Saturday, 2/29/2020

Relaxed around the house until time to leave for the Museum to lead the Saturday noon tour. While relaxing, made the first move in getting my closets remodeled, by requesting a consultation with Valet Custom Cabinets, the closet contractor that I know is approved by Angela for work at Channing House. Also selected a smog test station.

Went to the Museum, led a tour for 15 people. Got a nice round of applause, and a “That was a great tour!” from a couple of younger guys. Nice.

Drove back up El Camino to the chosen smog test place, where I was in and out in about 30 minutes (one car ahead of me). So that’s done, except for paying the DMV license fee.

In the email, a note that the lobby art committee would be taking art on the theme of “World Wide Getaways: art found or made on some island” in March. I decided that my Pyrgos Doorway picture might qualify, so I printed that 11×14 and put it in a frame.

Feeling I’d accomplished enough for a Saturday, I chilled out for the rest of the day.

Friday, 2/28/2020

I went for a run this morning, the first time in almost a month, what with the London trip and all. Listening to my body, I slowed to a walk a couple of times in the first part; but after I warmed up it was alright and I jogged to the end.

At 10:30, one of the Facilities guys came by as scheduled to hang my pictures. I now have art on various walls and the place looks quite lived-in. The two big oils are waiting, propped up in the bedroom, until I can get approval at a floor meeting to hang them in more public places. Or not, and I’ll hang them on my own hallway wall.

At 11am, SFJAZZ summer tickets went on member sale, and I bought tickets for Marcia Ball for me, and Charley Musselwhite to share with Scott and June. At 12:30 I headed off to meet Scott for lunch.

From there, I went down to FOPAL, suspecting that the onslaught of computer books might have continued. It had, there were 11 boxes waiting. However, three of them turned out to contain boxes of software products, which go straight to the bargain room. I processed the remaining 8 boxes, ending up with a half box of good stuff I want to shelve for the next sale, and a box of saleable books priced, to add to the stack of “priced” boxes that will go in future sales.

I ran up past 4pm doing this, and had to hurry home to change and go straight out again for dinner at Don and Kate’s place. We all being SWBB fans, we watched their game at UA, and they lost by a couple of points in overtime. Very nice dinner, though.

 

Thursday, 2/27/2020

Oh dear oh dear, I seem to have missed a whole 2 days. First time.

This Thursday I started by driving to my clinic’s lab at 7:00, “NPO”, to give up a sample for a routine blood test. From there I took myself to a Starbuck’s for breakfast. Then I killed an hour sitting in the car in the Museum parking lot until 10am when I went in to lead a custom tour for “35 PayPal employees”. Chuck Rhino was the second docent. We split the group, and after ascertaining my half were all technical people, I took them into the 1401 lab and gave them an overview of software development, circa 1960, to give Chuck time to get started. Then the rest of my usual tour. They seemed to enjoy it.

It was now 11:30 and I headed off to join the other volunteers at the Yosemite site, actually joining them at an Una Mas where they were lunching. Except I didn’t get there until they had pretty well finished, so I got a burrito to go, which I ate half of while driving back to the warehouse. There Toni and I did cataloging, registering a set of blower fans from a 7094 (?probably?) from the Pierce collection that somehow hadn’t been cataloged along with the rest of the collection.

 

Wednesday, 2/26/2020

Off at 9am for a haircut. Another CH resident, whose name I should know and can’t recall, was just finishing up in Chris’s chair. “Oh, hi!” um, you.

Haircut done, I drove down to Menlo Park to the Stanford Blood Center and donated a pint of my best. My 81st donation, the nurse told me.

With time in hand I drove the length of El Camino to get the car washed; the first wash it’s had in months. Discovered a forgotten energy bar in the center console, so that was lunch. Then off to the dentist to take care of the broken molar.

Dr. Kono explained that the broken off piece was “porcelain” from a crown. The main biting surface of the crown is the gold face of it. This piece, sort of like a fender, doesn’t take a lot of chewing pressure. The exposed surface is a bit rough but not important. So one of three things. One, leave it alone. I don’t like that, my tongue finds the rough edge. Two, replace it, cut off the old crown, take an impression, have a new one made, etc. Or three, glue this piece back on, polish the face a bit so it has less biting surface, and hope it sticks. “50-50 chance,” he said. OK, let’s go with that. So in a 15-minute process he glued the piece back on.

