Saturday 03/23/2024

Started the day, dressed in my red docent shirt, meeting Harriet for coffee. She’s a basketball friend from way back.

Then on to the museum to lead a private tour for 25 seniors from Carmel. The leader of that group was David Wall, a trustee of the museum. The tour description said he would lead the tour but would like a docent to help. What we ended up doing was, to divide the group in half and each led one tour. He started in the Software area to give me a head start. I edited myself on the fly to shorten my usual tour, finished in 45 minutes. Handed them back to Mr. Wall to get them into the 1401 demo at 1pm.

There’s an AV problem raised by David M, that we don’t put enough light on our presenters which makes them look on the video recordings as if they were in the shadow. This is with presenters who have slides to show, which is most of them. If even a bit of the projection screen is in the camera frame, it sees that brightness and stops down, making the image of the presenter shadowy, low-contrast.

So the solution would be to get more light onto that corner of the stage where we put our podium. But our stage lights are up in tracks on the ceiling. I contacted Dan Nitzan, whom I first met on Day 3.216 back in 2022. He is among other things, an expert on stage lighting. He replied at once and since he lives close, came over this afternoon.

Dan proposed how we could re-aim two of our track lights to put more on the presenter. We got the on-duty facilities guy to bring us a ladder and Dan climbed to the top of an 8-foot ladder to reach the ceiling and remove one of the light units. Unfortunately it was somewhat tricky to put it back and its little copper tabs got bent. So Dan took it to his nearby home to repair it. He brought it back an hour later and we tried to reinstall it, this time on a different one of our tracks. And ended up with two non-functional light heads. So not a success. Now we are trying to find compatible light units to buy online to replace the two we have screwed up.

Friday 03/22/2024

So today I thought I had a meeting with CEO Rhonda and IT manager Gerald regarding the upcoming $33K grant for auditorium equipment. I had invited two of my committee to join me. Phoned them ahead of time to make sure they were up to speed and would be there. So we met at 1pm, and nobody else showed. So I checked at the desk, no, Rhonda is working from home today. Frantically search my email for the note setting up the meeting. Ooops. The meeting is for Friday April 12. Not today. 3 weeks from today.

I am making silly mistakes like this more often. Now, I always have made silly mistakes, but for 43 years I had a smart partner who would usually straighten me out in time. No, that’s not it; I’m just not as reliable as I have been. It’s concerning. Well, and it’s a Transition — see the title of this blog.

At 4 I met with Patty and Lenny and we rode in Patty’s car — a cute little Honda FIt — over to the campus to attend the opening round of the basketball. In the first game, Iowa State trailed Maryland by 15 or more in the first half. Then they caught fire in the 3rd quarter, caught up, went into the 4th quarter tied, and won by 6.

Stanford started slow and sloppy and had a lot more trouble with Norfolk than a #2 seed should have with a #15 seed, but eventually won by 30. They will have a real challenge on Sunday, playing the Iowa State team that came from behind for an upset win.

That Sunday game will be the last I attend sitting in my long-time seat, center court two rows up behind the TV commentators. Today I wore black instead of Cardinal red. Nobody caught on to the symbolism.

Thursday 03/21/2024

Main activity today was, that I had signed up for a bus trip to the City to visit the DeYoung museum. My main interest was the exhibit of photos by Irving Penn. Penn had a 60-year career primarily as a fashion photographer for Vogue, but also took many influential photos of ordinary people around the world. People were taking pictures of Penn’s pictures all over the place. I only took one, one of his earliest fashion shots that is just amazing in its composition.

Titled “Man Lighting Woman’s Cigarette”. The only thing in sharp focus is the wine bottle. It’s all insinuation and indirect storytelling and suggestions of how the elite lived in the 1950s. The gloves… the off-the-shoulder gown…

Back home, there was a “marketing update” — the marketing department (3 people) invited us in to the auditorium for snacks and wine, and told us about how we are at 100% with 37 different people on the “advantage” list. That’s people who have put down a refundable $10K deposit to be in line to move in. They won’t all move in; as someone at my table said, “how many of them will get tired of waiting and go to the V instead?”

