with our customary Friday morning walk which would usually be 2+ miles but somehow I’ve got 4 miles for the day. Anyway, back in time for the line dance class at 10:30. Left that early for the AI interest group meeting at 11. And left that right on 12 to meet Joanne who had decreed she would take me to lunch today. We went to Sundeck at Sand Hill Circle, a nice place in a business/residential complex a few miles away.

Was invited to dinner with Betty and Jerry and Mildred. Afterwards, worked on writing out a job description for the chair of the AV committee. I hope before the end of the year to be out of that chair and just an ordinary member of the AV team. Reason: I anticipate that in future years I will be tapped for other responsibilities around CH. I don’t mind doing a few AV events each month but the administrative part is getting tiresome after two? three? years.

Thursday 05/15/2025

My self-assigned project today was to clean up my pantry. This is a set of shelves and drawers to the right of my tiny kitchen area. It is old; the original 1960s woodwork from when the place was built. Here’s the pantry now, after cleaning and reorganizing.

It was really grungy and stained, and there was a lot of stuff that I had collected during the pandemic and no longer used. I scrubbed every surface and reorganized and threw a bunch of stuff out.

I was complaining about those drawers there, way back in 2019 when I first moved in. I noticed that the old wood of the three drawers had a nasty odor. I took the drawers down to the resident shop, sanded the interiors and coated them with varathane varnish (Day 251). I often think how I should pay Valet or somebody to rip them out and make nice builtins, but why.

Later I did some guitar work and some reading.

Wednesday 05/14/2025

Last night’s concert was fun, a bunch of high-school “merit scholars” (whatever that means) from the Community School of Music and Arts (which I’d never heard of), 13- to 18-year-olds, each performing some kind of solo, instrumental or vocal. All very skilled.

After the show I sat down and re-made the music concert video, to correct mis-spellings of two people’s names on the title cards.

First up today was a walk. Joanne is trying to establish a group walk on Wednesday mornings. This time the only other available walker didn’t show, so it was just us two. We went to the Baylands and had a nice 2-mile level walk. Very few bird species, just some seagulls and a couple of mallards.

After lunch I spent an hour practicing guitar and some songs. At 5 was time for the monthly 6th floor meeting. No big news. Then instead of joining the rest of the 6th floor at dinner, I instead had been invited by David Greene and Jane to eat with them and Barbara. Very pleasant dinner. David had long experience as a music journalist so I asked him about performance fees for amateur performances. Turns out he has a friend who is actually an attorney working in the intellectual property field. Based on what he’s heard this friend say, it’s not an issue. As long as nobody is getting paid and no admission is charged, nobody cares. The whole point of copyright and rights management and permissions is to protect the flow of money; no money, no concern.

At 7:30 we had an interesting lecture by a naturalist about biological mimicry. Good talk.