Monday 07/08/2024

Well, I did something yesterday. But I went to bed without posting; first time in a long time.

Resident Association meeting. Long session at FOPAL getting my section set for next weekend’s sale day. And cleaning up the chaotic sorting room. Little guitar work.

Sunday 07/07/2024

For Sunday morning breakfast I decided to go back to 2017 or so, and take my NYT crossword to the coffee shop in Midtown. I went by car rather than walking. Very pleasant sit, puzzling and noshing on a big cinnamon roll. Then I took the car to the car wash by Town & Country. Once a couple of months of dust are washed off, the polish I had done in January (Day 5.045) is still effective, really glossy and feels delicious to the hand.

This was the day that a whole bunch of CH people were going to the Pear Theater. I was driving along with 3 others. At 1:30 we loaded up and went. The play was Chaplin and Keaton on the Set of Limelight, imagining what it was like the one time, in 1951, when Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton worked together. I had to applaud the actors, this was a lonng play, over 2 hours of actual performing, many lines which they delivered with great skill. And applaud the backstage crew as there were many, many sound and light cues in this long play. I couldn’t recommend anybody go and see it, though. Chaplin and Keaton argue endlessly about the value of movies, whether they are pure entertainment or they should have a higher purpose. Did I mention how long it was? It was long.

Back home it was time to start prepping in my role as producer of a concert. I’ve mentioned the Keller Sisters, some of us have gone to hear them 2 or 3 times at the San Gregorio General Store. And a few weeks back, without official sanction from the Entertainment Committee, I reserved the auditorium and booked them for Thursday the 11th. Causing a small flutter and controversy among certain people who thought they had an exclusive on booking musical acts — but who couldn’t be bothered to even inquire or contact music acts that other people recommended to them. Anyway, by the Entertainment Committee agreed-on rules, the producer of an event can put a notice on the bulletin boards on each floor a week before an event. So I’m late for that, but I made a nice little notice and went around to all the floors and put it up tonight.

Had breakfast in the dining room, second time in the month I think? Chris B, the building maintenance head guy, was walking around just schmoozing with people. He’s naturally a nice guy but this must have been intentional “management by walking around”. Anyway I took advantage to bend his ear about a long-pending project.

Have I written about this before? Don’t think so. A couple of years back, there was an “Open Space Task Force” of staff and residents, taking inventory of the available community spaces around the building, after all the pandemic measures, special wards and beds and closed-off spaces etc, had been undone. One decision of that group was that the volunteer-run gift shop, AKA The Treasure Trove (TT), should consolidate all its stock in one place. The TT gets frequent donations when residents move to AL or die, and they have lots of furniture, clothes, artwork, dishware, and the like. Then, and still today, the TT gang have their stock of stuff in a room on the 6th floor and also have stuffed the back-stage “Green Room” with racks of clothes. We have to be nice to them because they generate a steady stream of income for resident projects. But they take up a lot of space.

There is a sizable room on the 1st floor near the actual Treasure Trove store, with nothing in it a couple of rollaway beds stored by Housekeeping, but for months nothing happened. Thing is, if the TT could move into it, they would free up the room here on 6, and a group of residents who play instruments have proposed to convert that to a music practice studio. We’ve talked to Rhonda about it, and still nothing has happened. Anyway, I got Chris B. to sit down and listen to this extensive history and maybe, just maybe, something will begin to happen.

At 1pm I put on my red shirt and went down to the museum and led a tour. The museum was jumping, it was a special Wells Fargo day or something? Place was packed. I had over 30 people at the start of the tour, and still 25 or so at the end.

On the way back I stopped at Ace Hardware and got a couple rechargeable batteries to replace some dead ones in the wireless mic on the 11th floor, and went up and replaced those and tried it out and everything is working there. Also updated the “user manual”, my super simple instruction book for the 11th floor system. And emailed the AV group about this.

You don’t believe it’s super simple? Here’s the page on the microphone.

Friday 07/05/2024

Took the standard walk, starting at 7:30, back before 9. Beating the heat, although in fact the forecast heat was not bad today.

