Day 253, FOPAL, drawer, finance, HOUSE SOLD

Monday, 8/12/2019

Started the day with a run. Then by 9:30 I was at FOPAL to do the post-sale cleanup of my Computer section. This involves looking at every book in the section. If it has been up for three or more sale days, and its last price was $2 or $3, I give up on it and send it to the bargain room. Otherwise I consider reducing the price, pencil in the new price, and reshelve it back to its proper section. I sent three boxes of books away. This took a couple of hours.

I headed back and actually parked in the garage when I remembered that I had meant to go to the house and mark some things so when the guy came to haul the trash away, they wouldn’t go. Oh sigh. Back into the car and started back for Tasso street, when I got a call from Chuck. We talked about the details of prepping for the open house. Everything was going well. I told him about wanting to save a few items and how I would put them in the back of the garage. He said, maybe save the valances, too. All the windows had somewhat old-fashioned wooden valances. The painters had taken them down and tossed them, with the drapes still attached, in the garage. OK.

So I went to the house and moved the valances (but not the drapes; the fabric is old and not worth saving) plus a few other things a new owner might find useful, back of the green tape line in the garage that I had put down to protect stuff I didn’t want sold, a few weeks ago. Eric the painter was just finishing up the job of power-washing the brick walkway.

Back home I had lunch and killed a little time, and then met with Bert to be initiated into the ways of the

Residents’ Shop.

There are actually two shop rooms. One is very well equipped with a band saw, table saw, planer, and lots of other tools. The second, used for messier work, also has tools and a large bench. I had to sign a couple of waivers, so if I cut off a finger, it’s on me not Channing House. The point of all this was so that I can begin the process of refinishing those drawers. Bert has to have a copy of the shop key made for me. When I get it, I will start on that, probably Friday.

Next was to sit down with Terri in

Accounting.

We went over the rather puzzling and confusing sequence of payments from me to Channing House over the prior four months. At times they had drawn money by electronic funds transfer (EFT) from the Schwab account from which they’d drawn my initial buy-in. Other times, I had sent them checks via the SFCU bill-pay mechanism. With the result that we were both out of sync, and sometimes I was ahead by a credit and sometimes behind.

We agreed that in future, they would always draw the full monthly bill by EFT, and I would ensure that there were funds in the Schwab account to cover that. They do the EFT draw on the 10th of the month, and I will plan on that going forward.

In prior days I’d been noticing my

front door

was binding, and not wanting to close. I thought casually that it was just the frame warping or a hinge loose, but today it wouldn’t close at all and I realized the cause was the the hasp (or whatever you call the sticky-outy part of the lock that engages the frame) was jammed half-way and wouldn’t retract. And the knob wouldn’t turn either way. So I notified Facilities and a guy came up around 3 to work on it. He replaced the mechanism so it works, but he also noticed that the hasp didn’t properly engage the striker plate. It was a little too high, and you could see where some prior facilities guy had cut away metal to make the hole taller. He just removed the striker plate. The hasp now engages with the square hole in the metal door frame.

The door will be completely replaced as part of the upgrade, so that temporary fix is good enough.

About 5pm I got a call from Chuck. The agent who had been bugging him to say what our asking price was, wanted to present

a firm offer,

that is, one with no contingencies. Chuck said it was odd that there would be no contingencies since, a, they hadn’t seen the house, and b, they hadn’t received all the 50 pages of disclosure documents (inspections, termite report, seller’s declarations). We discussed the options. I could decline to look at it, saying just come on Friday and present it then. Ended up, Chuck called her back and insisted that he would send her the disclosures and she would return the standard form saying her client had indeed seen them all.

He called back a bit later to say, the buyer (a couple, the husband works at Facebook) had indeed seen the house: they had come to the estate sale last month, and looked it over very carefully then! (Later I texted Deborah about it, and she said, oh yes, I remember, I gave them Chuck’s number.) And now they have seen all the disclosures, they still want to go ahead with no contingencies, they are pre-approved for financing, and they want to close escrow in 15 days (unusually short). And the offer is $2.7M, which is $0.2M above the asking and just about enough that I will come out of escrow with my target net proceeds, or nearly.

Let’s do it! This was 5:30pm. We agreed I’d come to Chuck’s office at 6:15, which I did. We sat around waiting for papers to arrive by email and be printed. The offer had a clerical error and he had to call the other agent and have her send a corrected page. Then I initialed all the pages of the offer (it’s a very lengthy document) and sign it, and that got sent back to the other agent. When she texted that she had received it, we had a contract.

