Friday 09/15/2023

Went for a standard walk in the morning. Then spent the rest of the morning in my California Driver’s License on-line study program.

There was a frustrating half hour during which the DMV website kept getting 504 time-out errors while trying to verify my phone number. It would send a text with a 6-digit code, but then crash with the error when I tried to enter the code. Or it wouldn’t send the code. Repeated trials using different browsers on different computers all failed, and then finally it all worked and I was in.

Once in, the on-line class was pretty well designed. I took lots of hand notes. The quizzes at the end of each section were rather simple. Hopefully the test at the DMV next week will be as easy.

At 4:30 I went down to set up the auditorium for the long-awaited C&W Jamboree. The committee had done a great job setting up and decorating. My part went smoothly, and I was given lots of heartfelt thanks from everybody for how smoothly all the videos and stuff came off. No big messups or even little ones. A good time was had by all.

Thursday 09/14/2023

Spent the day at the Shustek center, cataloging old manuals. That’s about it.

Wednesday 09/13/2023

A nice low-pressure day. I took the standard walk first thing, and it was ok. I rebuilt the C&W video for what I hope is the last time. I helped Sandy figuring out how to make a page magnifier work in the CH library. Somebody had donated this thing, it has a 15-inch CRT monitor (“hey the 80s called, they want their TV back”) on a stand with lights under it. You put a document on the tray and can roll it around and the TV shows a magnified image. She hadn’t figured out how to hook it up. It wasn’t hard. Afterward, it was ugly, but it worked.

Dr. Margaret is back from her summer at her place in Tahoe. I’d been saving my old blu-ray player for her at her request, and I installed it. In fact she already had a DVD player and didn’t know it. It was in the bottom of her media cabinet and not hooked to the TV. Somebody gave up early, I guess, when moving her stuff back, in 2019, from the upgrade. Well now she has a better one which actually works.

Today was the monthly 6th floor meeting and dinner. Nothing special from the meeting. While I was sitting in the dining room having supper, David G came by. He’d been setting up for the evening’s speaker, and couldn’t make the ceiling camera work. Well, it worked, but it wouldn’t zoom or pan. I suggested a couple of things to try. He came by a few minutes later and said those hadn’t worked. Then he went to another table to have his own supper.

Since I was done with my entree, I got up and went into the auditorium. I verified that the camera was on but wouldn’t pan or zoom. Those functions are controlled by a little box. I power-cycled the little box. Pan and zoom now worked. I went back in the dining room and told David G. Score one for the old “have you tried rebooting it” ploy.

The lecturer was Dr. Lerone Martin, currently in charge of the MLKJr. Institute at Stanford, where they are collating all of MLK’s papers. Couple of penetrating questions from the audience. “What would he have thought of our intervention in the Ukraine-Russia war?” Ans. MLK was all about non-violence, but struggled with non-violent responses to evil violence. “What did he have to say about discrimination toward women?” Ans. In many ways, socially, economically, he foresaw a future that didn’t yet exist, but in matters of gender, he was a man of his time.

Tuesday 09/12/2023

In the morning I completed preparing the video for the C&W show. For what I thought was the final time, but of course during and after the rehearsal this afternoon people wanted changes, so I will do it one more time. I edit the material in iMovie. Then I have iMovie export the finished video as a file, which will typically be 8GB in size and takes an hour. Step 2, run that through Handbrake which produces a video of the same resolution that is just over 1GB. This takes 45 minutes. While it runs I go back and verify the exact starting times of each “chapter”, that is each of the 24 musical numbers, like “Crazy” at 17:42. These are in a text file and only need changing from the point where a new song is added. The compressed video is opened in Metadoctor, an app that knows how to add chapter markers, and it loads the text file and marks the chapters. Then I just have to copy the movie off the desktop machine and into the laptop that will show it.

At 10:30 was the writers meeting. This week we were supposed to write about what we’ve been reading. I had written my little essay while in Silverdale, so I was set.

At 12:30 I met with Marcia for lunch, at my request. Marcia is the resident member of the Board, and the chair of the Strategic Planning committee. I wanted to talk to her about what I saw as the unnecessary hiring of a consultant for yet another boring and expensive round of planning. We get along well, we’ve been working together since back in 2020 when we were the volunteer coordinators for the resident Covid volunteer groups. She told me what she understands about the process, but in fact I still don’t see it. But I’m not going to make any more trouble.

At 1:30 I started setting up for the C&W rehearsal. That only took half an hour this time so I was way early. We finally got going with a full run-through at 3:10 and finished at 4:45, so it is well under the 2 hours we’d set as a limit. After I’d tidied the AV equipment up, I could relax for the rest of the day. PBJ sandwich for supper and early to bed.

Monday 09/11/2023

Up at 5:30 in order to have time to read the agenda and stuff for the Strategic Planning Committee meeting at 10:30. Made it to the RA meeting a couple of minutes late. That ran until 10:15, and then off to the SPC.

At the SPC I made a bit of a fuss. The main point of the meeting was for Rhonda to introduce Yet Another Consultant to help with planning. This guy, Brian, talked about the “process” that his firm was going to help us through in order to decide what we want to do about a range of issues that Rhonda wants guidance on.

