Day 287, FOPAL, chromebook

Sunday, 9/15/2019

About 4am I had a spell of wakefulness. I should add parenthetically that the prior night, Friday night, I had an exceptionally good amount of sleep, more than eight hours. But not last night. During the wakeful spell I got all anxious about the upcoming trip to Greece. I had intended to bring the macbook, to which after all I am pretty much attached at the hip. But that (I realize in the darkness) is a huge security risk. Suppose it is stolen. I have all these websites open, Schwab, the bank, and even if I close them, they are in the browsing history and as soon as they are open, Lastpass helpfully fills in the username and password and… some cunning Greek thief could be transferring money out of my accounts an hour after he gloms onto the computer…

Things look like that, at 4am. Yes I could set the machine up so it needs a password anytime you open the lid. But even then, losing it would be a major blow. I don’t want to take it on the road. What’s the alternative? Just use the phone? Well, maybe. I could get the WordPress iPhone app (I’m sure there is one) and update the blog from the phone, but that’s not a pleasant thought, trying to type a blog entry with my thumbs. Or reading any of the other websites that I look at regularly.

OK, I need a cheap, secure, travel laptop. In the darkness I google “chromebook”. Yup. That’s what I want. Problem solved. Back to sleep.

I went out for coffee walking up to Verve. On return, I got in the car and drove first to FOPAL, where the Computer section has been drastically reduced, maybe 1/3 of the books sold? I’ll know tomorrow when I do a count and can compare to the count I made Wednesday.

Then on to Walmart to look at their Chromebooks, which were badly displayed, and then across Showers Drive to Target to look at theirs. And bought an HP 11-inch one for $260 including tax. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon unboxing it. It is an amazing machine for $250 bucks.

 

Day 286, docent, FOPAL

Saturday, 9/14/2019

A leisurely morning before departing at 11am to lead the noon docent tour at the Museum. That went ok, although in hindsight I omitted some of my best points. I have given this tour maybe 30, 40? times and I swear I’ve never done it the same, or remembered every point, once.

On the way back I stopped at FOPAL, where the monthly sale weekend was on. I tidied up my Computer section–people make such a mess of it, come on, look at the book and if you aren’t buying it, just put it back where you got it already. Of course they don’t. Anyway, quite a few books gone.

In the middle of the day I got some disappointing news. Back on Day 154 I had seen the painting “Eight Pelicans” and really liked it. Since, I’d arranged to visit the artist’s studio next Friday with Darlene and Jessea and fully planned to buy the painting then. Today I got an email from Carol the artist, saying apologetically that some people had come by her studio that morning and bought “Eight Pelicans”. Well, crap! I shoulda coulda woulda given a deposit or something earlier. I had this stupid emotional thing where I didn’t want to do it until the house escrow had closed, and then that I wouldn’t do it until I could look at it again and… now it’s gone.

At supper the table conversation was about the new Stanford Hospital wing. Several people had been on an organized tour to the open house for the new facility. Very impressive, looks very expensive. “Did you go, Dave?” Um no, I said; I had spent entirely too much time at Stanford Hospital last year while my wife was sick. She was in there almost three weeks in total, plus a couple of other visits to the Emergency room. While I have no complaint with any of the staff, who were every one highly professional and humane, the environment was not pleasant long term, and having a shiny new building wouldn’t improve it. It wouldn’t fix the stress, the uncertainty of never knowing when your doctor or some specialist might pop in on rounds, never knowing how long you’ll wait to be taken for a test of some kind; and the bureaucracy that stifled all the staff and made the simplest things tedious.

Sooner or later I’ll no doubt need hospitalization and if there’s any choice about it, I’ll go to Sequoia or El Camino in preference to Stanford. No doubt they have the same problems but at least I won’t have to fight memories.

Day 285, paperwork, activities

Friday, 9/13/2019

Despite a forecast of high hot heat — and it did top 100 on my balcony later in the day, as reported by my totally accurate indoor/outdoor thermometer — I went for a run. I was out before 7:30 and back before 8:30 and it was very comfortable. Next I went to the Financial Advisors’ office to sign a bunch of papers. When we met on Monday we decided to put 1/3 of the house money with one of their favorite brokers, Kahn Bros., and 1/3 with another, Robotti. This requires opening two new Schwab accounts.

My IRA account has been managed by Kahn Bros. since forever, but you can’t just randomly add money to an IRA. So I have to create a new account to receive the money to be managed by Kahn. We had not had money managed by Robotti before, so that meant setting up yet another new account for them to run. Each of the brokers that my F.A.s use follows the Benjamin Graham “Value Investing” paradigm, but each has different methods and favors different parts of the market.