The buyer is obligated to purchase with no contingencies (no additional inspections, no hold-backs for work to be done), and if for any reason they don’t close escrow in the promised 15 days, their initial $81,000 deposit is mine to keep. So that’s a serious deal.

We’re going to go ahead with the cleaning (Chuck has a cleaning company already scheduled for tomorrow) and with the garbage-hauling; and I will let Richard come as scheduled to finish the mulch and tidy the plants on Thursday. But Chuck texted Amy to let her know, do NOT load up your truck with furniture tomorrow as scheduled, the staging is off!

I’d already paid Amy’s company in advance for the staging. Presumably I’ll get that money back, or at least most of it. I can imagine them wanting to keep some for their trouble and time spent planning.

But wow. House is sold! Probably. I won’t actually celebrate until the escrow actually closes. That would be on or before the 28th of this month.

Day 252, desk work, Lamplighters, Lisp

Sunday, 8/11/2019

Walked up to Verve for coffee. On return, I made a list of things that had been kicking around in the back of my mind as needing-to-do. Note this is something of a change from the first few months. From Day 1 to around Day 200, I was making detailed to-do lists almost compulsively. I knew I was being a little bit compulsive about them; see remarks earlier, on anxiety owing to not having Marian as my co-pilot. On the other hand, there was actually a metric shit-ton of stuff that I needed to do back then. For the last month-plus, I’ve been able to rely on the Google calendar to keep track of where I need to be and when; and I’ve been able to handle the routine busy-work of life pretty much ad-hoc.

But things had stacked up a bit and would come to mind when I awoke at 3am or 4am, and make it hard to go back to sleep. So I made the list and tackled it.

One item, which I should have thought of much, much earlier, was to order new checks. The current checkbooks, one from the credit union and for Schwab, have Marian’s name and the Tasso address. In the “stationery and postage” drawer I found boxes with about ten books of checks for each account. I got online with SFCU; their site makes it easy, even pleasant, to order new checks, customizing the names and addresses simply. Schwab should have been as easy, and may actually be, however it was a “service temporarily unavailable, try again” from them. C.H. very conveniently provides a box for documents to be shredded on each floor, so I put the extra checkbooks in there.

Another was to follow up on the travel insurance for the canceled Road Scholar trip. Remember how I realized too late that I wanted to reschedule that trip, so it had to be treated as a cancellation and a rebooking, and RoadScholar kept half the fee as a penalty. I’d bought travel insurance, and submitted a claim to get that $3500 back, weeks ago. What has happened? I didn’t know, and this would inevitably pop up in my mind at the afore-mentioned 3am awakenings. So. Follow the link from the email, and… my claim is “being processed”. At least it hasn’t been rejected.

I paid a couple of bills. Later, in the afternoon, I made a small spreadsheet listing all the charges shown on the Channing House invoices I’ve received so far, and all the payments I’ve made. I’m scheduled to talk to Terri in accounting about this tomorrow, and now I have my numbers all lined up so I can explain what bothers me. More on that after I see her.

Another item is my drawers. No, not my drawers, my closets’ drawers. They are old, they are of wood which is unlined, unsealed, and unfinished, and they have a persistent musty odor of oldness. I’ve been pondering what to do about this, and I finally figured out that what I might do is to access the C.H. Resident’s workshop, and use a power sander to sand the interiors (hopefully removing the odor) and spray them with either a sealer or a varnish. To get access, one calls Bert, the guy who seems to be in charge of everything technical around here. So I did and we have a date to meet Monday. I guess he’ll evaluate whether I’m safe with power tools?

At 12:30 I headed out. I stopped first at the FOPAL sale for five minutes, just to make sure my section was still in order, and it was. Then I continued down to the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts to see the Lamplighters’ production of

HMS Pinafore.

I had bought two tickets for this a week ago, and invited Dennis to join me, but he wasn’t free. So then I asked sister-in-law Jean to join me and she was happy to.

Must say, HMS Pinafore is a very very silly play. I mean seriously. The resolution at the end, which gets everybody married happily, also implies that all three of the happy couples have an age difference of at least 18 years, more like 20. But the production was smooth and the soprano playing Josephine was especially good. The MVCPA auditorium is a handsome place but I didn’t think the acoustics were good, at least, not at the back of the balcony where we were. The orchestra seemed thin and distant. It was a very good thing that they projected the song lyrics above the stage. When you knew what the singers were saying, it was perfectly clear, but a couple of times I deliberately did not read the lyrics ahead and I could not follow all the words. (Worth noting that the Lamplighters are old-school, they don’t use mics or amplification for voices.)

