Tuesday 05/27/2025

For the writers group the weekly cue was “Trees and me”. I wrote a little essay on the Douglas Fir. A dozen people had written about trees. Nice meeting.

Then off to FOPAL to process a few boxes of donations.

Back in time for a short nap and then the Common Areas Advisory committee. I am pleasantly surprised that staff, the CEO Rhonda and new COO Elvira, are paying very close attention to the opinions of this group of residents. Rhonda showed us tentative plans for the major upgrade she is planning in our public spaces. Basically all of the ground floor, second floor, and 11th floor would be remodeled, with the majority of the present rooms converted into other kinds of rooms. Very ambitious, I gotta say she’s not thinking small.

This is all because the Board and Rhonda agree that the only feasible way to increase revenue is to add units. There is no way to add units to the present building, ergo, they will be expanding to buildings elsewhere in Palo Alto. Where? Don’t know yet. But wherever, it means there would be a population of 20, 30, 50? new residents who would be coming in to the main building here for events and some meals. And spending time in between meals and events, maybe waiting for the shuttle to take them home? So all the common spaces need to be upgraded to “create a wow experience” is how she put it.

Today we saw some preliminary renderings and preliminary floor plans. Lots to comment on and comments were made. But we will meet again in two weeks for more comments.

Monday 05/26/2025

Took an early walk to test out my modified shoes. I’ve been walking in Hoka walkers for a year plus now, and have always been bugged by the shoelaces. They were just a few inches too long. I’d tuck the ends into the shoe and a mile along the loose ends would be flopping around me feet. I was looking for shorter laces on Amazon when I spotted elastic laces that never need tying and which you cut to the exact length. Bought ’em, installed ’em. Now I have Hoka slip-ons. Only took like 18 months to finally do something about it.

Picked up my sack supper on return. Then sat down and paid my estimated taxes on-line. That’s a new thing for me, change from the years of carefully mailing the 1040-ES voucher and a check.

Then went out again to pick up a prescription at CVS. And then it was time for the big Memorial Day BBQ lunch. They actually did the ribs real nice and tender.

Peter had given me a DVD of a documentary about General Magic. I decided to watch it on the 11th floor, to test the Blu-Ray player that I had debugged a few days back. The player worked fine but I was horrified to discover that the user manual I had created had quite wrong instructions for using it. So I had to edit that and print it.

Ate picnic supper with the rest of the 6th floor gang. Conversation turned to AIs (not my doing) and this gang of 80-somethings were comparing AI search engines, arguing the merits of Google’s AI versus Perplexity versus Claude.

I watched the rest of the documentary after supper and replaced the bad page of the user manual. I’m pretty sure General Magic was the outfit I applied to back around 1996, after I left SGI and thought I would work a while longer. In the interviews with various people I mentioned my accomplishments, published books, columns in computer mags, manuals for Informix and SGI. Later the interviewer called me back to say they were not going to offer me a position. I asked why, naturally, and he said something like, “Oh, a couple of people commented you seemed a bit arrogant.” What can you say to that? I guess I just wasn’t a fit.

Sunday 05/25/2025

So I dressed in my red docent shirt and thought, I have the noon tour, so I should leave at 11ish but what’ll I do for lunch? So then I thought, I’ll leave earlier, and cruise the Cal Ave farmers market, pick up a nice pastry or something, maybe some fruit. So I left at 10 and was just pulling into the garage off Cal ave when my phone rang. It was my neighbor Mary asking, wasn’t I going to meet with her at 10 as we’d agreed? Oh shit. I just hadn’t looked at my Google calendar, or remembered the appointment. Much apologizing. We’ll meet at 2pm, ok?

Bought a nice pastry and some blueberries and dried apricots, and went on down to the Museum. Had a big group, 25 or so, for the tour. Did a good job, they were enthusiastic. Fun tour.

Stopped at Piazza’s to get some other groceries and got back to CH just in time to hit the door of Mary and Andrew’s apartment at 2pm. They wanted to learn how to do a Google doc. We went over that and they seemed happy.