Anyway the Schwab paperwork to create an account takes at least four signatures and a couple of “initial here” items, and each brokerage has a disclosure agreement that takes a couple more. Then, the package needs to include proof that I’m the trustee of the family trust. The “Statement of Trust” document that the F.A.s had on file was out of date, superceded by the revisions following Marian’s death. So I went home and scanned the relevant pages of the current documents to PDF and emailed them. This was all managed and handled by the supremely competent and cheerful Cindy, who is the soul of that office.

Paperwork done, I put in an hour or so working on the novel. I’m in an easy part, basically doing a careful edit and slight modification of the parts I’ve already written. Removing one particular SF gizmo that I decided I didn’t like, while inserting a couple of clues that will be relevant to the ending I’ve outlined. And generally tidying up. I’m also reading Show Don’t Tell, one of the most practical and useful books on writing fiction I’ve read (and I’ve read a few). That motivates some of the edits I’m making.

About 2pm I started getting phone messages and emails from C.H. staff alerting us that the “chiller” that cools the ground and 3rd to 6th floors had broken down. We were advised to hydrate and if we felt any distress, to go to an upper floor lounge. Then there was a knock on the door, one of the nurses from the nursing wing was checking on each apartment on the floor to make sure we were OK. Actually I was quite comfortable. I had closed the drapes earlier and I don’t think the temperature got above 77 in my unit.

Today was the much-advertised Activity Fair, at which all the volunteer organizations have tables and try to get new members. I was interested in the A/V committee, who mainly provide people to run the sound (and video when necessary) in the auditorium. I’m supposed to get an email scheduling a training session.

I was accosted by the Chorus group who want me to come sing with them. Dubious, but I may try it. And I was hit on by Betty of the Writing group. They do a weekly thing where they send out a “prompt” — a sentence or something — and everyone writes something based on it, and they meet to read their creations. Hmmm. And by the editors of Scribble and Sketch, the in-house magazine, wanting contributions. Hmmm.

Because of the A/C breakdown, the Activity Fair in the Auditorium was managing attendance. They were monitoring the temp and if it got over 85, they’d have to cancel it. Meantime you had to wait at the door for someone to come out before going in, to keep the crowd small.

By 5pm the A/C was back online. At six I went down and didn’t like the look of the menu so I went out in the car to find supper. I was thinking of the restaurants at the Town and Country shopping center, but on the way I noticed Whole Foods, and said bleep that, I’ll just get a smoothie. And did.

 

Day 284, Yosemite, traffic, tech call

Thursday, 9/12/2019

Did some exercises, had breakfast, and off to Milpitas for a day’s work cataloging. Just toward the end of it I did a stupid thing with the database that will take Aurora, the curator, at least an hour of time to fix. Agghhh.

Left Milpitas at ten to four and thanks to traffic backups on 101 and Middlefield, didn’t shut down at C.H. until 5pm, about twice the normal time.

In the morning I’d had an email from Bert, the tech squad leader, referring me to a problem Bob S. was having with Apple Mail. I googled it; it’s not a common problem, but one that other people have had, so I emailed some suggestions (forgetting his problem was with email). Anyway that hadn’t helped and I futzed around with his computer for a while and declared myself stumped. I recommended the Genius Bar at the Apple store, and fortunately he had taken the Mini there before so he thought that was an OK idea.

 

Day 283, writing, FOPAL

Wednesday, 9/11/2019

Went for a run. After that I spent an hour on the YA book, and worked out the general outline of an ending. The problem had been, that I’d allowed my party of protagonists to split up and I needed a convincing reason for them to get back together in time to figure out and thwart the disastrous action planned by the villain. And I did, I see how it can all go down now. This was very satisfying. There is a positive endorphin rush that comes from working out a creative problem.

Then I spent another hour on Lisp. Then it was 11:30 and I went to FOPAL for a pleasant afternoon of sorting. I had meant to do four hours, but at 3pm my feet and back were hurting, so I called it a day.

In the evening I cleaned the interior of my printer, which has been smearing ink on printouts. Emboldened by a couple of youtube videos I got in there with tissues and paper towel and alcohol and sopped up the excess ink and cleaned the bottom of the print head.

