Sunday 3/14/2020

After the usual quiet Sunday morning, read the paper, do the crossword, water the plants, I headed out for a walk. I decided to walk to a place on campus I hadn’t been to since Marian and I visited it in, oh, several years. Could have been as far back as 2010. Anyway: the Papua New Guinea sculptures.

In 1994 some Papuans were invited to Stanford to carve some sculptures. Here’s the whole story. The garden is in the middle of campus, just shy of 2 miles from me, so it made a nice almost-4-mile walk.

In the afternoon I expanded the climactic sequence in the novel to incorporate a suggestion of Dennis’s. Well, not what he actually had in mind, but he said something that gave me an idea and I added it. Making the book 1000 words longer, and giving one of my characters something to actually do and experience which he hadn’t, previously.

Saturday 6/13/2020

Took it pretty easy today. For a while I worked on the car model. As I mentioned a day or so ago, I’m not happy with the gloss coat. I’ve ordered a clear high-gloss acrylic, which should arrive Wednesday. But before I put that on, I need to amend the color coat.

In hindsight I did a crap job with that. There’s a fair amount of orange peel, a small run. Also there were a some small flashings that should have been sanded off before I painted. So I spent some time experimenting with different treatments. Wet-sanding with 1200-grit sandpaper worked well on the flatter panels. Then I went to the residents’ workshop and found some 0000-grade steel wool, and used that in the narrow and curvy bits. Got it all pretty smooth, at the cost of sanding through the color in a few points, and where the flashings were.

So next step will be to spray a light color coat. When that is dry and hard, spray the gloss clear coat. However, that means masking again. You can see where I masked the parts around the windows that will be chrome. I did that with green masking tape, and did it pretty well. You can see one place just under the passenger side vent window where the tape was too far down.

But it just seemed like too much to try to mask the chrome blob at the front edge of the rear fender, or the chrome spear on the side, or the door handles or hood badge. Just impossible to make that small a bit of green tape and make it stick. I don’t plan to try to take the color off, but I’d hate to put any more color over those bits.

While I was sanding, though, it popped into my mind that there is, I think, such a thing as a liquid masking fluid. Only a minute on the computer confirmed there was. Technically, a liquid latex that you apply to block color from parts of an art work is called: frisket. I’ve ordered two kinds and as they were Prime-eligible, they too will arrive Wednesday. So as of Wednesday I’ll have all the bits and will probably spend Thursday trying to get this body right.

Wednesday is going to be a major day, in fact. That’ll be the day for COVID testing, probably. It’s car freedom day and I plan to use that to go and donate blood. And when I put in my menu request for the week, I chose that day to cancel my dinner order, planning to get take-out for myself. Hope I can stand all that excitement.

I spent another couple of hours finalizing the list of agents. I started this back in March (Day 1.114 is the last mention), using a site called QueryTracker. Then set it aside for a couple months while trying to get beta readers. Anyway, with a bit more prep work I will start sending agent queries next week.

Friday 6/12/2020

Went for a run as usual; all good. Next up, I spent over two hours going over my collection of potential agents. I have in mind one more change to make to the novel and then I am going to start submitting it. I made up the list of agents back in early March; I wanted to re-verify that those agents were still appropriate (based on what their websites say they are looking for) and still open to submissions. There’s at least another couple of hours work to do there, but I think I’ll start submitting next week.

A 6th floor neighbor, Phil, wants to use Zoom to attend meetings, but had some kind of problem with it. Jerry, our elected floor rep, suggested I give him some help. Just a couple of days ago the Tech Squad got approval to do tech help one-on-one in the main lobby, wearing masks blah blah. So by prearrangement Phil and I met in the lobby. He uses a desktop Mac, but I brought my laptop, and we walked through the process of downloading Zoom (which he had probably already done, but no harm doing it again) and joining a meeting. We joined a fitness class in progress, and left it and re-joined it, and I pointed out the various features he could use. Hopefully he will be able to do it on his system.

