Saturday 01/10/2026

Just a bunch of unrelated events strung out with periods of reading and naps.

At 9am I went to help Gloria install a printer. Gloria is not very bright for a retired economics professor. We had told her the tech wouldn’t install any more HP printers. They are too complicated and always cause problems.So she bought another HP printer. Then called me instead of calling tech squad. OK, that might have been smart of her. I have to work on my boundary-setting skills.

Anyway the printer installed quite smoothly, I was surprised. However she had not done her shopping carefully. The only way to load paper in this printer, is to drop it into the slanting rear paper feed. It doesn’t have a drawer underneath like many printers. When she figured that out she realized it would never work in the under-counter space she meant to keep it. Then when it was installed, I said, ok, what shall we print? And she picked a 3-page doc and said, print both sides. Um, sorry Gloria, this printer does not have auto-two-side printing. So she screwed up this purchase two ways and means to send the printer back or sell it. And I contributed an hour to a pointless installation.

Next up was a meeting with Jean who needed some coaching in use of iMovie. She is diligently working on learning to use iMovie so she can edit the videos of our lecture events, relieving me of that job. She’s getting there. But it’s amazing how people can use computers for decades and not know things.

Then lunch and at 1pm, I got a visit from a nurse practitioner. This was free perk of the IBM/United Healthcare insurance, an annual wellness check. Turns out I’m well. Lamp, key, flower. Those were the 3 words I had to remember. Making me as sane as El Presidente.

Friday 01/09/2026

Well, one foot, the right, developed “front ankle pain” and swelling along the top of the foot. It had actually started Tuesday night, and I exacerbated it with all the walking on Thursday.

Except for the location, the symptoms are of gout. I usually get gout in one or the other big toe. But a long time ago I absorbed the medical latin for the symptoms of gout (or any infection): rubor, dolor, tumor, calor. Redness, pain, swelling, heat. Dolor I’ve had right along. This morning I noticed the swelling. Tonight there is starting to be some color (it’s very handy, having two feet so you can compare them and see one is pinker (handy feet, he he)) and, putting a hand on the top of one foot and then the other, the calor is also there. So, presumptively, I have a gout attack in a new location. The “Talus” or the tendons overlying it.

So I did not join Joanne for our usual Friday morning “muffin run”. She insisted on bringing me the bread I would have bought at Trader Joe’s, had I been able to go.

I did walk, at 10:30, the quarter mile to the dentist for the dental hygiene I had to skip yesterday. Otherwise I had a quiet day, played the guitar a bit, read some. Went to the song-along at 7pm.

Thursday 01/08/2026

First thing was to walk up to the new doctors’ place for a blood draw. Appointment at 8am, so walking from 7:30, and no breakfast of course. Stopped at Starbucks on the way back.

No sooner back than, about 10, Joanne texts suggesting we go for a walk. So we do, across the creek to Cafe Zoe. And back.

I have a sandwich in my room and a short nap, and then decide to do a round of the machines in the gym. Not back from that very long when I get an email from Marcia about the lecternette (sound system) on the 11th floor, which she plans to use on Saturday. I decide to go check it out and I find that the power cord is not working. Or intermittent. I get some tools and take this cord, which is a 15-foot extension that was bodged into the system by some prior resident a decade ago, off, and take it to the shop on the 5th floor and take it apart. I expected to find a break where the cord comes out of the box, but no, eventually I prove that the intermittent open is in the molded plug. So the only answer is to go to the hardware store and buy another 15-foot 3 wire extension and replace the old cord. But the hardware store is a mile away. Other days I might walk. Today I’ve already got nearly 5 miles in, so no. I drive.

I finish the repair job about 5 and I am bushed. I take a can of beer and go down to the dining room and treat myself to a burger, fries and my beer.

5.4 miles, 12,800 steps. And a gym round. I think maybe I go to bed early.