 

 

Day 282, quiet Tuesday

Tuesday, 9/10/2019

For exercise I ran my series of this and that, but I need to either increase reps or add things. Then I had breakfast here, apparently for the first time ever on a Tuesday. I know that because at supper last night, we were talking about the meal service and I mentioned that I never see pancakes or waffles at breakfast. Nobody then at the table had any thoughts other than “they do sometimes — I think?”

But this morning there were waffles on offer. I said “oh boy, waffles” to the guy in front of me in line, and he confidently informed me, there are always waffles on tuesday and pancakes on wednesdays. Well, Wednesday I usually run, and have breakfast in my room for an earlier start. But I guess on Tuesdays I’ve always done that also.

During the morning I spent an hour and a half on Lisp, doing the exercises at the end of a chapter of the book I’m using now. (It is a print book, ANSI Common Lisp by Graham, not the tutorial etext I mentioned earlier. Graham’s is a college-level text and quite challenging.)

I also spent an hour working on the outline of my YA novel. I started this back in 2016 or so, and have over two-thirds of it done. When I re-read what I’ve written, I like it a lot; it’s really good writing, and for tone and character it accomplishes just what I wanted to do. But there are structural/plot issues that I need to correct, and in particular I need to work out a clear outline for the ending.

In the afternoon I thought about actually buying some things. I have a list of things I’d like to splurge money on: a TV, a sound bar, and a printer. I went to the local Best Buy to eyeball some of these things. I was able to see the particular TV model, but mounted about 8 feet up on a wall in a dark room; and actually listened to the sound bar, which sounded good. I almost bought that, but couldn’t quite pull the trigger on it. They didn’t have the printer on view, although I think their website said they did.

At 4:30pm was the monthly fourth-floor residents’ meeting in the lounge. Everybody welcomed me and Patti, their new 6th floor “campers”. After the meeting, the floor rep, Mary Beth, had reserved a big table for 18 in the dining room. Made pleasant conversation with people until almost 7pm.

 

Day 281, FOPAL, money

Monday, 9/9/2019

Went for a run first. Then to FOPAL where I found eight boxes of books for the computer section. It took just over two hours to do the culling and pricing. The monthly sale is this weekend so it was time to tidy up. I had an email asking section managers to do a pre-sale count. This makes good sense, to be able to report how many books sell from each section, but I’d not done it before.

After grabbing a bit of lunch at the grocery next door, I headed over to the financial advisors’ office. We worked out how much of the house money to keep as liquid reserve, and how to allocate the rest between the different brokers, and began the process of creating accounts and disbursing things.

Back home I spent some time on Lisp. I’ve finally gotten to the syntax for iteration and it is… well, the kindest thing is to say it is extremely general. To put it in my terms, a loop is encoded as

(do ( iterators ) ( test finals ) ( actions ) )

Doesn’t look so bad except that an iterator is a three-element list,

( var initial_value ( increment_expression ) )

and there may be more than one. test is a parenthesized expression which when it yields T (true) ends the loop, and finals is a series of parenthesized expressions to be executed at the end of the loop and determine the value of the loop. actions is the sequence of parenthesized expressions in the body of the loop. So, a simple loop to count 0..9, printing each one and returning NIL, comes to,

 (do ( (i 0 (+ i 1) ) )
     ( (> i 9) NIL)
     (format t "~A~%" i)
)

That’s the right number of parens, I just ran that and it runs.

 

Day 280, coffee, drawers, show

Sunday, 9/9/2019

Harriet had texted suggesting coffee, and we met at 8:30 at the Midtown coffee shop. Nice lengthy chat.

Back at C.H. I pondered what to do for the next couple of hours, and decided to execute the plan to varnish the bathroom drawers. I took them to the basement workshop, did the sanding, put on a coat of varathane.

Back in my room, I noticed it was past 11:30 and about time for Dennis to arrive for our outing, and exactly at that moment my phone rang. Together we drove up to Foster City for lunch at BJ’s Brew Pub, and from there to the Hillbarn Theater for Anything Goes.

This was an excellent production. I totally fell in love with the lead actress, Caitlin McGinty playing Reno Sweeney. She apparently starred in  Beach Blanket Babylon for three years and is now a realtor(!) but she nailed this performance. Oddly I can’t find a personal web presence for her. Neither actresses nor realtors are usually shy about having their own page.

In the evening I watched Guardians of the Galaxy on Comcast on-demand. I keep seeing references to this and thought I should really see it. I remember a year or so ago, I started to watch it on TV and when the blue-skin villain came on ranting about destroying civilizations, I didn’t see it as over-the-top meta-humor (which apparently some do) but as just tone-deaf boring use of a worn-out trope by bad screenwriters; and turned it off ten minutes in.

