Tuesday 01/16/2024

Up early and out the door at 7:30 to drop the car at Toyota for its 75K service. Which cost $750, and I would complain about that, except that this is the first service it has had in over 12 months. Plus the 12volt battery was failing and that was $300 more (yes, I checked and new batteries were $190 at Amazon, so I could have saved $100 by doing it myself, but they give a 6 year warranty, so what the heck). With that and the detailing I’ve spent $1200 on the car this week. But it looks lovely and is set for another year of puttering around Palo Alto.

I walked back from Toyota, so getting over 4 miles for the day, more than I’ve walked in a while. At 11 we had a lecture by a lady who is a specialist in dementia care, about how to interact with people with dementia. It all seemed like common sense to me, but nicely presented.

Did about nothing the rest of the day, and felt a bit bored in the afternoon as a result.

Monday 01/15/2024

Up earlier than usual so I could leave by 7:15. Left the car with the detail guy – seems to be a one-man shop, dude in his 60s, looks Iranian maybe? Took a Lyft back to CH. Attended the monthly Event Coordinators meeting. When that was over, took another Lyft down to FOPAL.

Here I did the post-sale triage, all the books that had seen 4 sale days off to the bargain room. Processed two boxes of donations. It was now 1pm and the car guy had texted that the car was ready. So my third Lyft of the day, to pick up the Prius. Which now looks, inside and out, rather better than when it was new. I love running my hand over a freshly polished fender.

Various emails coordinating this and that. Organized all my sheet music in a nice binder. Spent an hour playing through most of it.

The evening menu didn’t appeal so I ate in my room. Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup and bread with peanut butter. I mean, I live the gourmet life.

Sunday 01/14/2024

After a lazy start I drove down to the nursery meaning to buy some really ferocious chemical insecticide. But of course the modern nursery doesn’t have the good old environmentally bad bug killers, just some namby-pamby stuff you could take a bath in. Well. Back and I attacked the dragon-wing begonias, whacking off all the white-fly-infested leaves. Then drenched the remaining sticks with the Mister Nice Guy bug spray, hoping to kill the nasty little things and their eggs. We’ll see.

Met with Stew to plan videos for the upcoming “Strollin into the Sixties” party. At lunch I was talking to Florrie who is a pianist, and I was complaining how the Malvina Reynolds song “I Wish You Were Here” is a killer that I would like to perform, but it is just two notes too high for me. I have worked on transposing it on the guitar and there is no transposition that gives playable chords. So after we finished lunch we went to the piano in the lobby and she tried transposing it, she thought she knew how but had a hard time working it out. But it was fun talking music.

Watched the SWBB team play Colorado on the TV and lose.

01/13/2024

Not really. There were no commitments on my google calendar, which was a refreshing thing, but somehow the day filled up with stuff. I started by driving down to Midtown for coffee and a cinnamon roll. From there I drove on to the place in Mountain View where I need to take the car on Monday morning to be detailed. Just so I know where it is. It isn’t far, but I had forgotten that owing to a recent fire, El Camino is closed just about where this place is, so you have to detour around a few blocks to get to it. No big problem, but glad I know that now and don’t have to discover it at 8am Monday.

At various points in the day I did AV managing, arranging for a possible new recruit to shadow a couple of other people in the upcoming week. Emails and then trying to find people and talk to them. I also learned something about the systems on the 11th floor. I was up there trying to figure out why I wasn’t able to use all the sound system on Friday night when I ran that concert, and learned new things which meant I had to revise the user manual I had written. This is a work that I’m quite proud of: how to use all the TV facilities, the Comcast box, the Blu-Ray player, the Roku, and hook up a computer. All in very plain, simple English, step by step with pictures. I had to change the last page, taking a couple of new pictures and editing the document and printing it.

So the uncommitted Saturday turned into a fairly busy one, although there was plenty of time for goofing off and napping also.

Friday 01/12/2024

My main job today was to lead the noon tour at CHM, but before that I got some tech stuff done. First, for my AV team, I installed some new body mics in the auditorium and put out an email explaining their use.

Then I took a tech squad call to help Joanne L. She was used to streaming PBS shows on her laptop, and mirroring them on her big TV. Something changed while she was away on vacation, her sister messed with her computer or something, and now that wouldn’t work. This turned out to be an easy fix, somebody had changed the Displays settings so the second display (the TV) was no longer mirroring her laptop. It was set to be a separate monitor. I showed her how you could move the mouse over to the right and it would show up on the TV, and you could drag a window there and see it on the TV. She didn’t care for that, wanted back the way it used to be, which was easy to do.

Then off to lead a tour. Just 5 people, but they were patient and appreciative so I gave them the bonus tour, talking about the Xerox Alto and how that led to the Mac, and so on.

On return I went to help Pam, who had asked as a personal favor would I look at a couple of weird things on her mac. I like Pam so I didn’t fob her off to the tech squad. I won’t go into her problems here but one was easy to fix and one was a real stumper. I sent her an email later with a possible fix, we’ll see.