Four o’clock brought Rhonda’s weekly meeting. I’ve previously attended by phone, but this time used Zoom on the laptop so I could see faces. Some items:

• Of the 160 tests given last weekend (administered by 4 SCC DPH nurses), just the two previously mentioned, came back positive. Two asymptomatic staff members, as I wrote then.
• SCC and Cal. requirements are that all should now be tested every 7 days, until there are zero positives. The plan was to do this, including IL residents, on the 14th, but the SCC DPH declined to provide nurses, they are over-stretched.
• CH has contracted with a private lab to do the tests; however that lab insists on having insurance info for all subjects so they can bill each test to that subject’s insurance. So “we went into fire alarm mode again,” and obtained all insurance data for 100+ staff persons so their tests can go ahead on 6/14.
• Residents will get instructions on how to upload our insurance info soon; then our tests will hopefully be on 6/17. (I wonder: will my Anthem Part B drug plan cover it? Need to check.)
• Still working on more garage open days, but owing to above unplanned work, there wasn’t time to finalize that this week.
• The “phone a friend” program, for staff to call residents, has been completed with 174 calls made (none to me). Staff enjoyed these contacts. Of the 170, 47 residents declined further calls. (I expect to decline further calls, when I get one.)
• There have been incidents of residents “lashing out” at staff over restrictions. Rhonda said we all, staff and residents alike, are sick and tired and want to get back to our pre-Covid lives, but if you are angry, please call her directly. “I’m happy to be your sounding board or punching bag if necessary, but staff don’t deserve anyone’s anger.” Amen to that.
• The 5th floor renovation is now scheduled for completion 10/30, possibly earlier. That will be a relief to the “campers” who will have been displaced since January (I was a D.P. only five months during the 6th floor work).

Let’s see… Stanford Blood Center had emailed me saying my O+ type is needed, come on down. I emailed Kim (the marketing director, who is also serving as Rhonda’s communications point) and today got a response: yes, officially, blood donation is on a par with a medical appointment, it would not be a “gathering” and no isolation needed. So I will do that on Wednesday, take the car out early and donate blood.

Last night I paid Amazon Prime $3 to watch The Emperor’s New Groove. Nice silly animation. I would have liked it a lot if it were free; at $3 it is just passable.

Thursday 6/11/2020

Started the day with Veronica’s cardio zoom.

I put in two hours getting the FOPAL signup sheets like they want. Much of that was trying to prove that a signup sheet could be embedded into an existing web page. Unfortunately the only website I have write-access to is this one. But WordPress exerts a high degree of control over page contents. I put what is supposed to be my custom HTML into a page, and WordPress happily mungs it in all sorts of unpredictable ways. It turns what is supposed to be a <script...> statement and turns it into an <a...> anchor. So I couldn’t prove whether the given code to embed a sheet would work or not. But anyway, over to FOPAL except I will have to do a hand-off to someone else via Zoom at some point.

Next, Thursday means house-cleaning. Which I did. I have this down to a routine by now, a routine that takes about 90 minutes and is only a bit less physical than Veronica’s aerobics.

Feeling very accomplished I passed the afternoon reading.

Wednesday 6/10/2020

Went for a run; it felt fine.

Afterward I checked the hummingbird feeder. My feeder has been discovered by several birds who are cooperating quite nicely to drain it. Observe the blue mark: that was the level as of yesterday morning.

I did what little I had to do, to complete my tax return. Basically, sign two e-file permission forms and mail them to the accountant along with a check.

It was nominally car freedom day. However, my car is in the garage under the Lee center, and the hallway to that garage is now part of the access to the COVID-19 isolation area, and nobody is allowed to enter it except nursing staff working in the isolation area. So the only way for anyone to get to their cars is to request a Facilities person to go through the garage and open a doorway to the street, that only opens from inside. So I said, maybe next week.

I got a big windfall from InstaCart. I had put paper towels in my order. InstaCart shows this is “paper towels, 2 count, best available” because they are (still?) in short supply. While the shopper was working, the app told me that my paper towel order had been refunded because they were not in stock.

When the shopper arrived, however, there was all my stuff plus a gigantic plastic pack of six rolls of towels — and in my favorite brand, Viva, too! I said, the app said they were out of stock? and she said, must have been a bug. Later I checked, and I was definitely not charged for them. So I am the paper towel king of Channing House. We had a floor meeting via Zoom and I offered to share my windfall, and nobody took me up on it.

