Day 106 – plants and books and termites

Went to the Creamery for a burger and coffee. Breaking with tradition I did not order a chocolate/chocolate shake. Just a burger with coleslaw (not fries) and coffee.

Walking from my car to the Creamery I noticed

Mac’s Smoke Shop

and remembered the many times Marian and I would browse the magazine racks there. It’s been a long time since I bought magazines on a regular basis; I stopped doing that even before I stopped buying physical books. But I remembered one of my favorite magazines for occasional purchase, WoodenBoat. I think I bought WoodenBoat for the first time in an airport gift shop, and bought occasional copies for years after, when traveling, or at Mac’s. I always found the highly detailed, loving accounts of boat restoration to be deeply relaxing. I could sink into (well, poor metaphor there) a copy of WoodenBoat for a couple of hours.

So for the heck of it I walked into Mac’s and scanned the magazine shelves. I wasn’t even certain the magazine still existed, but on about the fifth rack I checked, there it was, and in good health, too, a hefty perfect-bound block of pages, solid in the hand, full of ads for WoodenBoat classes and WoodenBoat boat plans and even WoodenBoat t-shirts and hoodies! It is clearly surviving in the Internet age. I bought a copy, and one article occupied the whole of my dinner.

On return home I found an email from Katie the

tax person

, saying that my submitted workbook and documents look good. Yay me!

Watched a documentary on the fall of Theranos, then took WoodenBoat to bed with me.

Monday, 3/18/2019

Up and about. Started the day with a run. Then wrote checks for the cleaning lady coming tomorrow, and while I had the checkbook out, one for the hairdresser I’ll see on Wednesday. (Now if I can just remember to take the check with me on the day.) Watered

the plants;

I’m happy to say all the remaining ones are doing well. On day 2 I threw out the bathroom ferns I’d never liked; and of course Beau and two philodendrons went to Liz’s place. Of the remaining eight, I’m pretty sure I will take at least four with me when I move.

Spent two hours

scanning

20 slides; only about 40 left to do. The slides in this part of the pile were from a trip we’d taken across Canada in our first RV back in 1989. That slide group had never been scanned, which surprises me; I had scanned the groups for all our major road trips, I thought. But not that one. Well, getting to it now. Somewhat emotional viewing this group; they were from a time when both of us were strong enough to go for reasonable-length hikes, something not true in the past decade.

After lunch I decided to drop down to

FOPAL

and see how the Computer section was doing. The sorters had delivered four boxes since I was last there, so I culled those and priced the better ones. Most of the 50 or so books I priced I marked for 3 or 4 or 7 dollars, but four were “high value”, meaning they had market prices over $25. These go on a special shelf to be sold separately. One little pocket-sized “reference book of graphic algorithms” has a going price over $75, who’d’a thunk it? With the — or, I guess it is now “my” — computer section tidied up I came on home.

There I boxed up all the remaining books from our collection of paperbacks. There is one tiny section of stuff I need to review, and a collection of Women’s Basketball books that I need to think about, and that will be it. All the, what, something like 1,000 volumes that we’d saved because we might want to re-read them “someday”? Gone.

I also cleaned out a drawer of computer-related stuff. Man, how many USB cables does one person need? Some items to trash; some for the sale; a few set aside to keep.

Termites.

About 3pm there was a knock at the door; a young man with not great English, and a car that had “Fumigator Services” on the side, said he needed to measure the house so that the termite inspection report could be completed. Uh? I said go ahead, then emailed Chuck. He replied quickly that yes, the termite inspection had found termites, and it was legitimate that an estimate for a fumigation would be in the report. He apologized for the lack of notice, said he’d tried to tell these services to contact him before going to the house.

Well, so there are termites. No huge surprise; we had a termites in 2005 and the house was tented then. Our first clue then of a serious infestation was when we noticed little crumbs of dark-brown sawdust piling up on the table beside Marian’s favorite chair. They were working in one of the exposed beams that make our living room ceiling so charming, and crapping down on the table.