Wednesday 01/07/2026

Started out for a 9am dental hygiene appointment. And of course they asked, did you take your pre-med? I’m supposed to take an antibiotic before any dental procedure, to avoid the chance of mouth bacteria getting into my blood and colonizing my artificial aortic valve. Which apparently is a thing. And I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. And I even mentioned that while going over my meds with Dr. Chu yesterday. So had I taken the amoxi this morning? Of fucking course not. So they can’t do the thing.

I rescheduled for Friday.

Then I was able to go for a stroll with Joanne, up to Whole Foods. Last week I had ordered this little amplifier from Amazon, and when I tested it I found that it added a reverb or echo to the mic input, and no way to turn it off. So I wanted to return it, and Whole Foods (now an Amazon company) has an Amazon return desk. So we walked up there.

Unfortunately when I got the return authorization from the Amazon website, it had only offered returns at Kohl’s. And the young man at Whole Foods was apologetic but no, even though I had this official return QR code, it would only be good at Kohl’s. So we had a walk for nothing but the company.

Then I hopped in the car and drove to Kohl’s in Redwood City. I had never before in my life been in a Kohl’s. It looks like another version of Target. But they did have an Amazon return desk and they took my package no problem. So that worked.

Later I had a good hour of music practice, and read some more in my boring books.

After supper I was supposed, I thought, to set up the auditorium for a lecture. The lecture was in the monthly calendar and in the AV calendar, but it had not appeared in the daily calendar that is displayed all over the place, which was odd. But I set up the auditorium and finally about 7pm got hold of Mickie, who was the sponsor of the talk, who was very apologetic, very sorry that I hadn’t gotten the word that the lecture was canceled. So, A, we could have gone to Hamnet tonight instead of Tuesday, and B, I didn’t need to set up the auditorium. Now I shut it down.

Tuesday 01/06/2026

First thing was an appointment for a physical with my new PCP, Dr. Chu. His group office is just a block from the main PAMF building. This was good. He spent nearly an hour with me. He communicates very well, he listens closely and responds. We went over my lengthy medical history and talked about all my various problems, none of which need immediate treatment. He thinks I should look into hearing aids. Later I had my Airpods give me a hearing test and as before, it came up moderate hearing loss. I’ll think about it. Plenty of people around me who know the state of the hearing aid market.

I forgot that I was supposed to be fasting so I wasn’t, so I will have to go back Thursday morning for a blood draw.

I had to skip the writers group. I did make it to the Line Dance class at 1:30. At 7pm Joanne and I set out on foot for the Aquarius movie house. She wanted to see Hamnet. It was pretty good. We both had a hard time understanding the dialog early on. No, they were mumbling. Or it was the sound system. Anyway, massive acting job by Jessie Buckley in the lead.

Monday 01/05/2026

First thing, drove down to FOPAL and spent 2+ hours getting my section all ready for the sale weekend coming up.

On return I found the tiny lapel mic system I had ordered had been delivered, so I took it into the auditorium and tried it out. It works. The sound quality isn’t great and it only works on one channel of the board, so we can’t have any more of them. But it should be enough for the drama group.

After lunch I took a tech squad call to help install an HP printer for Gloria. The tech squad is unanimous, the HP printers are the worst for installations. Don’t buy them. Here was what I wrote in an email closing this incident,

GIVING UP

Earlier I somehow got past the screen that says “Install HP software to complete setup”. I think I did it by a long-press on the power button. I was into the setup menus. I got the MAC addr I gave you earlier. 

It was still in the menu when I went back after supper. I pointed the wifi to Channinghouse-Resident (which it already was, but with no password). I entered the password Craig gave me and triple checked it. Tapped Go and waited.

Incorrect password.

And now I cannot get back to the menus. I have pulled the power cord multiple times, I have held the power button down for a minute or more, I just cannot get it to go back to the setup menus. All it does is show that fucking “Install HP software” screen with a QR code.

I have installed the HP software on Gloria’s phone and her iPad. Same result on both — you walk through the setup to where it starts looking for the printer. It looks for it on wifi and of course, it does not find any printer, because the fucking printer isn’t connected to wifi and you can’t get into the menus to fix it.