One of our residents, Betty, on Monday, got up quickly to answer the phone, stumbled over an afghan that was on the floor, and broke her hip. Her husband Jerry got to watch her leave for Stanford Emergency but couldn’t go with. Tuesday he got to wave to her through a window as she was wheeled to the operating theater. She’d busted the head of the femur. They put a titanium bolt in it. Today she moved to the Vi, the cross-town senior place whose rehab center is apparently better than ours (and not locked down for active COVID). Jerry was able to drive to the Vi and see her brought out of the ambulance. She’s in good shape, considering recent major surgery, and will probably be back soon. But these COVID constraints…!

I some work on the car model. I did a little detailing on the firewall, painting in the wiper motor, some wires, and some bolt heads, and then I dirtied it up.

Nancy of FOPAL wants more detail on how Slottr.com works, and asks me to set up the full schedule for the anticipated reopening. I will work on that tomorrow.

Tuesday 6/9/2020

Started the day with Veronica’s aerobics class, now at its new start time of 7:30, and yes, there was one additional attendee.

On and off through the day I worked on the model car. It was time to paint the body using my brand new airbrush. A tiny little spray gun, basically. I used my new “spray booth” which is a large cardboard carton I salvaged from the recycle area. I’m not too happy with the results. The color is good and I did a good job of masking the parts I didn’t want painted. But the final coat is not as smooth as I’d like. I’m especially disappointed in the clear coat. I used Krylon gloss clear spray, which I’d gotten for some other reason, and it didn’t come up glossy. Semi-gloss at best. I see there is a high gloss model clear coat paint I can order from a hobby store. So there will be another week shipping delay. Meantime there is just a wealth of very very fine detail painting to do, using my newly acquired set of very very fine detail painting brushes. Oh, and the chassis. I can make this one model into a career.

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Middle of that I got a call from Nancy, one of the principals on the FOPAL board, asking if I’d read the emails she sent me last weekend. Well, I had, but only in a cursory way. They were about plans for reopening book sorting and sales, and I just assumed I was being CC’d, because they knew I wasn’t coming back without a vaccine.

Well, actually, no, they were to me and there was a request in them for me to help assess sign-up and scheduling software. They want to reopen with a very controlled process, where buyers (initially only people who are actually members of FOPAL) sign up for specific time slots to enter the sale rooms. Turns out, there are roughly a half-bajillion web services to help you create sign-up sheets. She’d picked a few that sounded good and wanted me to help evaluate them.

Sure! So there went a good part of the afternoon. It kinda came down between Slottr.com and Signup.com. I set up experimental sign-up sheets on three services, and sent my notes and links to the created sheets, to her, to evaluate.

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My final tax return came from the accountants. Due in large part to the portion of my Channing House entry fee that can be assigned to health care, I get a nice refund from both the Federal and State, and apparently don’t need to file any estimated taxes for 2020, either. At least, none is shown in the accountant’s summary page, although I want to verify that.

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At 5pm came an email from Rhonda. I’ll quote the important bits, emphasizing the points that stood out for me:

As you know, a mass testing for COVID-19 was performed on Sunday, June 7^th for all workers who have been in the Lee Center in the previous 14 days and all residents who reside in the Lee Center. This mass testing was in response to the one positive test result for one of our Skilled Nursing residents.

Test results have been trickling in over the course of the day. As of now, we have two positive test results for COVID-19. Each of the positive results are for workers in the Lee Center. These workers are asymptomatic and are isolating offsite.

Residents who have been in close proximity to these workers have been isolated. They and their families have been notified…

We are scheduling another round of mass testing which will include all staff and all residents, including Independent Living. This next round of testing will be on or near, Sunday June 14^th. Planning is underway and we will keep you posted as details are arranged.

What’s interesting is that the two (so far) workers were asymptomatic. Just this morning on the TV news I saw a clip of an epidemiologist from WHO saying that asymptomatic transmission appeared to be unusual and not a big problem. (But now, trying to find a link to that announcement, all I get are links saying the opposite.) Anyway, given that we check everyone at the door for symptoms, asymptomatic transmission is about the only kind of transmission we could be open to.

Also interesting: going to test all residents including us IL people. That’s good.