Nothing so blatant now; I presume the inspector found their little tunnels running up the inside of the foundation, perhaps. However, this is a serious strike against the idea of selling the house to owner-occupiers, and greatly raises the odds of selling to a developer. The cost of a fumigation will surely be in 5 figures. I could look up the receipt from 2005 but you know? I don’t care. IThMISEP and they’re welcome to it.

Supper; a bit of television; now I think I’ll go to bed and relax myself by finishing that issue of WoodenBoat magazine. (Hey, better than alcohol.)

Day 105, Sunday drive

Sunday, 3/17/2019

Had a lovely sleep, waking only once around 5am and sleeping unusually late, 7:15. Began the day, as has recently become my wont, by walking to the coffee shop. Going and coming, as also usual, I was

pondering

the difference between the new life and the old one. We all live within constraints that bend our actions. Some constraints are imposed by the physical world and our bodies, some by society, but many constraints are voluntarily assumed. Marriage brings a thousand little constraints, so many things you wouldn’t do, or do differently, because your partner won’t or can’t do it thus; and all voluntary.

When the marriage is gone, those particular constraints are lifted, but it takes time to understand (in the gut, not just in the mind) that this is not a bad thing, not a loss, but only a change. So why are my eyes damp?

Walking into the yard I notice a little failed plant. Well, not a failure; it is still alive and in fact blooming. I don’t remember its name; it has the unusual feature of blooming direct from dormancy, little purple starbursts on straw-colored stems, without a leaf in sight. But the three of these have never thrived and even when in full leaf, look as if they are about to shrivel and blow away. So? Well, Marian selected these plants for those spots when the garden was remade in 2012, and she always watched them and worried about them. Now I am trying to resolve my feelings about the plants. How Marian felt about those plants is history. Does it have any relevance going forward? How should I feel about them, or, does it matter that I don’t particularly like them and don’t care if they live or die? I don’t have any resolution for these questions.

With time to kill I decided to

pull weeds.

In 2012 the reworked yard was mulched; no more lawn. And yards of mulch have been put on it since. Just the same, every winter the rains bring many little green shoots popping up. Pulling them is easy, and I used to regularly go out and spend an hour pulling them while listening to a podcast. This year until now I’d studiously ignored them on the basis of ISMISEP. Or as it should be by now, IFMISEP or even IThMISEP. However I realized that the sprinkle of little green things alongside the walk to the front door could make the place look neglected to potential buyers. So I spent an hour pulling up a couple hundred little green sprouts. During this a

neighbor

stopped by to chat. Steve, the doctor next door, and I hadn’t spoken in many months. He remarked how he used to see us sitting in the living room and wondered if Marian had had to move to some facility? He hadn’t heard she’d died. I thought all our neighbors knew, but I guess not. So we chatted a while about this and that; I think he was reassuring himself that his geezer neighbor was getting on OK.

At eleven, Suzanne’s pal

Louise

came to continue her evaluation of Marian’s jewelry. She is being incredibly generous with her time, putting many hours into this and promising to deliver a complete report on Friday, and not asking for payment. Louise has also remodeled her current house in Seattle, so we naturally ended up talking about the things Chuck thinks might be done to spiff up this house.

Like me, she doesn’t see any problem with having a door between the stove and refrigerator. But she had a great idea for the bedroom, where Chuck’s design consultant Amy wanted to put a tub and toilet. Louise agreed that people, as she put it, pay ridiculous sums in order they can go from the bed to the toilet in five steps. But she thought it would be better to make the current walk-in closet into a bathroom, with a European style shower, and then she remembered the right phrase, “a wet room”. A wet room (according to that link) is

a bathroom with an open shower… with a shower floor that is flush with the rest of the bathroom … generally completely tiled and water is handled through a drainage system that serves the entire space…

Such a room would fit nicely in the closet space, while the passage between the bedroom proper and the closet/wet-room — space I’ve used as my office for decades — could be furnished as an elegant his-n-hers closet area.