I told Gloria rather loudly and insistently that the Tech Squad was at its limit, we are done. Maybe she can pay Paul Ma, or maybe she can get HP to send a tech. She has paid $300 for a “subscription” to some kind of extra support.

I should mention that she dialed the supposed support number earlier today and listened to hold music over 20 minutes. Hung up because that was when I had gotten what I thought was the MAC address.

Why didn’t Craig’s password work? I fear it is because the MAC address I wrote down was from the ETHERNET info. I never saw a MAC address for the WIFI interface. Could it have a different MAC for wifi? Lots of luck finding out.

Oh, I should mention, I tried multiple times to get it to print “Details” of the setup. There are multiple menu options for “Details” with a “Print” button. Other printers would print a nice page with all the numbers and MAC address and all. 

This thing shows a progress indicator, a circle, and only fills in the first quarter of the circle and stops. So that function is fucked as well.

It’s a piece of shit. I would recommend we establish a tech squad policy — we don’t install HP equipment. Epson, Brother, anything else, sure, but no HP.

Anyway, that was not fun.

Sunday 01/14/2026

Rainy day. I had a half-formed notion to walk to Cal avenue in the morning but it was miserable wet, so no. I dropped by to visit my neighbor Edie who is in the Lee center recuperating from a heart attack. I wanted to find out the outcome of a care conference she had Friday. Coincidentally Joanne was also there visiting. She and Edie have a long-time custom of sharing coffee on Sunday mornings, and Joanne had been out in the rain to get their traditional latte’s. Edie will be coming back to the 6th floor, initially with the help of a temp caregiver.

There was a recorded lecture that had been sitting in our zoom account waiting to be edited for weeks. And I have a volunteer, Jean Yao, who said she would like to learn to edit these videos. So I called her, she was free, so we met in the training room and she watched and took notes as I edited the video. Which you can see here.

Then lunch, and a nap and an hour of music practice. I ate dinner in my room, cleaning up left overs, dolma and hummus from our lunch yesterday and some blueberries and a saved cookie.

Saturday 01/03/2026

So Joanne and I went to the City to see an exhibit at the Legion of Honor. The exhibit was “Manet and Morisot” about the professional connection between famous Impressionist Edouard Manet and a not-at-all famous painter, Berthe Morisot. She modeled for him, and later married his brother, but she also painted, very well, and exhibited her work at a time (1870s) when very few women did. The Legion has done a massive bunch of work to assemble paintings by these two from many other museums and collections so they can be seen together for the first time, and you can see how they were influencing each other. This is Morisot as painted by Manet,

And it is very obvious he repainted her left little finger so you could not miss her engagement ring, she being engaged to his brother. I about choked when I saw that hand because I am so used to see in AI-made images where the hands are screwed up. Come on, Manet, you can do better than Midjourney.

We spent an hour looking on our own, and then joined the docent tour at 11am and stayed through that. Then we wanted some lunch. The museum cafe menu did not appeal, it was all very hoity-toity salads described in French. So what one does now: haul out the phone, open the Maps app, look for nearby restaurants. There are of course plenty of restaurants along Geary but we settled on a neighborhood place, the Bistro Mediterraneo on Clement. This turned out to be a little corner store deli with three tiny tables inside serving mostly Greek dishes. And it was great. Nice soup, dolmae, pita and hummus. Second time in a couple months we’ve gone to a museum and had a good lunch at a modest neighborhood place (Day 6-351).

Back home, quiet afternoon.

Friday 01/02/2026

Morning Muffin Mosey, up to the pop-up bakery to get Joanne’s special bran muffin. Don’t know if I ever explained that. She has for a long time had lunch with the same group of women and she brings this very large bran muffin and they split it four ways. They’ve been doing this for years. So I get to tag along on her expedition to buy her weekly muffin, and then we have coffee and chat.

Today we came up with a plan to go up to the Legion museum tomorrow. There’s an exhibit that several people have told us they enjoyed. There’s a Channing House bus to see it next week but it conflicts with some other things, so we are going on our own tomorrow.