Last night I snuggled into my bed and turned out the light about 10:30. Shortly I was annoyed to note an unusual light. There is a fire alarm device in the ceiling that emits a tiny strobe light about every five minutes. I have learned to ignore it. But now there was another, dimmer, blink from the ceiling. Of course it’s just a blur without my glasses. I get up and investigate. There’s a thing with two green LEDs that have never been lit before.

I turn on the light. It’s some kind of smoke detector, or possibly CO2? It never blinked before, but now it’s blinking. I stand on a chair and look for buttons or something. Nope. Well, I know detectors, I’ve installed them. I’m annoyed with this one, so without thinking it through, I reach up and give the sucker a twist and remove the active unit from its round mounting plate. I put it on the kitchen table and go back to bed, happy that the annoying light is gone.

Five minutes later my doorbell rings. And somebody knocks on my door. I get up, find my glasses, turn on a light, put on my bathrobe, open the door while grabbing a mask. It’s our night security guy who apologetically explains that there’s some kind of an alarm going off, indicating a problem in my unit. Doh! Of course, this isn’t a simple suburban home with a simple stand-alone detector; this is a recently-renovated floor of a group residence, and the smoke detector is wired to a whole security network. When I took it down, I set off a beeping red light on a console somewhere.

I explain, and the security guy has me wait while he sends for the night Facilities guy. He comes, looks, and goes away to see if he can find a duplicate detector. Comes back; no; the day Facilities manager will be in touch. I thank them and apologize and at 11:30, go back to bed.

Monday 6/8/2020

Went for a run, a few minutes earlier than usual so I can be back and showered and dressed before the Facilities crew starts work. Of course they don’t call until 4pm. That Facilities guy reinstalls the detector. Its two green LEDs are now on constantly. I ask if he has any black tape. He has, and does a neat job of putting little black patches over the LEDs.

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I write a lengthy argument in favor of an in-house TV channel and send it to the Tech bulletin board, plus a few other people. Over the course of the day there are responses, the most important being from from Vanessa, our staff IT manager. She says in fact she has been working with Comcast and one other vendor on creating just such a channel, and should be able to present their offers soon.

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At various times I work on the car model, finishing the interior. Here are some pictures. The main pieces before assembly.

The interior assembled.

And how it will look installed in the body. All that detail, hidden.

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For a few weeks my hummingbird feeder was pretty much ignored. Then, about a week ago, I began noticing a hummer on it frequently. And as of today, they are lowering the level in the jar about an inch a day. Sitting on the balcony this afternoon I observed a lot of hummer activity. There are at least three working this face of our building, maybe more. There are no doubt hummingbird feeders on many of the balconies, but the little buzzers still have to argue over them.

Sunday 6/7/2020

Usual pleasant Sunday morning activities: big crossword puzzle, watering plants. On the plant front, the wood-sorrel that I started last fall from a cutting taken from a street planting, is just growing insanely. I put it in a large pot; it has filled it and is pouring down the sides. And it has never stopped putting out a profusion of little yellow blossoms. (With very little trouble I just identified it: it is “Volcanic Sorrel” aka “Wood Sorrel var. ‘Zinfandel'”.)

I cut back the dragon-wing begonias to short sticks in December just as Marian used to do, and they have boomed back with a yard-high solid block of their (dragon-wing-like) foliage, and both pots have started the first blooms. The two fuscias I bought at the nursery just before the lockdown are healthy and continuing to bloom. So.

I took a longish (well, 3-mile) walk. Along the way my eye was caught by this explosion of bougainvillea.

On the way back in I picked up the package of model paints that was delivered yesterday.Over three short sessions (allowing paint to dry between) I did the seats and door panels of the interior in two shades of gray, matching the design from the factory brochure. Actually now I see that the factory shows the carpet in a different tone than the dark color on the upholstery. Tough. I’ve got a dark gray and light one and that’s that. After a little touch-up tomorrow I will use the “chrome pen” I bought to color the door hardware and rub strips.