While Louise was working I started cleaning up my

MacBooks,

of which I have 4. I have fully moved my daily life to Godot, so there are two MacBook Airs, Marian’s old one that was getting flaky and the newer one we got for her a year ago, and my rather tired MacBook Pro that Godot replaced. So while Louise rated gems and tested gold, I created a bootable USB drive with Mac OS X “Mojave” on it, and did a disk erase and clean install of the OS on the newer Air and the Pro. There was a little qualm in finally erasing Marian’s machine, but I am confident I moved all significant files to the cloud weeks ago. I’ve needed to refer to nothing on it since December.

After Louise left I decided the weather was so nice — the second day of spring-like temperatures in a row — I should

get the hell out

of the house. I drove up Page Mill road to Skyline where there is a trailhead, and went for a mile and a half walk on Russian Ridge. I took a panorama from a hill but in fact, the best view came a little later, as I was driving North on Skyline. Behold the absolute essence of California coast springtime:

green_road

I don’t even know what that road is, or how to get to it. I was surprised to see a paved road when looking West from Skyline drive. (Edit: probably Rapley Ranch Road.)

Anyway I came down 84 through Woodside, enjoying how the Prius plug-in charged 6 or 7 miles-worth of power in its battery on the descent. Now home, I am thinking about going out again for supper somewhere.

Day 104, two tours

Edit: I forgot to mention that last night, I went to a TheatreWorks production, Marie and Rosetta, about the life of Gospel and Rhythm and Blues singer Sister Rosetta Tharp. Very nice production, good music, and a terrific performance by a knockout young actress, Marissa Rudd. She could be a star in time.

Saturday, 3/16/2019

I had signed up to lead one tour at the Museum at 2pm. Yesterday Katherina, the volunteer manager, put out an urgent call for somebody to lead a private tour at 12:30. I like private tours and I was going to be there anyway, so I took it. So after a lazy morning I headed out for the museum. The private tour turned out to be a family group, mom, dad, several nice kids from 10 to 16, roughly. Apparently they’d come early, early enough to catch the 1401 demo at 11:00, which they had enjoyed a lot. They professed to enjoy my tour, also.

After finishing that tour I walked out across the parking lot to the 7-11 to get something for lunch. Several people in our lot were complaining; apparently thieves had broken the windows in three or four cars. My car was fine, but it is unsettling to have this happen in a familiar place. After a snack I led the 2pm tour, about 15 people.

On the way home I stopped at the FOPAL building, mostly to pick up a couple of empty boxes to bring back full. But I went in and looked at the Computer section. There were about five boxes of sorted books. I think I may go in there on Tuesday afternoon and do some culling and pricing.

At home I had an email from Kathy at the tax accountant’s, asking if I had sent in the workbook yet. I was going to wait until I’d talked to the advisor Tuesday, but this tipped me over, and I went and clicked “send to preparer”. Answered Kathy’s email asking that she check it soon as I wasn’t sure I’d done it right.

Not sure if I mentioned this before: with Marian’s demise, there are three important documents that need to be re-made: my “advanced health care directive”, “nomination of conservator”, and “general durable power of attorney”. All of these named Marian as the person responsible for me if I am incapacitated. In all three, my nephew Dennis was first alternate. Now I need to do these documents over. I had emailed Dennis asking if he would be the first in line, and today he responded he’d be “honored”, so that’s set.

I also called Marian’s cousin Darlene, who I like a lot and has been very supportive, and asked if she’d mind being the first alternate and she said “absolutely”. So that’s set, and hopefully I can get those drafted and done next Tuesday.

Day 103, many little tasks

Friday, 3/15/2019

Didn’t mention yesterday, that while I had planned to do the laundry today, I decided to start it last night, for no particular reason. Continued with the second load before sitting down to breakfast. Then out for a run, which went OK. On return, folded the two dry laundry loads and started the third one.