This time I stuck with it. It has some charm but really it is not good SF. And the special effects space battles are way too long and confusing to watch. Who’s who and which way are they shooting? And they take a cheap way out of one of the only real emotional conflicts, the battle between the green sister and the blue sister. That should have been resolved in some constructive way. (For that matter, why is only one of the daughters of a blue-skin villain blue? The mother of the green-skin one has some ‘splainin’ to do, I think.)

I’d give the flick a C+ at best.

Day 279, docent, quiet

Saturday, 9/7/2019

Right, of course, do the blog post next day and… what did I do yesterday? Well, I did lead a tour, the 12oclock one, and had about 30 people to start, 25 or so stuck around to the end. In the morning I called Dennis and arranged our schedule for tomorrow. Afternoon? Read some from my Bridge Defense book, read some from the Lisp book. I remember that at supper, I was disappointed with the entree. The menu said “scallops in polenta” and I was picturing a couple of seared scallops on a nice bed of polenta, but the reality was more of a stew, small scallops stirred in with mush.

I settled in to the new room, which is perfectly adequate. One minor point of annoyance is the drawers in the bathroom vanity cabinet. They are originals, similar in make to the ones I started varnishing in #621. I’ve given up on that project for #621; I’m determined that in February or so, after I’ve moved back, I’ll have all the closets professionally rebuilt. But for here in #435, maybe I’ll sand and varnish these ugly little drawers. I’ll see the top one daily; it’s where I store my hairbrush and comb etc, and I open it at least once a day. The unfinished interior has been stained, and has the outline, the ghost as it were, of a pair of scissors that were put in wet and stained the wood.

 

Day 278, move, museum, echo

Friday, 9/6/2019

The day I’ve been anticipating almost since moving in 10 weeks ago has arrived. Angela, at the head of a five-person crew from Gentle Transitions, arrived on the dot of 8am. I showed them about the computer desk and we chatted about a few other things. I grabbed the shopping bag in which I had my day’s necessities, and we went off to a guest room on the first floor, where she took my #621 key (little does she know that I have another one stashed in my desk mwahaha), gave me a brown-bag snack pack, and left me to pass the day.

I putzed around reading until 11ish, then went off to the Stanford campus where two exhibits had just opened. One was works by Jim Campbell at the Anderson gallery. Campbell uses LEDs to make moving images. He hides the LEDs inside plastic beads or behind little metal shades, and animates them with (I presume) a microcomputer to make shifting abstract color blurs or moving images. The one I liked best was this very large one.

It’s large, at least 10 by 10 by 6 feet, with the LEDs in a cloud of little plastic balls, so it strongly suggests looking up through a depth of water, and the swimming forms pass across it at random times and directions.

Next door at the Cantor a chummy volunteer docent at the door talked me into joining the museum. I am now a member and got a thick book about Rodin as a prize. I had come to see an exhibit of the sketch books of Richard Diebenkorn. It turned out to be a very small exhibit, one painting and an interactive video table on which you could page through about 20 pages of sketchbooks. I’m afraid I just don’t get Diebenkorn. “And this is good… why?” was my mental refrain. Oh well.

I had lunch in the nice Cantor cafeteria, benefiting from my 10% member discount, yay. Then back to my purgatorio guest room to kill another hour and a half until it was time to go to PAMF and have a stress echo. I had last done one of these in 2007, it turned out. One walks on a treadmill at increasing speeds and slopes, while wired to the max for ECGs. Then when you reach your personal “Very Hard” effort level, which I did just into the fourth level, you lie down quickly and the echo tech takes pictures of your heart action. The only uncomfortable parts were, (a), patches of my chest hair had to be shaved to get good wire adhesion and (b), you have to “take a deep breath and hold” several times when you are panting from your run. But the two techs, one on the echo and one managing the treadmill, were both charming, and in general I think I aced the test.

Now a couple more hours of waiting and finally, Angela appeared to take me to my new room. The movers had done a really excellent job. They had gotten everything, every little object, and put it right back where it was, or as near as it could be given a slightly different room layout. All my plants were on the balcony, and they’d noticed the little sender for my indoor/outdoor thermometer. My Comcast modem and DVR and TV were all set up and working. They’d booted up my iMac and done a test print on my printer. I had forgotten to put away my coffee cup, and left it on the coffee table when I walked out in the morning. The cup, now washed clean, was in the same place on the coffee table in the new room. To the greatest extent possible they made the transition to a new room as seamless as it could be. Really nice job, folks.