Sunday 02/31/2022

In the morning, finished editing the docent talk and timing it. If I deliver it as written, it should take under 50 minutes. Of course if I digress a lot, or get a lot of questions…

Met briefly with Marcia to talk about reviving the volunteer newspaper delivery team. Then it was off to the SWBB game vs. Arizona. This was the first rematch since the same two teams played for the national championship at the end of the Final Four last spring, a game Stanford won by 1 point. This time they won by 5 or 6, although the game was close most of the way.

Back home I watched most of the 49ers game against LA, losing in the final minutes.

Saturday 01/29/2022

Sent out the next week’s volunteer sign-up sheet. Went for a moderate walk. Then spent probably 3 hours, before and after lunch, revising and practicing my docent talk. It looks like I can keep my main points and still be well under an hour.

Friday 01/28/2022

Took a short walk in the morning, to Gamble Gardens. The rest of the morning I prepared to post a new sign-up sheet for my tray dispensing volunteers. We had been using 3 volunteers at lunch and supper shifts, but now that everyone knows the job, multiple people have told me that three is a crowd, two can do the job fine. So the signup sheet for the coming week only allows two volunteers in each shift.

Last week I promised some statistics, which meant getting out and dusting off the Python script I wrote a year ago, to collect statistics on volunteers then. It’s a feature of the signup software (slottr.com) that you can export the contents of a sheet as an Excel file. That gives you a spreadsheet with the names and times of people who signed up.

I had written a Python program to open such a spreadsheet, suck all the names out of it, and update a different spreadsheet that just has names and number of times each name has appeared. I can open this “tally” sheet and see that Leon Beeler worked 5 shifts, etc.

I had to modify the script to handle the new task, which took an hour to code and test, and then tallied the 3 weeks of volunteers so far. 64 different people have volunteered in that time (i.e. about 1/3 of the population of the tower), most for only 1 or 2 shifts, but several in double-digits. I really like my neighbors here.

After lunch I finally got to what I have been intending for a couple of days, planning a revised and shortened docent talk. Got a good start on that. Also worked on the VW model.

At 5:00 it was time to depart for a SWBB game. Stanford had closed down public access for several weeks but reopened effective today. The Cardinal played Arizona State and out-classed them in every way, leading by 30 at times. Tara put in all the bench-warmers for the fourth quarter and they let ASU come back a little, so we only won by 25.

Thursday 01/27/2022

Took a standard walk in the morning. Started later than usual, so that I could end up at CVS after 9am, when their pharmacy opens. Picked up a prescription.

Now I set to work on a project that’s been pending for weeks: selling some rare books. These were contributions from Allen B. Ordinarily I’d just have found them for sale online, verified they were selling above $25, and passed them on to Nigel of the FOPAL “High Value” committee. But these were rare enough that there were no comparables to be found. So the HV committee wouldn’t take them. I decided (last fall) to try selling them myself. I’d listed one set (a group of manuals all for the IBM 7040, a budget mainframe that IBM sold briefly in the early 1960s) and they’d done nothing. Now I edited the description and re-listed that group. Then another book, a Xerox corporate report by Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg (two people very famous in computer circles). This paper-bound report was a longer, and earlier, version of a very influential paper they published in 1977 in an IEEE publication.

I took multiple pictures and listed the book with a nice description, and a starting bid of $25 and a “buy it now” price of $50. And had lunch and a nap, and when I woke up, the book had sold! Somebody had “bought it now”. I emailed Nigel who replied that he’d come by and pick it up and see that it got mailed. FOPAL has a whole mailing/fulfillment shop that I’ve never seen, apparently.

Which brought me to 3pm when I had a date for a tech squad appointment with Kathy. She had various issues with her TV and DVD player which we resolved pretty easily.

Which brought me to 4pm when the semi-annual budget meeting was held. This event has our CFO present the FY 2023 budget and generally discuss the financial state of Channing House. Bottom line, we are still overspending our income but with the upgrade project completed, she forecasts a return to profitability over the next few years. Meantime we have 18 million in the bank.

Wednesday 01/26/2022

The main event today was a meeting of volunteers at CHM to prepare for returning to public access, now tentatively scheduled for 2/17. There were 25 or so regular volunteers in the room (plus another 7 or 8 on a big Zoom screen) and we are a very definite demographic, I doubt if anybody in the room was under 75.