Sat down to do some desk work. Paid a credit card bill. Then edited and started the upload of the video I shot on Wednesday (and didn’t even mention in that blog post, I was so taken up with describing the FOPAL process). Anyway, the video is up and within an hour I had a comment, “another great video”, from one of my 150 or so subscribers. Yay me.

Got into the tax accountant’s workbook and I think I have entered all the data and uploaded all the 1099’s and other documents. I’ll hold off on the final click of “send to accountant” until after Tuesday’s meeting with the financial people.

Yesterday I got the official letter of acceptance from C.H. So I sent an email to Kim the marketing person asking when we should meet, and shortly got an invite to come in next Wednesday, after talking to my financial advisors.

Went out to ship that box containing the brown pitcher to Laurel, mail a letter, and pick up a couple of food items. Just love ticking off items on my to-do list!

Continued a productive day by scanning another batch of slides. Something happened here, and I’m not sure what. There was a train of thought where I was initially patting myself on the back for a good picture, and then realized that no, I could not have taken that, it had to have been taken by Marian. And some of the other slides were of trips we had taken in 1989, and 1992, and so on. And suddenly I was sniffling and for half an hour was not-quite-crying, in the strongest grief spasm I’ve had for a week or more.

I have a ticket for a play at Palo Alto Players for 8pm. It’s now almost time to depart, so I’ll report on that tomorrow.

Day 102, cataloging at Shustek

Went to Armadillo Willy’s for a big plate of pulled pork and a beer.

Thursday, 3/14/2019

Took the IBM songbook and went to the Museum’s Shustek documentation center in Fremont. Chris, one of the curators, was there and immediately recognized the songbook but thought we already had one. A search of the catalog showed we did, but not the 1931 edition. Then he noticed what I had not: on the top of the flyleaf in pencil was one of the Museum’s accession numbers. This same book had at one time been cataloged in the collection! A search on that number turned up the fact that some prior curator had deemed it inessential and returned it to its donor. Chris thought probably it should go back into the collection.

I worked with Toni to catalog a bunch of stuff of no great interest. The most interesting was parts of a 1989 attempt at a pen computer with software based on MS-DOS.

Looking up at the intense green of the hills behind Fremont I thought again of taking a scenic drive in them before the green fades. Then thought about how the idea of a solo scenic drive is so very much less appealing than the thought of a scenic drive shared with someone else. Why? The scenery is the same! The eyes looking at it are the same!

Think about that.

Day 101, new FOPAL job and a find

Wednesday, 3/13/2019

Went for a run, remembering to log the start and end in my ZIO patch log. There’s a paper log book in the box, but that’s for fogies. I had downloaded the ZIO app for the phone and do my logging there.

After the run I stopped at the UPS store and bought a box and some bubble wrap. At home, I boxed up the Buckeye Pottery pitcher (see Day 91) to send to my niece Laurel.

In the night, around 2am, I was having a wakeful spell and thought about all the things yet to be cleaned out and evaluated. One thing that looms like an ominous cloud is a pair of large metal cabinets out in what we called “the shop”, an enclosed room on the side of the garage. In the night I am thinking about having to clean empty those cabinets and throwing away un-sellable stuff — they were the place we put anything that we might want to use again sometime but don’t want in the house now — and it occurred to me that the cabinets themselves would sell in the estate sale. Fine metal locking cabinets. Then I wondered, where are the keys for those locking cabinets? And in order to get back to sleep I had to get up, find a note-pad, and write down the list of things I’d been thinking of: “pitcher, cab. keys, taxes”. Then I could go back to sleep.

So now, after wrapping the pitcher, I went out and opened the cabinet doors and there inside each door, were the keys to that cabinet hanging on a neat little hook made from a paperclip just to keep the keys handy. Right where you’d look for them, although nobody has looked for them since the cabinets went in, probably before 2000.