Next I did some tech. Last week, apparently I didn’t write about this, I bought off Amazon a wireless headset, planning to use it with a small amplifier when I perform at the Lee center. It is simple, the head-mounted mic has a small transmitter in it (instead of a separate transmitter pack like our usual wireless mics). And the receiver is a little plastic lump with a minijack sticking out of it to plug into any mic input. It works great.

Coincidentally Gigi, who runs the drama group that is rehearsing now, asked if they couldn’t have more and better wireless mics. So today I verified that the receiver of this mic could also be plugged into our main sound board, so the sound would come out of our auditorium system. Yes, it can. But then I showed it to Gigi and she vetoed it for the drama group. They need lapel type mics, because they are going to be wearing wigs so the headset won’t work.

So then I spent a long time shopping at Amazon, Sweetwater, B&H, looking for lapel type mics that are small and have a receiver that might work with our auditorium system. Finally ordered one set for $25. Gotta love them cheap Chinese knock-offs.

Played a little music, did a little reading.

Thursday 01/01/2026

This morning I had to edit the spreadsheet with my crossword numbers, to set up for a new year. This Numbers file has sheets for every year from 2013 through 2025, and now, 2026. What is on each sheet? Columns for the days of the week, in which I record the time it takes to complete the LA Times crossword puzzle. Each day. There is also a sheet of graphs and statistics, because what good are raw numbers if you don’t make graphs of them? Here is the summary graph for the days Monday-Saturday, from 2013 through 2025.

This graph doesn’t show Sunday, because Sunday, which is actually the big NY Times puzzle, takes 35-40 minutes. If I include those times, the other days of the week get squished down to the bottom of the graph and it’s harder to see the trends.

The point of all this, besides being conclusive proof that I’m a nerd, is to watch for deterioration in my mental capacity. And there is some, although not significant. Yet. The LA Times puzzles, like the ones in the NY Times, are graded in difficulty through the week. Look at the blue and green lines, the Monday and Tuesday times. These are the easiest puzzles. In 2013, my Monday puzzle times ranged from 6.5 to 9 minutes, with an average around 7. In 2025, Monday takes 8-12 with an average a bit under 10. That’s like 30% slower.

The picture for the other days of the week isn’t as clear. (I think the jumps around 2014-15 must reflect a change of editors, or something systematic that made all the puzzles harder in 2015, and then went back to normal.) Looking at Wed-Thu-Fri, from 2020 on, I had slightly faster times for 2025 versus 2024. That would be reassuring except for the spike in Saturday times.

The Saturday puzzle is more cryptic and has always taken 18-22 minutes to do. But there are days when I give up and don’t finish. What time should I record then? I elected to show only the times when I actually finish the puzzle, and to keep a separate tally of DNF days. In 2025, there were 19 Saturdays when I did not finish the puzzle. In 2024 there were 20, so no change in that.

Anyway, bottom line, possible minor deterioration, brain still basically functional.

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I picked up my supper sack at 9:30, then spent another hour in the music practice room. Here’s a song I am having trouble with: “Bring it on home” by Sam Cooke. You think you know something about music? Count that out. What’s the time signature? I am pretty sure it’s 6/8 but nothing, nothing happens exactly on the downbeat. It sounds so simple. Hah.

Jerry and Betty had invited me, Joanne, and Kay for lunch. This was a nice group. Kay was just back from visiting her daughter and grandchildren in Porto, Portugal. So we talked about what she saw there. I had brought an idea I had formed this morning. The SJ Merc had included a wrap-up of the best pop albums of the year, and of course I know zilch about any of the performers. And I thought, you know, we’re all stuck in the 60s and 70s musically, how about we have a regular event where we sit and listen to an entire album by somebody younger than our children? I proposed this and everybody jumped on it as a great idea. So I will look into creating such an event in coming months.

Then with the rain stopped and clouds clearing, Joanne and I went for my standard walk, crossing the creek twice. It’s flowing strong now.

Drowsed and napped for a couple hours, then it was time for another picnic supper. Just five of us in the 6th floor dining room, everybody else out with their relatives I guess.