The meeting was chaired by Kate McGregor, education (I think) director, from her remote location of… Homer, Alaska. She said a lot of things about how to design a docent tour. Mainly she inspired me to take another look at mine. As I said the other day, reading through the old script took over 1:15 which is just wrong; tours should be comfortably under one hour.

However, I make 6 stops, to make 6 major points about the progress to the “Revolution” of having a supercomputer in one’s pocket. I should not be talking for more than 5-7 minutes at any stop, which comes to 42 minutes plus at most 5 minutes of walking time, i.e. well short of 60 minutes. So my task between now and next Wednesday when I lead my first tour in 2 years(!) is to edit that script down to the essential points, so no stop takes more than 7 minutes to read.

But it was fun seeing all the docents again, two years older, and checking out the PDP-1 and the 1401 systems. One docent, Dave Bennett, lost his wife last fall and confessed to having a hard time since. “So much to do” on the one hand, and “lonely” on the other. I guess I’m fortunate in being less gregarious. I have more than sufficient people interaction just walking the halls here; but I wasn’t particularly lonely in 2019, either, check the early blog days.

Stopped on the way home to buy coffee. Picking up my supper, talked to dining supe Gloria who wanted to tell me that we don’t need 3 volunteers handing out trays, a point I had already come to on my own. Will cut it back to 2 per shift next week.

Tuesday 01/25/2022

Went for a walk this morning, as I hadn’t yesterday. At 10:30 joined the writers group. I hadn’t written anything on the topic of “conversation with an animal, preferably wild”. My neighbors had written some good things. Two stories of dogs were very affecting.

Went down to FOPAL for an hour and completed tidying up my section.

Did a few minutes on the VW model. Scanned the Cal. State 1099-G I received, adding it to the folder of 1099 and similar forms. The last of these won’t be in until near the end of February.

Monday 01/24/2022

I decided to FOPAL work first thing today, so no walk, but was at work at 9:15. Where I found 13 boxes of books. I spent 3:15 clearing them out, and barely got back to CH to pick up my lunch, which fortunately I’d booked for 1pm.

In the afternoon I revised my requirement statement for new mics on the 11th floor, making it a lot less formal and simpler. Then as only one person had signed up for the tray job from 6-7, I went down and worked that shift to help the one lone volunteer. It’s a fun and not at all difficult or pressured job.

Looking forward to Wednesday, when there’s a 6-hour meeting physically at the CHM. However that’s also my usual laundry day, so I rescheduled laundry for tomorrow.

Sunday 01/23/2022

Did a little work on the VW model. Worked 11:15 to about 12:45 because only one person had signed up for each hour of lunch. In fact, those two people could have handled it alone but I feel like they shouldn’t be left to work alone in a shift that is planned for 2-3.

Afternoon, went for a bit of drive but didn’t plan it properly beforehand, so basically just drove around for an hour. Then reorganized my two kitchen closets, which, except for the shelves where I store my hats, had rarely been touched since I moved in.

Saturday 01/22/2022

In the morning I went for a bit of a walk, finishing at the farmers market for a pastry and a bottle of fresh orange juice. At noon I went down to help with handing out trays, as there was only one person signed up for that shift. Marcia was there also and there was no rush. This volunteer task is really quite easy. But the kitchen staff does insist that we are helping. Later worked a bit on the model VW.

Friday 01/21/2022

Started the day with the usual MWF walk. Taking pains to notice any unusual feelings or fatigue, but nope. Normal. Normal is good.

After lunch I again talked through my docent pitch, and then signed up for the first docent round that will happen, if it happens, since two years ago. February 2nd, lead a party of 20 from the Danish Embassy! The Museum won’t officially open for visitors until that weekend, the 5th. If it does! Everything is iffy in plague times.

Did some work on the VW model. At 7pm, watched SWBB in the first of two games against Cal. Cal has improved a lot since last year, when both games were blowouts. This time the Bears played Stanford close. The game was tied at the half. Then Stanford exploded in the third quarter, outscoring Cal by 20, and the game finished with Stanford up 20. A Cal freshman, Curry, had 30 points.