Then I spent an hour and a half on the tax workbook. That’s pretty close to done. I hope to polish it off on Friday, although I’m not sure I’ll actually hit the “send to CPA” button until after I’ve talked the financial guys next Tuesday.

I needed to be at FOPAL at 1pm for a meeting, and was just dropping off for a short nap at 12:15 when Chuck called. He has scheduled a termite inspection for tomorrow and now belatedly wanted to make sure I’d be here. I won’t; I’ll be at the museum. But we agreed he should have a key and can then give the inspector access. So he dropped by the house at 12:40 for a key. No numbers from a developer yet, although he’s talked to one.

Off then to FOPAL where I got trained on a new task: evaluating and pricing books for a section, in particular, the computer section. In my previous (and on-going) job of sorting, we separate newly-donated books to their section. If a book is somehow related to computers, it goes in a computer section box. Piles of boxes then stack up in front of the computer shelves.

Today, working with an experienced volunteer, I learned what happens next. We go through the boxes and do a cull of books that aren’t worth pricing. Almost all “–for Dummies”, all stuff for Windows 95 and other obsolete software, almost all books published before 2000 (some judgement needed here), get packed into new boxes and piled up for the “H2” people. H2 is the building where “bargain” books are displayed. Everything in H2 is $1, and things that don’t sell there, go to recycling.

About one in four of the books look salable. These we take back to the office where we enter their ISBNs into Book Scout Pro, which aggregates prices from all over the web. If a book is selling at $8 or more, we write a price on the flyleaf and put it in a box of priced books that will eventually be shelved for the sale. If it is selling at less than that, it goes in an H2 box.

So I put in 3 and a half hours on that, in the course of which I made a find: in the middle of a box, in among books on Java and C++, was an original, 1931 edition of the IBM Songbook! I grabbed that puppy and put it with my hat. That isn’t going in the book sale, that’s going with me to the museum tomorrow.

After work I bought a few groceries (FOPAL is next to my usual grocery store) and headed home. Forgetting to stop at UPS and ship that pitcher, which now will just ride in the back of the car until Friday.

When I was initially thinking about my life “when I’m a bachelor” I had assumed that I would eat supper in restaurants fairly often. In fact, I almost haven’t. I think I’ve been out twice for meals (aside from several restaurant meals in Las Vegas of course). So I think I will go out tonight. Report on that tomorrow.

Day 100, jewelry

Tuesday, 3/12/2019

Started by walking to the Y and doing a few exercises. Started early, back early so as to be in good time for the arrival of Suzanne and her friend Louise. Louise is a jeweler and gemologist who is volunteering to evaluate all Marian’s jewelry. She came equipped with three boxes of equipment including a binocular microscope and a gizmo that can tell gold from brass using electricity. I figure it must be a super-sensitive ohmmeter but she didn’t actually know the principle of it.

Louise spent more than two hours going over everything (maybe 100 items all told, but nothing with individual great value) and then took some away with her to look at where she is staying. She plans to come back Sunday with a full report. I am getting a whole lot of professional time gratis, with only the understanding that I’ll put a review on her website (which I haven’t seen yet).

I spent some of the time she was here, and after, scanning slides. Just a box to go, maybe 100.

At three pm I drove over to the Encina (street) office of PAMF to have a ZIO patch installed. This is because I reported to my PCP at my recent exam that sometimes I thought I felt short spells of a-fib. Back in the 90s, my then PCP had me wear a Holter monitor, which was a box the size of a pound of butter that hung from a shoulder strap, with leads to three or four sticky patches. I wore that for a week, during which I couldn’t shower.

The ZIO patch does the same job, recording my electrocardiogram, but it is a single sticky patch about 2 by 3 inches with a lump in the center about the size of a pat of butter. I can shower with it on, as long as I keep my back to the shower, and I am to wear it for 14 days, then peel it off and return it in its box. Installation took five minutes; the nurse just shaved a patch of hair above my left nipple, slapped the patch on, and verbally went over the use instructions.