Wednesday 03/20/2024

Did the laundry. Took a shortish walk while the first load ran. Paid a bill. Emailed Charley at Prime Fiduciary to schedule a visit to sign and notarize a durable power of attorney.

At 1pm, joined the monthly FOPAL post-sale zoom meeting. Nothing exciting to report there. At 4 I went down to attend a lecture by Rose Gottemoeller, a rather distinguished person to address little old CH but she’s a friend of somebody who lives here. She had interesting things to say about NATO and the US, and about the Ukraine and Russia.

David M. did the AV for this event, I just attended, a refreshing change.

Tuesday 03/19/2024

Handled some routine management matters for and with the AV team. Joined the writers meeting and read my piece in my turn. Practiced some guitar, then, faced with an unscheduled afternoon, I went down to FOPAL and did book sorting for over 2 hours.

Monday 03/18/2024

Took a shorter than usual walk, because I realized, one block into it, that I had not put on my supportive walking shoes, just my usual loafers. But I walked nearly as far for the day as usual.

At 10:30 was the monthly event coordinator’s meeting. At my place in the agenda I laid down the law that if somebody scheduled an event for a given month, after the beginning of that month, we the AV team would not promise to cover it. Maybe there would be someone who could find time, or maybe not.

Then I spent two hours at FOPAL dealing with computer books. Back in time for Rhonda’s open meeting where, this time, she announced the Heritage Circle grants for the FY, including $33K for auditorium improvements, yay. Later she scheduled a meeting to discuss how to spend this, for Friday at 1.

Sunday 03/17/2024

Yeah, that. Fiddled with some pictures. Played some guitar. Rehearsed a duet with Lynne. Had an Irish Coffee at the St Pat’s party in the lobby after supper.

Saturday 03/16/2024

My big task today was to complete the application to renew my passport. What a pain. Although the .gov website did its best to be helpful. I spent a couple of hours taking and printing an acceptable picture. But I got it all together and ready to mail.

One thing I learned from staring at my own face processing the passport photo: I’ve aged quite a bit in the last couple of years. My face has wrinkled up a lot, compared to the head shot I took for the 2020 Channing House directory.

Talked briefly to CEO Rhonda, about the process of creating a music practice room, a process that has been stalled for over a year. Learned that it was held up because of a tentative plan to put additional HVAC equipment in a certain room, but that plan has now been dropped, so maybe they can get things going. She made a note to herself and thanked me.

Yesterday as part of entertaining our prospect Rob, who recently lost his second wife, I gave him the URL of this blog and suggested he click the “It Started Here” link. I don’t have any idea if he will, but — I did. And ended up sitting up past 11, reading just the first 4 months of it.

Friday 03/15/2024

Took the good old standard walk in the morning. Practiced guitar a bit. Then at 11 I put on my red shirt and went to the Museum to lead a tour. Pretty good tour, 10 people.

In the evening I was booked to have dinner, along with 2 other residents, with a prospect, Bob Mclean. This was set up by our marketing department. I’m not sure how they picked me. I suggested they add Susan, and she suggested Barbara, so that was our party, and a very congenial group we were. We talked up Channing House like proper fans. Bob stayed for the evening concert, Steve Gill singing Irish songs. Gill has performed here several times before; he’s very affable, a natural entertainer. So that was all very nice.

Thursday 03/14/2024

Off to Shustek for a day, well 4 hours of effective work, inventory-ing buttons. See last Thursday (5.097) for the details of this work. In the afternoon afterward, I cleaned up a couple of things from the action-items list that I brought home from the conference with the Financials. Also found the US Gov website for renewing one’s passport. Mine expires in 6 months, and although I have no travel plans, there’s no use letting it expire.