I thanked him and went out to pay the bill. $399. Pretty decent pay for a total of less than 30 minutes work.

Now, an odd thing here. I felt quite comfortable reclined in the chair with my head tilted far back, but as soon as I got up, I felt vertigo, the first in some weeks. Walking the five blocks back home, if I didn’t keep a solid visual horizon, I reeled like a drunk. By the time I was in my room I was getting actively nauseated, seasick. Not good!

But I reclined carefully sitting up on my bed with my head propped forward, and read a bit on the Kindle and napped for an hour and — all better!

Later, I filled out my California primary ballot. I went down to the dining room, looked at the menu, and didn’t like any of the selections. So I went back up and got the ballot, put on a hat, and walked out. Dropped off the ballot in front of City Hall, and had a hamburger and shake at Walburger’s.

 

Tuesday, 2/25/2020

Had breakfast here and immediately drove down to FOPAL to tackle the remaining wall of boxes, probably 15 of them. Which I did, over the next three hours. Ended up with eight boxes of “priced” books ready to shelve.

I took a break for a while, had a little lunch sitting in the car. Then went back in and reorganized the actual shelves. Any book that had been up three months or more at $3 or less, went to the bargain room. After that I went through the priced boxes again, shelving some, setting some aside for a future sale.

One reason for the second pass was, on the first pass I’d noticed a scattering of books about “Agile” development processes. Agile dev was a thing a few years ago, may still be a thing. On this pass I collected about 25 books on “Agile” and “Scrum” dev methods, and set up a special shelf for them. I like having a lot of books on one topic grouped. Last month I found myself with 20+ books on compilers and compiler technology. The month before I had a batch of stuff on ML (modeling language). This sale, it’ll be Agile.

Back to CH for a nap, forgetting all about the Mardis Gras party that was scheduled for the lobby, with a banjo band. I kind of meant to go to that, and zoned out instead. At 5pm it was time for the monthly A/V committee meeting. I signed up to do mics for two chamber music concerts. A/V-wise, that’s a really easy assignment, because they only ever need one, hand-held mic, for the person introducing the group. Chamber instruments are acoustic, and no vocals.

Walked over to the cleaners to fetch my black jacket, had supper with some different people.

A year ago I was getting a blood draw for an upcoming physical, and dealing with a flat tire and the beginning of the real estate sale. Hey, I’m getting a blood draw for a physical tomorrow! Although in fact, I haven’t scheduled a physical; I just got a notice from PAMF that Dr. Marx had ordered bloods.

Monday, 2/24/2020

Got a good night’s sleep. Might have gone for a run, but decided against it. I anticipate plenty of exercise for the day, because over the past few days I’ve been exchanging emails with fellow volunteers at FOPAL. Sometime while I was in London, a really huge donation came in, 30 or more boxes, and very heavily skewed to scientific and computers. I was warned there was a long wall of boxes of computer books waiting for me. Chuck S, who stood in for me, had already culled some and had filled eight boxes with books he thought worth keeping, which he had priced, ready to shelve. But there were many more boxes waiting.

Before I could go tackle those, I had to wait for Chris of Facilities to come  up and install the

under-cabinet lights.

I really need this. The sink and countertop in my kitchenette is lit only from the ceiling, and when I stand in front of the sink, my shadow covers the whole counter. He didn’t arrive until after 10, and finally finished up after 11. The lights look good and work great, a nice hidden strip of LEDs that lights up the counter perfectly.

Also while waiting for Chris I put together the final version of my London pictures; and also called

the dentist

to make an appointment. At the A Capella concert Saturday, eating a peanut M&M, a piece of a molar cracked off. Fortunately it was a molar that had been rooted long ago, so there’s no pain, but obviously it has to be repaired (somehow) (probably very expensively). So that appointment is set. I felt very mature and responsible doing that.

Off to FOPAL where I did find

a wall of at least 20 boxes

lined up, partly encroaching on the neighboring Business section. First I went through Chuck’s eight boxes of priced books and ruthlessly pared them down to three boxes. Anything more than ten years old, if he had priced it at $2, went to the bargain room.