Jean then was pleased to treat me to pizza at a local restaurant; we exchanged stories of our aches and pains, and that was the afternoon.

Yesterday and today I worked at getting set up to learn me some

Lisp.

It’s a different programming language, second oldest only to Fortran, and a different paradigm from the procedural languages in which I’ve written so many KLoC (thousand lines of code). What started this was linking to a list of influential books for programmers by the great Alan Kay. The first book he praised was the Lisp 1.5 Programmer’s Guide, which was formative in his education. That book, although still in print from MIT Press, is out of date for the current form of the language, but I thought, ok, how about I get into this a little bit, read an online tutorial, do a little fun programming.

Which of course, was the opening of a deep, dark internet rabbit-hole. Over several hours of browsing I’ve located some good resources, skimmed some tutorials, and installed three different Lisp implementations. One thing I can conclude is that, unlike Python, Ruby, C or practically any other modern language, the available Lisp implementations are absolutely shit-awful as learning environments. Gracious, but they are beginner-hostile. I’ve used many interpreters (helped write one), and never saw such an impenetrable thicket for the starting user. I have now found a just-tolerable interactive development environment (the free version of LispWorks), but its Mac OS version is so out of date, it makes Mac OS pop up that dialog about “won’t work with future versions, contact the developer” — which tells you they haven’t built a new version in over five years.

Anyway, after several hours of very testy and frustrating hours of exploring I believe I am set up to start walking through a tutorial (of which I’ve found several decent ones) and executing code.

Day 233, bball camp, book

Tuesday, 7/23/2019

I started the day by driving to the YMCA, doing 15 minutes on the treadmill and my round of strength exercises. Back home I did a bit of office work, filing some things and trying to make sense of my Channing House billings. I can’t get a clear picture of how much I am paying per month. When I first signed up, they received my initial buy-in by electronic funds transfer from my Schwab account. Twice in the three months since, they have again tapped that account, but not for the whole amount of a monthly rental, but rather a bit less than half that. I don’t know why. This month, they didn’t. I don’t know why. I have been paying the amount due on the bottom line of the monthly invoice by EFT from my SFCU (Stanford Credit Union) account and I guess the numbers are working out because they haven’t called me up to say “you’re in arrears”. But I would like to set up a single, monthly, auto-pay order at SFCU. Only I don’t know how much that should be, given they might choose to pay themselves some of it from my Schwab account.

I keep thinking things will clarify with the next month’s invoice. But I guess I will have to make an appointment with somebody in the accounts office.

About 11:30 I took a Lyft to the Stanford campus where I was to assist in registration for Tara’s basketball camp. This time I was assigned to the “A-to-E” registration table along with Nancy. It was fairly complicated as each camper got a name sticker and checked off on a list, then they (or their mom usually) paid some money into their “camp store” account, so they could buy souvenirs and snacks without having to have money in their dorm rooms. Then they got their lanyard and key to their dorm room. We divided this work among us and managed not to mess anything up or distress any campers, so that’s a win.

We were all done by 2:30. I bummed a ride back to CH with Nancy, who had just bought a new Lexus and was happy to show it off to me.

Now I sat down with the paper copy of the book and kept reading, finding several more (very minor) typos. I have a few more chapters to go. Then I’ll make a new text PDF and update the Kindle Direct page with it, and officially “publish” it on Amazon. I’ll have to go back and re-publish the Leanpub version also. With that out of the way, I will start on another project, probably in early August, about the time the house is finally ready to sell.

Day 220, moving, canceling, FOPAL

Wednesday, 7/10/2019

Today was the day scheduled for my relocation meeting. Angela, the boss of all the renovation logistics, and Gloria, the rep for Gentle Transitions, the moving company that executes the move-outs and move-backs, came and spent two hours going over my apartment and its contents in detail.

They had a floor plan of 621 and of 435, my temp location, on magnetic boards, and lots of little magnetic furniture tiles, and first built a detailed plan of my current arrangement. Then we went down to 435 and with my input, worked out where to put my furniture there. All recorded by arranging the pieces on the magnetic boards, and then photographing the final arrangements.