At 9:30 set up the auditorium so Mickie could practice with her slides, for a presentation at the next RA meeting on Monday. To my surprise, Mickie, who is quite smart and with it, and who was at one point in her career, the mayor of Menlo Park, was not a skilled presenter. The presenter’s slides are shown on the big screen on the end wall. The presenter, if facing the audience, has her back to the screen. Mickie took the microphone off the stand and stood with her right shoulder to the audience, looking to her left at the screen, and read the bullet points off her powerpoint presentation. What?!? Oh well. Not my presentation.

After that, knowing there was a big backlog of donations at FOPAL, and having the day free once I had shut down the auditorium, I headed down there and spent 2:30 doing sorting.

Back home I set about answering several questions about the 11th floor equipment that had come up. That took a couple of hours. Not going to go into detail. Wireless mics, bleagh.

Thursday 07/04/2024

Thought to treat myself by walking to Cafe Zoe for breakfast. Disappointed to find when I got there that for the holiday they wouldn’t open until 11. Walked back through increasing heat, without breakfast.

At 3pm joined Mary and Kay in the Lee center main lounge to perform music for about 20 people. Mary and Kay do flute duets, sandwiching my performance. Did three songs, didn’t mess anything up, got a nice little hand.

At 6, we 6th floor people took our sack suppers to the 11th floor and picnicked there. Back to 11 at 8:30 for the 4th party and sing-along, and watching fireworks from all around the Bay from our 11th floor penthouse.

Wednesday 07/03/2024

Pre-holiday, forecast for high temperatures. Actually it was 85 on my balcony at 3pm and I sat out there very comfortable. In the morning did the standard walk. Practiced the one hard song for tomorrow’s performance. Lounged around, consumed internet media.

Tuesday 07/02/2024

Quiet day. Writers meeting, again I had nothing to read. Drifted down to FOPAL to sort, as I knew there was a big backlog, but there were too many volunteers sorting already so I only spent an hour and came away.

Multiple times in the day practiced the three songs I am going to do at the Lee center on the 4th.

Back last year (Day 4.274) I went with Jan to Sacramento for a weekend at the jazz festival. Jan wants to know do I want to go again this year, spend the Labor Day weekend at the Sacramento Hilton listening to music. Ki-i-i-i-inda? Sorta? Not really. Think I will beg off.

Got a very nice email thank-you from Ms. Althouse, the lady whose book reading I managed yesterday. She like the video I made of her.

Monday 07/01/2024

Took the standard walk, starting early so as to be back in plenty of time to set up for the First Monday Book Talk, event starting at 11 but setting up at 10. Event went smoothly. Trained Kass in the use of the video recorder and the camera. Got decent video of Ms. Althouse reading from her book.

Then drove down to FOPAL and somehow burned up 2:30 working on computer books. Back home, edited the Althouse video, and eventually uploading it to Vimeo.

Day of the infamous SCOTUS decision on presidential immunity; so angry and depressed.

Sunday 06/30/2024

Did my usual Sunday morning things — recently somebody said to me, “you’re really a creature of habit, aren’t you,” and I had to admit it was true. At 11, put on my red shirt and drove to the museum to lead a tour. It went OK.

Back home to practice some music. Only a few days until I have to play for the Lee Center AL crowd, but that is about the least demanding audience ever. Still, for no obvious reason I decided I wanted to sing “Swimming to the Other Side” so I need to memorize the chords and lyrics in a few days.

(Somehow neglected to hit the “Publish” button on this one)

Saturday 06/29/2024

Well, an uncommitted day, whatever shall I do? I walked to the downtown farmers and bought some ripe blenheim apricots. Then I decided to visit the San Jose museum of art, which I last visited in January 2020 — Day 1.060, also the day that I moved back into #621 after its upgrade. (Click the link for pictures – nothing has changed except the TV is newer.)

At that time I found the SJ museum moderately interesting. Today, not so much. There really isn’t much, just two large rooms, each dedicated to a single artist, and I wasn’t much interested in the works of either one. The best thing they had was the sculpture in the lobby, thousands of little metal pieces in a 3-D cloud.

But that trip was pretty much a bust. Plus two, $30 Lyfts.

Later on, after listening to an interview with a guy who was the touring sound man for a list of rock celebrities (Tina Turner, Prince, Van Halen, Jeff Beck, the Stones…) I was motivated to go down to the auditorium and check out all our microphones and try to adjust the sound as much as I could with our limited facilities.