Saturday 05/24/2025

The big deal today was a hike that Joanne had signed up for, and invited me. Joanne has a long-time friend Anne — their husbands worked together at Stanford for years. Anne is a docent with the Mid-Peninsula Open Space Trust, an organization that manages a bunch of parks in this area. Anne invited Joanne to take part in a docent-led hike and I got to tag along.

The scene was El Corte Madera Creek Open Space Preserve, a large hunk of the Coast Range that was logged off 80 years ago, and has since regrown a redwood forest. The tour formed up at Skegg’s Point, a parking lot on highway 35, and had about 20 people in all, including Anne and another docent. Here’s early in the hike.

The total route was just under 4 miles, which is long for both of us, and included a couple of long uphills and downhills. We left in bright sun but the normal summer fog bank was sitting on top of the hills (see picture) and it was chilly and damp in the woods.

There is a scenic spot deep in the woods called the Tafoni sandstone, a boulder the size of a small office building with interesting holes and stuff.

The outing was five hours door to door, about 3 hours actual walking time plus a longish drive each way. It was an enjoyable day although I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow.

Friday 05/23/2025

(oooh sneaking up on a full house, 5/25/2025)

Took a nice walk with J in the absolutely beautiful morning. Trying to be consciously thankful of being able to walk, in health, in lovely weather, with a friend.

Before going out I moved all the furniture off my area rug. At 10 a housekeeping guy came with the carpet cleaning machine and shampooed the rug. I can’t find the blog post where I got this rug; I know I ordered it from Amazon and it went down very soon after I moved in. This would be its first cleaning.

While he worked I talked to Dr. Margaret down the hall, trying to get some background on Dennis’s medical issues so I could talk sensibly. At lunch time I drove out, picked up a burger at Jack, and drove on down to Dennis’s place. Chatted with Toni then had a long conversation with Dennis, trying to be helpful about his situation.

Back home I wrote two extremely sensible emails. One was to Rhonda and our lead marketer. This was a response to the idea that, because our building has a majority of studio and 1BR units we are at a marketing disadvantage. My proposal was that they hire an architecture design firm, to do attractive renderings of different imaginative ways that an studio apartment can be arranged with custom furniture and professional use of color and texture.

The other email was a response to a question from another resident about AI and the prospect of AGI, artificial general intelligence. I gave my reasons for thinking the present AI systems have no chance of improving to that level, some other design approach would be needed.

Thursday 05/22/2025

Didn’t leave the building today, I realize now at the end. Neighbor Jeb dropped by. He wants to scan some 35mm slides. Yesterday I dug out my old Canon scanner from my storage cage downstairs, which is very good for that job, and tested it. So I showed him how, and talked about the process, and then he said he would need to reorganize his office space to make room, but he’d come back to borrow it later. So now I have the scanner in a box cluttering up my bedroom. Oh well.

At 1 I attended a lecture on how to approach and live with dementia patients. I left early; it was going too slow. Actually all the good advice was on a single-page handout.

At 3pm the Good Times committee met to start planning our September event, which will be a celebration of the best Broadway show tunes. We came up with an initial list of 25 or so. I helped Lou set up a Google Sheet so we could avoid the method used previously, Lou maintaining an Excel sheet and sending out revised copies by email. Everybody can view it and see updates instantly.

Then I spent an hour looking at websites with names like “best 100 broadway tunes” and so forth, auditioning songs on YouTube. There’s some crappy songs that are celebrated now. Like “Hakuna Matata” from The Lion King. It’s a comedy routine, not a song. Or “Memory” from Cats — boooring. “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, SUPER boring. Meanwhile, “Let It Go” from Frozen is as good a female anthem as anything Broadway produced.

Wednesday 05/21/2025

First thing was to join a hike arranged by Joanne. Of the 6 people she invited, only I and Martha showed up. We went to Wunderlicht park, where I had never walked before. It turns out to be a redwood forest on a steep slope with gullies. Very scenic, basically the MacOS Sequoia screen saver brought to life. The three of us walked along up and down steep slopes, about 3.2 miles in all, and back to CH by lunchtime.