He had a lengthy presentation full of buzz-words and marketing-speak, and by lengthy I mean 20 minutes plus. He was describing a three-phase process, phase 1 would involve getting opinions from everybody and evaluating marketing conditions. That would take 3 months. Then a month evaluating the financials and where the money could come from to do the things that phase 1 had settled on. Then another 6-week phase of detailed planning the things.

I was pissed. When he finally asked if there were any questions, I went off. Not my usual glib presentation because I was angry, although I believe I kept it down to merely indignant. This all duplicates exactly what this committee has been doing for the past two years, I said. We got everybody’s opinions. As to marketing, we paid for a survey by a different consultancy and heard from them at length. As to financials, if there is anything in your phase 2 that Jaisie, our CFO, couldn’t give you in 24 hours, that would be her fault. We gave Rhonda good general goals and Rhonda and the staff have elaborated that into many specific actions, in fact (holding up the agenda) the next part of this meeting is to hear about how those actions are being implemented.

I was thinking, and at the end all you have is a plan, nothing actually done or even started, but I didn’t say that part.

Nobody backed me up on this. There was silence, then Rhonda nicely explained that re marketing, a lot has changed since Covid, people want other things than before. I did not say anything else the rest of the meeting. But I was thinking, if you know that, why do you need a consultant to tell you that?

Talking to Patty tonight — as ex-CEO of Habitat for Humanity she has much greater experience with planners and consultants than I — she points out that we already have a long list of things we’d like to do and don’t have money for. Having a consultant evaluate projects will not produce money by magic.

But nobody on the committee even nodded when I did my little rant, so I guess I’m outvoted.

From there I went to FOPAL and put in 2 hours on the post-sale triage and processing a couple of boxes of books. After which I was tired, and came home and took a nice 1:15 nap from 4 to 5:15. Dinner with Patty and the Goldens and Joan. Then I finished the edits on the C&W video.

Anyway, I feel fine, which I take to mean I didn’t pick up anything either in the airports or planes, (where I was masked) or at the festival where I wasn’t. Or from Bill, who Laurel says came down with some virus (not Covid) the night after I was there.

Started from Silverdale and had a little time. Coming over the Narrows Bridge, Rainier was a blue hulk, it seems so huge from that view. I had googled “best of mt rainier from tacoma” which supposedly was along Ruston way, so I had the maps app send me there. But in fact I couldn’t find a good view there. So I never got any decent looks at the Moutain this trip.

Visited for a couple of hours with Laurel and Bill, including lots of gossip and a delicious breakfast. Then off to the airport where the flight home was nominal. Actually the plane gave us a nice view of downtown SF which I’ll get off the phone tomorrow maybe.

Walking through the airport I realized I was walking pain-free for the first time in a couple of weeks, the gout having run out of toes to annoy, and I’m boppin’ along with my overnight bag on my shoulder, feeling like a capable world traveler again. You got to savor these moments of nominal physical functionality.

Saturday 09/09/2023

Off to the Wooden Boat Festival again. Arrived as before, just at 9am. I really only had one goal here today, which was to hear a talk entitled “Seeking Synchronicity: A Solo Journey Up the Inside Passage”. Prior to that I walked around looked at the boats again.

I wanted a second look at the one boat that had seemed like “my kind of boat”, ie. a small sailing boat with an enclosed cabin, for cruising alone or as a couple. I have zero intention of ever doing that, but I have fantasized about it. I’d seen one that I like on Friday, but today I couldn’t find it. Very frustrating.

The talk was by Susan Conrad, and she did a great job of describing her 78-day solo kayak trip in just an hour. After she was done, I was done with the fair. I decided to go down and drive by the Old Ranch, where I (and Dennis and Laurel) grew up. The last time I visited it, and that was in the early oughts? with Laurel, and on leaving we had agreed it was pointless to go back any more, the place we remembered just wasn’t there any more. Well, still. So I made the 90-mile drive, crossing the Hood Canal and Narrows bridges and down through Tacoma to Spanaway and Parkland, which look as cheesy as ever, to 288th St. SE, and up the road. The place looks in fine shape, I’m pleased to see. Whoever owns it now is taking care of it.

Not only is the house that my father built still there and looking well-kept, but all the outbuildings, barn, chicken house and so on, are also there. See that stone chimney? I remember hanging out on the scaffold while Old Man Stanger (I think it was) laid those stones while chewing on the end of a cigar. Around 1950, that would be. Ay-yup.

The road, considered as a neighborhood, also looks prosperous. Some junky old buildings have been torn down, and most places have decent fencing.

So 70 miles back to Silverdale, crossing the Narrows Bridge for the 3rd time.

Friday 09/08/2023

Had breakfast in the hotel breakfast buffet, ok. Drove the hour up to Port Townsend. When you are 500 miles away, Silverdale looks like it’s close to Port Townsend. Which it kind of is, as there aren’t any hotels nearer. But it was a surprise when the Maps app said 1:20 to destination. Anyway the drive was interesting as it had me crossing the Hood Canal Floating Bridge. I hadn’t done that since sometime in the early oughts.

