Took a walk in the morning, over to Gamble gardens, where I was experimenting with the closeup ability of the new iPhone 16. I can definitely do more with it than with the old iPhone, and offhand I can’t think of a good reason I would tote the Nikon around, either. Although the Nikon certainly takes pictures of equal quality. But the phone fits in my pocket.

Walked through the farmers market. There was a woman playing guitar and singing. She played Leonard Cohen’s “Halleluja” which I also sing, so I was harmonizing with her for a verse or two. Then I obviously had to put some bills in her guitar case.

Pretty much did nothing the rest of the day. When I do nothing, I get bored and then I get lonely. In the afternoon I took another walk. And another nap. Tried to play guitar and got mad at the sound quality of my guitar. But I can’t stand the idea of spending $3000 to buy a good one. Oh bitch bitch bitch.

Friday 10/11/2024

Took ye olde standard walk. On return, I checked out a problem with a microphone. Kass had texted me that mic 3 had quit working during the event she was running last night. On checking, the wireless mic itself is working to the extent that, the wireless receiver in the big electronics cabinet backstage, shows that it is receiving the mic. But the sound is not being delivered from there to the sound board on the AV desk by the stage. Other mics are working. Handed the problem to Gerald in IT.

Later in the day I took the car out and bought gas (last time was in August), and took a little drive.

At supper I got to thinking how I had meant to edit the video of the lecture on Fiduciaries, last Tuesday. And I had napped away the day instead. So I sat down and did the editing, between 6:30 and now, 8:30.

Thursday 10/10/2024

Had a list of little things to do this morning, and did them. Nothing of real note. Spent some time reading Nexus by Yuval Harari. Finding things to disagree with in the first chapter.

In hummingbird news, for lack of any other news, I note that the hummers have slowed down their consumption rate. For 2 or 3 weeks I was having to refill the feeder 4 times a day, now it’s down to 2 a day.

Wednesday 10/09/2024

Started the day with a full walk. After that I set out for two errands. One, to get more Neem Oil. Those vile little white flys have come back to my begonias. I thought the jug at Westwinds nursery was too expensive, but I found it cheaper at Ace hardware.

I also went by Gryphon Instruments and played several guitars, from cheap to expensive. None of them really jumped at me, but I came home and played mine, and it definitely has a quality I do not like. Must shop more.

Then I booked my flight and rental car for a trip to the Greater Seattle area at Christmas. This was a struggle — I felt a real reluctance, just want to stay here and do nothing. But I gotta do it. So I ‘m doing it.

It was time for the monthly 6th floor meeting and supper. Nice time with my neighbors.

At 9pm I had my first session with a therapist. What? Well, I have been wrestling with an issue, a psychological conflict, for some weeks. I don’t care to put any details here just yet. But it turns out that 82-year-olds can still have emotional issues, go figure. So I signed up with betterhelp.com, got a discount code from a blogger so it’s only $75/week, cancel any time, for a weekly video session with an experienced therapist. Her name is Cynthia, and she was quite helpful. Listened to my story, anticipated some of what I was going to say, and gave me some useful insights and pointed out things that had not occurred to me. So, I guess worth $75.

Tuesday 10/08/2024

Went early to the auditorium to set up for a lecture event. Two people from Prime Fiduciary were here to talk about what a fiduciary is and does. They’d come last Tuesday to rehearse, and as a result the event went smoothly. Kass came along and watched the process and so tid Tom, so that was good. Training future AV techs.

As soon as that was over I headed down to FOPAL to process two boxes of donations and to groom my shelves for the sale this weekend. Back to CH and had a nice nap in the lounge while my room was cleaned.

At 7:30 there was a concert, nominally a jazz trio but they brought some extra people so it was a bigger group. They were playing well but somehow the music seemed — and I hate to admit this as a one-tme rock and roller — too loud. Something about our auditorium acoustics and the drum kit. It just seemed harsh and loud and I left after two numbers, although nobody else seemed bothered.

Monday 10/07/2024

I had two hours before running an event, the monthly book talk, at 10, and I took care of a bunch of little shit. Made out the check for the annual staff appreciation fund and put it in the contribution box. Paid my comcast bill. Wrote another check for an excursion next week. Stuff.

The speaker for book talk was Dylan Penningroth, who gave an interesting talk. New AV team member Richard shadowed me watching how a zoom meeting was done.