Doctor Marx wrote back with info on ‘rona testing at PAMF:

Hi David,
Right now (as of today; this could change anytime), Pamf/Sutter does not have the capacity to test asymptomatic people at all (including us staff!). However, if you ever have even the slightest of symptoms (fatigue, headache, fever, cough, body aches, etc), then please contact us so we can get you an appointment at one of our very safe, outdoor respiratory clinics.

Sincerely,
Julia Marx, MD

So I have to have a symptom. But, but, but… if some rando sneezes on me, I can be infectious for days before the symptoms appear.

Saturday 6/6/2020

Did the laundry, yay.

Stirred some pots via email. One resident, a doctor, wrote at length to the CHBB advocating that IL residents ought to be tested. Which made me wonder, how exactly would I go about that? It isn’t obvious. The SCCDPH has a site with a helpful map to locate testing sites. There are five sites near me. Four are various parts of the Stanford health organizations and it isn’t clear who they will accept for an appointment or under what criteria. One appears to be a branch of PAMF although the name is different. The PAMF (Sutter Health) website says zilch about testing. So I finally used that site to send a message to my primary care physician Julia, asking her to explain how I could get tested if, for example, I thought I might have been exposed.

Wednesday I wrote about the Resident Association exec committee worrying about the minority of residents who can’t participate in meetings for lack of technical skills or equipment. Today Dennis said something that reminded me of a thought I’d had months ago: our building-wide Xfinity service should be able to generate an in-house channel. If we had our own channel, it would be easy to put an image of a Zoom meeting on it, and everybody has a TV and ability to turn it on. It wouldn’t be interactive but a person could at least follow what was being said.

So I proposed that in an email to the exec committee. They seem to like the idea. One said, she thought somebody was working on that, and gave a couple of names. I will continue to follow up.

The package of paints I’m waiting for was nominally delivered by the USPS at 6:20pm. However, all packages have to be disinfected by house staff before they can be picked up. So as of 8pm that hadn’t happened.

I played Psychonauts a bit more and quickly fell into a deep hole that I can’t see how to get out of. So I looked up a Youtube walkthrough and watched it and decided not to continue playing it. It’s a “platformer”, a style of game where you use your controller to leap about through various mazes and obstacles finding things. Watching someone who is comfortable with that style of game is awesome but in the first five minutes she had visited places I had no idea were there. What, you can jump onto the roof of the cabin? And there’s something to collect up there? Oh and if I climb that tree it leads to a cliff with a cave that contains…

Friday 6/5/2020

Went for a run as usual. Fiddled around until afternoon. Spent an hour editing the novel. Feeling down about that.

I’ve got several orders outstanding, with various hobby materials and books. One is coming by Fedex, and the Fedex tracking page is just fascinating. Here is the progress of my shipment:

• Monday 6/1 5pm, received at Berlin, WI.
• Tuesday 6/2 2am, left Berlin WI.
• Wednesday 6/3 2am, in transit, Countryside, IL
• Wednesday 6/3 2pm, in transit, Orrick, MO
• Thursday 6/4 2am, in transit, Mooreland, OK
• Thursday 6/4 2pm, in transit, Jarales, NM
• Friday 6/5 1am, in transit, Needles, CA
• Friday 6/5 1pm, in transit, Turlock, CA

Quite a fun road trip! 2,590 miles, 40 hours driving time, Google maps reckons. And only 100 miles to go now.

In Rhonda’s 4pm meeting, not a lot of news. Our one positive case is asymptomatic. Re-test being done. All SN and AL patients and all 170 staff members being tested this Sunday, under supervision of nurses from the county health department. Contact tracing has been unhelpful. We have good logs, and we know all the maintenance, housekeeping, and nursing staff with contact with that person and all have tested negative in prior tests. “We’re a bit befuddled,” Rhonda admits. Possibly a false negative; possibly a staff member will come up positive in the next tests.

That person is now isolated in our COVID-19 center, being attended by staff who have volunteered to live on-site in ground-floor guest units to protect their families. The only physical access to the Lee building is via the basement where you are logged and can only enter with an N95 mask.

The response to this has delayed the planning to allow more garage access, and the planning to allow family visits, which would be outdoors (patio) with plexiglass dividers; expect updates next week.

All staff including IL will be tested soon, but still no plan to mass test IL residents. Positive tests from Sunday’s tests (results expected Tuesday) may change that.