Day 99, Home again

Monday, 3/11/2019

Up, dressed, brushed my teeth, out the back door of the Excalibur — avoiding yet another trek through the blinking noisy neon jungle of the casino floor — and a Lyft to the airport. At the entrance to the security gate a TSA woman was telling people to wait, “security is full except for pre-check”. But I have pre-check, so whizzed on up the stairs. There I found the regular security line backed up, a couple hundred people probably in a 5-fold snake, but only me and one other guy in the pre-check line and I was through in 30 seconds. Recent flights I’d been noticing the pre-check line was getting crowded, but not here. I guess most people who go to Vegas for a weekend, don’t travel enough to go through the pre-check registration rigmarole.

Routine flight home, but I noticed that miles of jumbled hills from I-5 west to the Bay were brilliant Irish green from a wet rainy season. I’ve noticed this wilderness before, hundreds of square miles, mostly roadless, that lies between US 101 on the west and I-5 on the east. But usually from the air it is mostly yellow with dry grass. Right now it is lush. If I was still a bike rider, I’d be planning a ride to Mt. Hamilton. Now I’m thinking, some kind of a weekend drive, in the next month before the green begins to fade. Down SR 25, maybe.

Once home I did a few useful things. I got out Marian’s jewelry box and the envelope of old receipts that show provenance. Tomorrow Suzanne’s friend Louise is going to come and practice appraisals on it. Then I paid a bill, filled out a survey questionnaire from the hospice company (all positive, they were great), and put in an hour filling out the tax accountant’s online workbook. Another couple of hours, probably, to finish the taxes.

A hobby I’ve had the last couple of years is doing video reviews of modern meal replacements. That’s going to end pretty soon, because when I move to an ILF, with all meals provided, I won’t have a reason to use these products. Right now I’m getting half of my calories from them. Recently I took delivery of a new one. It’s chocolate flavored, so I ordered bags of chocolate from two other, more established vendors. The second of those just came in today’s mail. So I shot stills and close-up video of the process of mixing a shake for each of these three. I put the shakes in the fridge to mature (they’re always better after chilling overnight). Tomorrow I’ll shoot myself doing a taste comparison.

I should have spent a couple hours scanning slides but I really wanted a nap, so I did that and then frittered away the time to supper on the computer.

Day 98, yet more Vegas

Met Harriet and Linda for tacos, and went into the arena. Oregon, a very powerful team this year (undefeated season, I think) had a lot of trouble with UCLA, and the game went to overtime. UCLA could have won it, almost did, but their coach Cory Close incurred a technical foul in the last minute, giving Oregon two free throws that turned the course of the game. At any rate, the Oregon players had a long and difficult game, which will hopefully slow them down for the championship game. Stanford had a somewhat easier time with UW, and Tara did a lot more substitutions than normal, presumably to keep her team fresh.

Sunday, 3/10/2019

Daylight savings started today. As a result I got to the terminal to print my Southwest boarding pass about 40 minutes after the 24-hour window opened. But still, boarding number A44, two positions better than the outbound trip, so other people must have slept in also.

I went to directv.com to set up a recording of tonight’s game, which I had neglected to do before leaving home. This used to be a snap, log in to directv, go to “Guide”, scroll the listing to the right channel, click record. Well, it still kind of works that way but since AT&T took over DirecTV, they have insisted on integrating the two websites, so now I have to navigate through layers of AT&T website to get to the same place. Despite being signed in with my AT&T login, it still cannot comprehend anything other than that I would want to buy a DirecTV subscription. Actually controlling or using my account… well, never mind. I got it done.

One benefit of the move to an ILF is that I will almost certainly not have AT&T as my internet provider, and not have DirecTV as my TV provider. Probably ComCast excuse me XFinity for both, I think that’s what C.H. has as the in-house system. I’ve been a DirecTV subscriber for … twenty years? Must be. Certainly since the 1990s sometime. XFinity will not be an improvement customer-service-wise, by all accounts, but I won’t have to deal with it directly.