Unfortunately at this time it was foggy and I couldn’t see much. The fog continued past noon.

The festival has a well-organized parking lot at the south end of town, with a shuttle bus to the north end where the festival actually is. I was in line to get my wrist band at 8:45. The festival occupies all of a large marina and boat yard. There are exhibits and presentation stage areas around the marina. Lots of craft demonstrations like this kayak.

In the boat parking lot — whatever you call the watery part with floating piers where the boats are — are about 100 wooden boats of all sizes and configurations.

I walked the whole perimeter and looked at all the vendors and exhibits. Then I walked all four floating piers and looked at every boat. That brought me to about noon. I plan to come back tomorrow, but for today I was done.

What to do next? I considered a drive down to the Old Ranch, but maps put that at 2 hours plus. Before I start on such a long drive, I needed to solve the problem of charging the phone in the car, i.e. getting a USB-C to lightning cable. Should be no problem. I took the bus back to the car, which gave me a nice tour of downtown P.T., and drove back to the shopping area. Checked both a big drug store and the Mercantile. Both had lots of cables but not the right one.

Checking the map for “iPhone”, there’s an iPhone/iPad repair store in Poulsbo. So I drove to Poulsbo, where I have been exactly one other time, in 2005 give or take 5 years. Poulsbo is a cute little tourist town with a really nice main drag, like one street of Carmel. Galleries, a really nice bookstore, lots of eateries. I was able to get my cable and had a smoothie at a nice coffee place.

Now it was two pm. And I could keep the phone charged and also play a podcast through the car speakers. But it was really too late to start the expedition to Graham. So I went back to the hotel. I read and napped for a while. At 6 I walked out to a local bar for a beer and a salad.

Thursday 09/07/2023

Travel day. By 8:39 I had eaten a good breakfast in the dining room, tidied my apartment for the cleaning lady, and was ready to go. The scheduled Lyft came on time at 9. Shortly before I got a text from Alaska: your 11am departure will be an hour later. So I had lots of time in the airport. One thing I did there was to buy a charger for the phone since I had forgotten to pack one.

The plane took off at 12:15 and touched down at SEA at 2pm. I had forgotten that the standard approach to SEA, when the wind is from the south anyway, involves flying up the sound over West Seattle, turning, and descending right over downtown, with a fabulous view of the Space Needle etc.

Before I had left I had a text from Budget saying to go direct to Zone 1 (wherever the hell that was) and pick my car. On turning on my phone after landing, another text: your zone assignment has expired, please visit the rental counter where an agent will assign you another car. So at SEA you ride a shuttle bus a mile or more to the rental car center and there I find: a line of at least 75 people, no joke, lined up at the Budget counter. I join it. It moves very very slowly. It grows longer behind me. At 3:15 (remember touchdown at 2?) I am standing in front of the Alamo counter where there are no customers. I say “Fuck this,” and I walk over to the Alamo guys, and in 5 minutes I have rented a car. Downstairs to pick it up, they give me a nice blue Corolla, and I’m off, with my phone for navigation.

The drive down I-5 and across the Narrows Bridge has a lot of very slow stretches on a Thursday afternoon. I had been reading on my phone on the trip and it was at 35% battery at the start of the drive. The new Corolla has a USB-C port, and all I have is a USB-A cable. Will the phone battery last? Or will I be somewhere in Bremerton when the navigation gives its dying direction?

It does last. When I shut the car down in the hotel parking lot, there is 4% left on the battery, and I give the phone a big sloppy kiss. After resting I walk to a local restaurant, Hops and Drops, for beer and a huge bowl of Mac&Cheese.

Wednesday 09/06/2023

Went for a shortish walk (2.5 mi for the day). At 10:30 I met with Laurie and Joanne about the event they want to run. They are organizing a seventieth reunion (!) for Paly High this weekend. (Do the math: the youngest person in the room will be 87. How are there enough of them around to have a big do? But there are.) They wanted to use the mobile TV to have a zoom presence for remote alumni. They are hopeless at tech stuff, but they have imposed on Bruce Gee, the 50yo son of another CH resident. He came today at 10:30 and we had a practice session using the zoom room hardware in the Activity Room. The mobile TV has identical hardware. Bruce had no difficulty at all with the concepts or the details of being a zoom host and including the zoom room in it. So that should be OK.

I modified some of the media for the C&W thing, based on notes from yesterday’s rehearsal. I took one call for the tech squad: Marlys’s TV had suddenly stopped showing comcast and she wanted to see the US Open Tennis, starting shortly. Somehow the TV had switched to HDMI3 and they couldn’t switch it back because the batteries in the TV remote were dead. Typical tech squad call. Swap the batteries, power it off and on, fixed.

I packed for tomorrow’s trip, and watered the plants. Amazing how everything has migrated to the phone. In my Apple Wallet I have my boarding pass for the flight and my ticket for the wooden boat festival, and just deleted my ticket from the jazz festival.