I had a nap and slept longer than usual so I was late in joining the monthly FOPAL volunteer zoom meeting, but I didn’t miss it completely.

Then it was time to collect my guitar and go and perform in the assisted living recreation room across the campus. Audience of about 15 people, maybe half in wheel chairs. They are great, very appreciative and enthusiastic. I didn’t screw anything up and it all went pretty well.

Before and after that I ran my two loads of laundry, so I got that done as well. Dinner with Susan and Harry and there we are.

Tuesday 05/20/2025

Early on in The Rundown (AI newsletter) I saw a link to a new company that makes videos based on a photo and a script. You upload a head shot, you paste in a short script (longer scripts require the paid tier) and choose a voice, and shortly, you have a video of that face saying your words. I found a picture of Lord Byron and supplied the first stanza of “She Walks in Beauty” as the script. Voila, Lord Byron reciting his best-known poem. Can’t include it here but just go this link.

Before the writers meeting I practiced my set for the performance that is coming up on Wednesday which is, erk, tomorrow. Writers meeting, not much to say about it.

After lunch I grabbed a short nap and then met with Joanne for a short walk and chat. There were a couple of things I wanted to share with her, then we just walked and chatted. We went by the Episcopal Church where the Palo Alto photography society is showing a bunch of prize photos, including several by CH residents. And we got iced teas at Peet’s and sat in the park to enjoy the absolutely perfect weather, my gosh it was lovely.

At 3:30 I met with Kass to show her how to connect her laptop to the big rolling TV. The Fifth Floor is having a party and the theme is “somewhere over the rainbow” and they want to show the Judy Garland clip. This turned out to be complicated by the TV’s interface and the MacOS interface but we finally figured out how to do it. Then she played the clip off YouTube and it starts with an ad and ends with a bunch of extraneous stuff. So I went to my room and using the foxy little web app I found, I downloaded the clip as a .mp4 file and sent it to her. Fuck Youtube, just run the video.

Monday 05/19/2025

Took an early walk, out the door at 7:30. Back in plenty of time for the Event Coordinator meeting at 10:30. Afterward, I zipped down to FOPAL and spent two+ hours processing computer books.

Back in time for a short nap and then Rhonda’s open meeting at 4. The main topic was CH strategic planning, one possible strategic move will be to acquire a “satellite campus” of another building, or other buildings. Lots of discussion followed of course.

Weird phone call today. About 2:30 while arriving back from FOPAL, my pocket phone rang. Screen says, “No Caller ID”. Assuming it would be robocall or a scam, I answered just for fun. The voice at the other end was that of a person having a stroke, or similarly disabled. Struggling to say any words, just Uh, Erk, Wubba kinds of syllables. I said, you have the wrong number, but it sounds like you need help, call 911. And I disconnected. Phone rings again, same deal, no caller ID, incoherent noises. I said the same thing and disconnected. Phone rang a third time, same deal. This time he (pretty sure it was a masculine voice) might have said “Mary”. Wehwee. I said there is nobody here named Mary, you really need help, dial 911. No more calls. I wonder what kind of life event I was a bystander witness to. I’ll never know.

Sunday 05/18/2025

Usual Sunday morning stuff. Then put on my red shirt and at noon, headed to the Museum. My job was to lead a private tour for a group from Google, supposedly 10 people. Only four had shown up by 1:10 and I wanted to leave by 2:30 so we started. A fifth person joined us a little later. Nice small group. I had expected, or rather hoped for, programmers, and I adjusted my usual tour to emphasize how software development was different in every era, but basically always the same: edit, test, repeat. Anyway they seemed to enjoy it.

Back home changed out of the red shirt and met with another David, David Greene, to attend a house concert. I had bought two seats to this and then found there was a conflict with Joanne’s book group, so after some thought I asked D. Greene to join me. He is an expert in pop and jazz history, but had never heard this group, Dirty Cello. I’d heard them multiple times (Day 4.136, Day 3.192, Day 2.332 and a couple of times before the blog began). They gave a great show this time and Greene was an instant fan, bought a CD and signed up for their mailing list.