Monday 11/11/2024

Started the day with the monthly resident association meeting. David G ran it as usual; I helped him figure out an issue with zoom. This was followed by a Veteran’s Day memorial event, but it was planned and run by staff, not residents. The PA Fire Department sent 3 guys in uniform to present the flag and ring a bell.

Then off to FOPAL for the monthly post-sale cleanup, just an hour and a half this time. Back to CH with time for a short nap before meeting with Ian on the 11th floor to try out connecting his laptop to the big TV. Which didn’t work like it should. Why? Combination of Samsung TV being too “smart” for its own good, and an aged receiver. Had to move a cable and feed the laptop directly to the TV instead of through the receiver.

Practiced guitar a couple of times as well.

Sunday 11/10/2024

Started the day the old coffee shop in Midtown. Meant to do the big puzzle there, but the pen I had brought went dry two words in. Drove around the foothills a bit coming back, saw an old VW camper burning, on Alpine road at 280.

Just before 2pm Scott and June pulled up and they and Joanne and I were off in the Prius for SFJazz for the Boogie Woogie Festival. The Performing Arts Garage was full, but we had budgeted time well. Diverted to Civic Center garage and hoofed it back to SFJazz in plenty of time.

The show ran 4pm to after 7pm, excellent show although we all agreed not as great as last year’s. Walked back to Civic Center and told the GPS, “Go Home”. Unfortunately Caltrans had blocked off the southbound ramp and we had an uncomfortable 20 minutes of poking around the south of Market area trying to find an open ramp to 101. Driving in the dark on unfamiliar streets — no problem at all. Annoying but not a serious problem. Guess I don’t have to give up the keys just yet.

Back home, no supper, but a nice sandwich in my room and so to bed. Busy day tomorrow.

Saturday 11/09/2024

Walked to Cafe Zoe in the morning. Then met with Peter to clarify something about the use of the zoom room hardware in the conference room.

Practiced guitar several times. Emailed John and Alice re a time to rehearse RATCT, on Tuesday. Refilled the hummingbird feeder four f’n times. Otherwise, just chilled.

Friday 11/08/2024

Did damn little. Took a standard walk. Helped neighbor Dr. Margaret with a problem with her MacBook. Oh, changed my display of photos in the hall. I’ve been planning this for a while. Took down the pictures of Thames bridges, it’s been six months of stepping through all those bridge pictures.

What went up was a rather unique exhibit of photographs entitled “PLOOG”. Months ago I started this. Each morning I sit at my little kitchen table and take my blood pressure. While the machine runs, I look to my right and there at eye level, is an outlet, and plugged into it is the power adapter for the modernist table lamp. I started noticing how the early morning light through the window would cast interesting shadows of the Ploog on the wall. I set up the camera on a tripod and over a couple of weeks took lots of shots of the Ploog in different lights. Today I selected the 6 most interesting, printed them up large, and put them on my outside gallery. Here’s one.

Thursday 11/07/2024

Took it easy this morning. After lunch, went to the museum to lead a tour, a private tour for 30 people (only 20 or so showed up) which was scheduled for 2pm, conflicting with the normal 2pm tour. Fortunately they arrived a bit early so we got started at 1:45 or so. Just the same, Sandy Wu’s 2pm tour was on our heels that last bit.

Anyway. The Prius reminded me “Key battery is low” so on the way home I stopped at Ace hardware and bought what I thought was the right battery. Got home and opened up the fob: no, it wasn’t. Have to get the right one on my walk tomorrow.

Wednesday 11/06/2024

Woke up at 2am and pulled the phone over to me, went to CNN. “Trump on verge of victory” with 260 electoral votes. Spent the next two hours tossing and trying to process this.

Took a reverse walk at 7:30, 2 miles but going clockwise, so as to end up Mme. Collete’s for a huge delicious pastry. Then skipped lunch. Did some managing, organizing AV dates and such. Mostly sat around doing NYT crosswords out of a book.

At 1pm, as scheduled, I sat down in the training room, mirrored the screen of my laptop on the big TV, and proceeded to edit the video of Pru’s Monday Book Talk. I had told my AV team I would do this, inviting any and all to come watch and see how it was done, or anyway, how I do it. Nobody showed up. Not even Pru herself, who might have expressed an interest.