From lunchtime until 4 I edited the video of the event of last Friday, the presentation on ballot propositions for this election.

At 3:55 I broke off to attend, for the first time, the Poetry Out Loud group, who meet to read their favorite poems out loud. I read one by Byron. I learned about some other poets I had not heard of.

At 5 it was time for the monthly mixer dinner. You go to the dining room right at 5:15 and as you come in, you pick a numbered tag from a hat, and that is the table you sit at. As usual, I ended up eating with people I knew, but one of them, Judy, was someone I had never eaten a meal with, so there’s that.

Back upstairs to finish editing and uploading the video.

Sunday 10/06/2024

Usual Sunday morning. After lunch, put on my red docent shirt and went to the museum to lead a tour. Had a big group, 25 or so, and they all stuck with me, so nice.

At 7:30 Stew, who organized the Folk Fest of a couple weeks ago, invited everyone who performed to the 4th floor lounge where he showed the 2003 movie, A Mighty Wind, a spoof of the folk singing days. I think I saw it when it was new, but didn’t really remember any of it. It’s really pretty funny, recommend it.

Saturday 10/05/2024

I had a nice walk over to Cafe Zoe. Got back to CH just in time for the 10am quarterly meeting of the volunteer Tech Squad. We talked about various consistent issues like Comcast nonexistent service.

At 4 I went up to 11 to set up for a party that resident Paul Pinsky is having for his large extended family. He on very very short notice requested the use of the mobile tv to show pictures to the party. Like on Friday, for Saturday. I set up the TV and a mic and went away as the party was starting to assemble. Later, about 7:30, I went up expecting to put everything away, but no, there was still like 35 people sitting around tables eating and yakking. So I’ll have to go put stuff away tomorrow morning.

In my mail cubby after supper I found a paper event planning form from resident Gloria, asking for AV support for an event on Thursday night, 5 days away. Some kind of lecture, unknown subject. I decided that I am not available, and put it out on the AV mailing list if anyone else feels like taking the event. I am tired of this last minute shit.

Friday 10/04/2024

Took a short walk then killed time until 11 when I left for the Museum to lead the noon tour. The parking lot was very full and I thought there’d be a lot of people, but it was all for a big event in the rental space upstairs. I had only 6 people on my tour.

At 3pm I took a tech squad call. A resident had forgotten the admin password to his iMac and couldn’t log in. This was the first time I used the procedure to use “Recovery Mode” of MacOS to reset a password. I think it works differently for different models — at least, there are variations in the different online websites that tell how to do it — but on this iMac it worked slick and easy.

There was to be a presentation from the League of Women Voters on the state propositions at 7:30. I had it in the AV schedule as simple mics-only. I was eating supper quietly when Kass, who was down for running the event, slid into the next seat and said, “Ellen says she wants Zoom and has slides.” So instead of attending the presentation and maybe leaving early, I was helping Kass set up and run it.

This was not easy as one of the presenters was not prepared. A key part of a zoom event with slides, is that the presenter with the slides needs to join the zoom meeting in progress and share their screen. This presenter arrived late, about 7:25 for a 7:30 show. Her laptop needed its power supply, it wasn’t charged up or doesn’t hold a charge, I don’t know, but anyway it has to be plugged in, which is OK but I have to show her where the plug is in the floor by the podium. Then she couldn’t get logged in. To her own laptop. I was dreading what I could see would be a long clusterfuck trying to coach her through how to actually join a zoom meeting, and share her screen, but at that point the other presenter said, you have it on a stick, right? So she produced a memory stick which I grabbed and stuck into my own personal laptop, and signed in to the meeting and shared my screen and there we were, all set to go at only 7:40.

The same presenter somehow couldn’t get comfortable with the over-the-ear mic we gave her, she was holding the mic in her hand, finally we handed her a real hand-held mic.

Amateurs. In the end the presentation was pretty clear and I understood the props better, as did most in the audience. There were very few questions after. So it was ok in the end.

Thursday 10/03/2024

Took what should have been Wednesday’s walk today, 8am, ahead of the warm temps forecast. Then did the monthly check of the accounts that comprise the Nest Egg. Despite paying $8K/month to Channing House, as well as other disbursements, the Nest Egg is almost 1% larger than it was last year at this time. So I’m not going broke anytime soon.

Printed up six big pics of Tower Bridge and put them on my outside gallery. That completes the Thames Bridges series that I have now shown twice. Next month I will put up something completely different.