Then I turned to the untouched boxes. I processed, I don’t know, 8 or 10 of them. Much outdated and irrelevant stuff to Bargains. About two boxes worth pricing, priced. By that time it was after 3pm. I knocked off and went home, to rest for an hour before heading out for the SWBB game, the

last home game of the season.

Patti and Diane rode with me. Diane, because her husband Craig had a medical appointment and was driving separately.

This was a genuinely big game, against Oregon. The Ducks had trounced Stanford rather badly in Oregon. Could Stanford get payback at home? There was a major crowd, and even though we had left an hour before game time, the lot I normally park in was full. We crept through heavy traffic down toward the Baseball parking area; no, it was full also; we ended up in the trees beyond the Stadium. Inside Maples the crowd was much larger than normal, and included quite a few people in Oregon colors.

Oregon quickly got ahead and stayed ahead. Stanford closed to within 5, early in the second half; fell back; closed again to 9, and that was how the game ended, Oregon by 9. I had said going in, that losing by less than ten would be a respectable outcome.

Steph Curry and his wife were in attendance, sitting in the end zone. I am told he also attended Oregon’s game at Cal earlier in the weekend. He is apparently a fan of Sabrina Ionescu, Oregon’s star and the probable NCAA player of the year.

Just to review this past few days,

• Thursday flew  home from London
• Friday attended a SWBB game
• Saturday attended a concert
• Sunday attended an operetta
• Monday attended a SWBB game

There is nothing scheduled for the next two evenings.

 

Sunday, 2/23/2020

For Sunday morning coffee I walked to P.A. Cafe, and walked back, 3+ miles. Spent a couple of hours organizing my pictures from pictures from Bletchley Park into a single gallery that I can share with CHM people.

At 12 I left for the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, to attend the Lamplighters’ Princess Ida. Jean met me in the plaza; I’d invited her to join me. We went in early for a short talk by the former artistic director about the play. The original script treated the lead character in a misogynistic way. He described how a simple tweak to the script left her with agency and control, so the final outcome was that she married the hero by choice, not forced by the choice of the patriarchy.

The production was polished as usual, and the woman singing the lead had a magnificent voice.

I stopped at Creamery for supper. I went in with the intention of having one of their wonderful shakes, but sitting down to order, decided to just have a coke instead. Huh. Am I finally turning into an adult? How sad.

Back home and there was a tech squad call. Judy says her Mac complains, “not connected to the internet”. Figured that wouldn’t be too hard, and it wasn’t. She’d accidentally turned off the wi-fi.

 

Friday night at the late time of 8pm, SWBB hosted OSU. The Beavers kept it close, neither team getting more than 3 points ahead, until the third quarter when Stanford pulled out to 14 points ahead. In the 4th, they gave it back, and in the final seconds the Beavs trailed by three, with the ball, and in fact got the shot they wanted by their best shooter, but it was short.

Saturday, 2/22/2020 love those deuces

In the morning I went out for a walk to deposit a check (an IBM benefits check, from the agency that just can’t manage to do direct deposit; I’m sure I carped about that last year) and to buy a couple of things. One thing I meant to buy was some dried apricots from the stand at the farmer’s market, but the ‘cot sellers weren’t there this week.

Off to the museum to lead the 12 o’clock tour. I had meant to try to have more of the easy, conversational style of the British docents I’d admired. I didn’t. I felt rushed even though I skipped a couple of points. OK tour, people clapped, but, meh. Not happy with myself.

Back home, I made up my mind where to hang the various prints I have. Facilities is to send someone to do the hanging on Friday. But I have green tape on the walls to show where they go.

At 5:30 I met with George and Betsy for dinner. Weeks ago I had learned about the International Championship of Collegiate A Capella. A sub-regional competition was being held at the Fox in Redwood City. (I learned about that because I’m on the Fox’s mailing list.) It sounded like fun. I posted the fact of the event to the house bulletin board, saying if anyone else bought tickets, we could car-pool. George and Betsy were the only ones to do so. So after supper we headed off in my car for the Fox.