Well, here’s the video. Pretty interesting talk, some laughs, and a nice editing job if I do say.

Craig emailed to say that he was dropping out of the plan to perform RATCT. “This season I don’t think i will have much Christmas spirit” he wrote. I totally understand; at 3am I was pretty sure I didn’t want to perform then or any other time.

Tuesday 11/05/2024

Less than a month left in this blog’s year, which, faithful readers know, starts on the 3rd of December.

Yesterday at FOPAL, I picked out of the donations a stapled pamphlet, a summary of maintenance procedures for the IBM 1401 computer. I set it aside to bring home, meaning to pass it to the 1401 team at CHM. Except I forgot to bring it home. So this morning I drove back down there and looked for it, and it has disappeared. I can’t imagine it being thrown away, so presumably it will show up at some point. But damn I am getting unreliable. Or have I always been a forgetful, easily-distracted, dweeb?

Writers meeting, the prompt was “something that made you laugh”. I could only come up with one thing, a one-sentence post in a Reddit thread a couple of weeks ago, which made me laugh out loud and chuckle for minutes after. Unfortunately the whole topic was decidedly, um, adult. And although everybody in the group is extremely over 21, I still didn’t want to have to explain the context.

Practiced some guitar. The only thing I practice these days is RATCT and it is stressing my skills. I may just give up and only sing, not try to play.

It’s election day and I am not checking numbers until tomorrow. We had a pleasant concert by The Fabulous Jewel-Tones, an amateur women’s group that has been here once before. Despite that I am feeling alone and alienated. Two hundred friendly neighbors. It doesn’t help.

Monday 11/04/2024

Took the standard walk starting at 8am, so as to have plenty of time to set up for an event at 11. This was a First Monday Book Talk by my neighbor Prudence who wrote a series of middle-grade books about mice. I recorded it two ways, and will edit the video this coming Wednesday.

From there down to FOPAL to process only two boxes of donations and set up my section for the monthly sale next weekend.

Back in time and then at 4, I joined the poetry out loud group. And at 5:30 went down to meet with Jerry and Betty and Howard and Agnes for supper. Busy day, ending with good conversation and supper.

Sunday 11/03/2024

Thanks to the time change, I was up by 5:30, and was showered dressed and ready to do something by 7:15. So I decided to do a nostalgic thing, go and do my Sunday crossword puzzle in the coffee shop in Midtown. Drove the car down there.

After, drove up to the other end of town to the car wash and had the Prius washed. Even though it parks inside, it gets dusty, and the inside needed a vacuum. Took it back to the CH parking lot where I got out my bottle of Instant Detailer and my fuzzy rags and went over it. The polish job I had done in early January is holding up pretty well, but this put the glossy slick hand-feel back on the paint.

The replacement bed lamp arrived and I assembled it and set it up. Disappointment: the old one was a 3-way. This one, although it looks completely identical, is only on-off. Interesting also, that the two bulb sockets are made for the little halogens (G-9 type) what they had shipped were the same shape, but LED not halogen. That part is good, I’m sure they draw practically no current. But I miss having a “dim” setting for when I get up.

The rest of the day I just splodged around killing time.. Played a little guitar, watched youtube videos, read.

Saturday 11/02/2024

Reading my email at 6am I saw one from the Pear theater, they had one of their informal “Pear Slices” shows tonight with people performing music of the 1950s. On impulse I emailed Joanne to see if she wanted to go, and soon it turned out she did.

At ten I left for the museum, with a stop at the Congregational Church nearby, where they were having a craft fair, which one of my neighbors recommended. It was pretty good, stuff I had not seen at the usual street fairs around here.

Then on the museum to lead the noon tour, about 15 people. I had to rush because there was a live 1401 demo at 1pm. I left out several things I usually talk about, and managed to wrap up at 12:50, so yay, I guess?

Practiced some guitar, had early supper, met up with Joanne at 6:30 and off to the Pear, which is only blocks from the museum, so two identical runs down 101 in the same day. The show wasn’t that great, enthusiastic amateurs in what was basically an organized karaoke session, but you can’t spoil that music.