I recall that while showing me around C.H. Craig mentioned that he was part of a resident committee that did tech support for other residents, and pretty clearly suggested I could be, too. Well, maybe so. Could be an aid in integrating to that community. I can start with figuring out the TV and internet for my own unit and go from there.

Harriet texts that she and Linda can meet me at noon. I’d suggested a visit to the Springs Reserve, so we’ll probably do that.

OK we spent a couple hours walking through this pleasant municipal thing, with its Butterfly experience, botanical garden with lots of cacti, etc. Then back to the hotel where I had a short nap and then it was game time.

Stanford started out well, taking a quick 6-point lead, and maintaining a lead of 6-10 points into the fourth quarter. Then Oregon caught up and the game was tied with 3 minutes to play, when Stanford got a couple of crucial baskets. In the final minute, Oregon had to start fouling; Stanford hit all their free throws, and the game ended with a Stanford win: champions of the PAC-12.

Had a late supper with Harriet and Linda then back to the room to get a good night’s sleep before an early departure tomorrow.

Day 97 more Vegas

Well that evening had some surprising turns. I met with fans Harriet and Linda for supper at Puck’s, then into the arena for the Stanford-Cal game. This was a close affair for 35 minutes, Stanford starting cold, catching up to have a narrow lead. With 5:00 to play, defensive sub Shannon, whose role had been to help contain Cal’s all-star center Christine Anigwe, stepped back and splashed a three. On the next three possessions point guard Keana hit a three, a three, and a layup, an 11-0 run to blow the game open.

I expected the second game, Oregon State vs UW, to be an easy win for the Beavers. And my streak of absolutely wrong predictions continued. OSU did have a ten point lead at the half, so I left, and followed the game back in my room, on the play-by-play scroll on the ESPN score page (Excalibur not offering the PAC-12 network on their TV system). UW caught up, then took a small lead. The game was tied with 0:05 left to play. A UW player snapped off a three from NBA distance, and it went down. Some UW players thought the game was over and rushed the court, resulting in a technical foul with the clock at 0:01. That gave OSU two free throws and possession of the ball. They made the free throws; then inbounded the ball with 0:01 seconds to play and did get a shot off, but it fell short, so UW won by 1 point.

So on Saturday it will be Stanford-UW at 8:30, preceded by Oregon-UCLA at 6pm. Everyone expected an Oregon-Stanford final, and that is how it is shaping up — but I am done making predictions during the tournament.

14,343 steps. Can’t say Vegas doesn’t give you exercise.

Saturday, 3/9/2019

Started the day with coffee and scone at the in-house Starbuck’s. Then I went out to try riding the Deuce, the shuttle bus that runs up and down The Strip. Went south first, to the famous Welcome sign where tourists were queuing up with the aid of an Elvis impersonator to take selfies.

Of course there is an Elvis impersonator. Then I rode back up to the north and got off to walk through Bellagio. This is the approach to Bellagio. Italian Lakes: Days 10-12 Como on Lake Como

OK, not really, that was the approach the the actual Bellagio on Lake Como, two years ago. The Vegas Bellagio is a huge casino/hotel whose decor is themed around polished marble and terrazzo floors and semi-classical decor. It’s actually nicer to walk through than either Excalibur or the MGM Grand, mostly owing to higher ceilings and wider aisles. But it’s still a casino.

Rode a bit further then the bus hung a right and left the Strip. Not sure why, but I got off. Then I couldn’t see an obvious bus stop for the return direction (I suspect the route does some kind of loop at this point so the return route was a different street?) so I just called a Lyft. I opted for a shared Lyft, with the result that there was another couple to drop off at a completely different resort off the Strip, so I got a bit more of a tour.

Now it is barely noon with hours to kill. I decided to just laze the rest of the day in the room, catching up on podcasts and youtube subscriptions that I’ve fallen behind on. That’s fine for today, but Lordy what will I do with myself tomorrow?

Game results in next post.