There were eight teams competing, including two from UC Davis, three from UC Berkeley, and groups from Stanford, UCSC, and Diablo Valley College. George was interested because he’d been in a college singing group back in the day, the day in his case being the 1950s — he’s a bit older than me. The music was disappointing to all of us oldsters. The tunes were mostly pop songs from this century, which tend to be pretty drone-like and boring (IMHO). The kids had lots of choreography and good beat-box percussion sounds, but on the whole it lacked snap, sparkle, excitement. I seriously considered reading on my phone to pass the time in some numbers. We stayed through most of it, but when they looked like dragging the awards presentation out, we left without learning the winner. I’ll check online tomorrow.

 

I was expecting that the cold that I maybe got at Matilda on Tuesday, which developed into a good mucus flow Wednesday night, would make Thursday’s travel miserable, but in fact it tapered off into a once-every-30-minutes nose-blow and I felt pretty healthy throughout the flight. On arrival at SFO, I managed to complete the Global Entry application process, and now can come through returning customs more quickly than the average person. That will be a considerable benefit, if this return was any indication. The queue for regular returnees was quite long. If I had had Global Entry I would have saved easily half an hour. In fact, I think I spent less time waiting in a short queue for the Global Entry Interview guy, and being interviewed, than I would have spent in the regular queue.

So I was home by 8:30 (after a 7:15 touch-down).

Friday, 2/21/2020

Got a decent night of sleep and started out at 6am sipping coffee and putting stuff away, and adding something else to the to-do list about every five minutes.

I went down to breakfast at 7:30, and stopped for my mail. My physical mailbox was pretty full. I had been told if it filled up completely, the mail carrier would tell the front desk, and they would set the overflow aside in a locked room. That had not happened, however. After discarding all the advertising material, I had six envelopes to put on my desk for processing later. I did stuff all morning: two loads of laundry; walked to the frame shop to pick up the picture I’d had reframed; dealt with those envelopes; and worked my way through about 20 emails that I’d left in my in-box to be dealt with on return. Got most of them dealt with.

Also messaged my doctor to get a referral for an eye exam. Got the referral later in the day and then booked the appointment for that, at the end of March.

Later in the day Chris H. of facilities came by to estimate the job of putting under-cabinet lighting in my kitchenette. I really want that done. The new ceiling light works fine for the entryway to the apartment, but when I stand at the sink, it casts my shadow over anything on the counter. He thinks there was an under-cabinet light, probably a little fluorescent, before, and it was trashed during the remodel. I honestly don’t remember. Anyway, we agreed he would put in LED strip lighting on Monday.

Late in the afternoon I decided where to hang my various prints. I have set up a time for facilities to do that, next Friday.

 

Thursday, 02/20/2020

Yesterday evening my cold began to develop. Thanks maybe to tylenol PM I got a lot of sleep. Now at 8am, I am packed, had a light breakfast, and am ready to go… for my 4pm flight. Sad emoji here. I plan to get an Uber to Terminal 3 around noon. Until then, I shall recline on my hotel bed and nap. I shall update this post if anything interesting happens, but hopefully nothing will.

Haiku for an upper respiratory infection

---

Beautiful bronchus

Air glides smoothly in and out

of the right nostril

---

The Uber was a nice Mercedes driven by a guy who didn’t mind not talking, and did a really nice job, working through very thick traffic with patience and skill. I tipped him 5pounds.

When I bought the sweater and the hat, I was given long receipts for claiming back the VAT. As you approach the door of Heathrow Terminal 3, there is a special door signed “VAT Refund” and nice clerks (mostly women with headscarves, multi-cultural London again) process your paperwork. I got $25 in US money, and another 2 pounds  in coins because she didn’t have USD smaller than a 5. And so into the terminal after a fairly tedious security check. They really, seriously, want all your liquid bottles out of the toiletry bag and into a plastic bag. And take your watch off, it won’t go through the magnet check.

Terminal 3 is like a crowded shopping mall, with lots of retail and restaurants all around. The gates are far off and mine won’t be posted until 3:15, an hour before scheduled departure time.

Terminal 3 Haiku

---

Duty-free beckons

Hey world trav’ler, put on cool

Got booze! Got candy!

---