Then I did something I’ve been meaning to do for a week or two. At the new year, SFJazz announced a new program where they make available to members only, the ability to stream any concert from their library of previous concert streams. They started doing those in 2020 during Covid and there is quite a collection. One of them is the concert by Veronica Swift that I saw last October when it was first streamed, and I was super impressed, made me a Veronica Swift fanboy overnight.

So now I could re-watch that concert, but why not share it? So I put out a message on CHBB, I would be showing a concert on the 11th floor TV, come watch. It was a great concert, and about a dozen people drifted in to watch, and almost all stayed to the end and expressed sincere thanks for my sharing it. Veronica Swift rules.

Thursday 01/11/2024

Off to Shustek center in Milpitas to do cataloging. This was a sad day, because Gretta, the curator I’ve worked under for going on a decade, has decided to move, and won’t be at the Museum after this month. Gretta is attractive, smart, and an excellent manager, skillfully keeping her crew of retired computer nerds working productively. I’ll miss her very much.

What’s kind of interesting is where she’s moving: to Vashon Island. Her husband is taking a full time job running a youth camp on Vashon. Rent-free use of a small house is included in the deal. Plus her mother and other relatives are nearby. So it’s great for her, but a loss for CHM.

What I was working on today was cataloging a Fairlight music synthesizer from 1982. What a monster; the keyboard alone weighs 40 pounds.

In the evening, we had a concert by a jazz trio in the auditorium. Good singer, top-notch pianist. Singer was good, indeed excellent for a pediatric doctor which she is in her day job, and the pianist and bassist were really good by any standard.

Wednesday 01/10/2024

One of those days when I make a scribbled check list of a bunch of little things I’ve been neglecting to do, and I did them, all interleaved with trips down the hall to cycle the washer and dryer as I did my laundry.

So what did I get done? Well, the laundry. And since it was raining outside, I walked 1.5 mile on the treadmill. Only 1.5 because I only had 40 minutes while the washing machine ran.

Then I talked to Gerald of IT about borrowing a karaoke screen, just a small tv on a rolling stand to show karaoke lyrics. Stew, organizing the next good times event, wants it for rehearsals, he is organizing 5 people to sing like the Beach Boys. Anyway, long story.

I set up appointments for the car: on Monday I will take it to be detailed, and then on Tuesday for its 75K service. I would have liked to get the detailing done by one of the several mobile detailers in the area, but CH staff told me no, we can’t have a detailer working in our front parking lot, no room, insurance, blah blah. So I have to take it to one with a proper place of business, and there are fewer of those than there used to be.

Also on the list was work on the novel and guitar practice, got both of those done. And met with neighbor Harry to show him how to connect his laptop to the TV on the 11th floor for a party he is planning.

At 4:30 it was the monthly 6th floor meeting followed by dinner. So a busy day.

Tuesday 01/09/2024

First up today was to remember to take my pre-med. Having your teeth cleaned can be the cause of releasing bacteria into your bloodstream. Tooth scrapings getting under your gums or something? Which can possibly lead to bacteria taking up residence on the artificial aortic valve, which would not be good. Anyway because of that I am supposed to take a dose of amoxicillin before a dental procedure, which in the past I have sometimes forgotten to do which is very embarrassing and annoying because either I can cancel the tooth appointment or take the dose there and spend an hour in the waiting room for it to be effective. Well anyway this time I remembered to take my four fat caps of amoxicillin with my other morning pills at 7:00 so I was all set like a good boy for my 8:40 tooth scraping.

Back at CH in plenty of time for the writers meeting. Which we spent part of talking about AI writing assistants. One of us, Peter, had quite an interesting story chat with Bard.

At 12:15 a nice lady from the IBM Insurance came by to do a very superficial wellness check on me. This is an annual part of the package. (It is still TBD whether Sutter Health/PAMF has settled terms with United Health Care. It could be the next time I go to PAMF my insurance will be rejected.)

After lunch I followed up on a tech issue that has been open for two weeks and been worked on by three members of the tech squad. Ann had bought an Epson printer which we couldn’t make print double sided. I had one more go at it, then finally resolved that definitely, this printer does not support auto-two-sided printing–even though its online user manual seems to say it does.

Monday 01/08/2024

First order of business was the monthly resident association meeting, at which I meant to make a plea for more AV volunteers. I did, and got a couple of possible recruits later.

Then down to FOPAL for a 2:45 stint of work getting my section ready for the sale next weekend.

Sunday 01/07/2024

First thing, I did a Covid test and it was negative. I went down to the IL Nurse on 3 and informed her that I was clear. No further restrictions.

I did a lot of other little things to fill the morning. At noon I met with Lennie and we, the two-person carpool, drove to Maples for the SWBB game. It being a clear Sunday afternoon, the other car-poolers opted to bike or walk to the campus.

The game was competitive; UW actually led for a while, and it was still close in the 3rd quarter. In the 4th, Stanford pulled away to win.

Played some guitar and wasted time other ways the rest of the day.