It was made easier because the two units are quite similar; 435 has one less closet than 621, but fortunately I don’t make much use of two of the three closets I have. So Gloria planned out which items from what closets and cupboards and drawers, would go to which others. Same for the bathroom, as the 621 bathroom has a few more drawers than 435 does. It took the full two hours, but is done. 435 is not as nice a place as 621 for sure, but it will do for six months.

Before they arrived I came to a decision and executed it, possibly to my cost. Before I knew the dates of the move, I had booked a tour with a departure date of 9/6. Then Angela told me that 9/6 was my move-out day, with no flexibility. I was anticipating moving out to a guest unit on 9/5, and returning 16 days later to my new apartment. That was barely acceptable but now I’m seriously worried about the house sale maybe not getting completed in August and running into September. It shouldn’t, but I don’t like the chance that I could be away and unable to sign stuff, and texting Chuck at all hours.

So I decided rather precipitously to change the date. I called Road Scholar and they agreed to change to the same tour but with a 9/25 departure date. Same price, but, sadly, since I am now less than 60 days from the original departure, they can only give me half credit for the fee. Fortunately I had bought all-reasons travel insurance as well, so I can get back the other half from the insurance company. So I was trying to arrange that while simultaneously talking to Angela and Gloria, and it was kind of stressful.

When the move conference was over I gobbled some lunch and headed out to FOPAL. This is the last day for arranging one’s section before the sale this weekend. I processed five boxes of computer books, sent four boxes to the bargain room (the bargain room guy, Frank, says there’s no room on the shelves there, either, but he’ll deal with it) and priced one box. But rather than shelve them, I set the box in the vast mound of boxes for all sections labeled “Hold”. Then I spent two hours sorting and boxing, and came home quite tired.

For supper I headed to the open table where Rosina usually sits. Ed and Colin joined me. During the conversation (much of it about Colin’s boyhood in South Africa before WWII, as Colin is rather chatty) it emerged that Rosina during her career in education traveled the world setting up links between classes in, she says, 104 countries, so that the classes can meet over Skype and converse.

Like I said, I’m surrounded by over-achievers. It’s quite shocking to me what an ageist I am. I just never expect an old person to be a distinguished anything. Old people don’t matter, as a matter of mental habit. It’s just like racism: automatically assuming less, or discounting the value, of a person based on physical appearance. Gray racism. I think it’s one factor in why I am having trouble remembering names to go with faces. Not the only factor; I’ve always been bad at remembering names. But to some extent, my brain doesn’t like to pay attention to old wrinkly faces, or distinguish between them. Of course the irony is, I’m one of them. Which I only remember when looking in the mirror.

Day 218, intro, bills, FOPAL

Monday, 7/8/2019

Today at 9am was the monthly Residents’ Meeting in the auditorium, at which I along with two other new residents was introduced. There were lots of other items on the meeting agenda of course. I hadn’t realized that Tom, who with Nancy had invited me to sit with them at dinner on day 215, was the president of the Residents’ Association and so ran the meeting. Well, part of that was that their last name in the directory is Fiene, and I had no idea that was the person “Tom Feeny” who was the president.

Betsy had done a nice job of summarizing the reminiscences I’d given her on day 211. The other new residents were Sally (one-time Registrar and assistant Provost at Stanford) and Tammy, biologist.

Now I texted to Chuck to remind him that today was the last day of the sale, and to arrange a meeting for tomorrow to plan the next steps in the sale. That out of the way I paid a couple of bills and looked at a medical appointment. Months ago my cardiologist had put in an order for an echocardiogram to be done in July, with a checkup to follow. I finally got around to actually scheduling those two appointments, the echo for the end of July and the exam at the doctor’s first available, mid-August.

I needed a few things: laundry bleach, a toilet brush (so I can not insult my housekeeper with a foul toilet) and if possible, a small waste can for the bathroom. So I walked over to CVS on University avenue and was able to get the first two items.

One loose end in the Tasso house is the fireplace. When we replaced it in 1990, after the Loma Prieta earthquake broke the chimney, Marian despised the replacement because it wasn’t as big and comfortable-looking as the old one. True, it had a proper heat jacket so it was much more efficient at warming the room then the old brick one. True it had a gas flame on very realistic ceramic logs so it was easy to start and made no mess from wood chips or ashes. But it wasn’t the old one, it was unnatural. So the one thing it would not have was an electric igniter with a remote to raise and lower the flame. It has a manual gas valve and you light it by hand with a match or a lighter.

OK, well, that’s in my opinion a detraction for selling the house. It should have an electric igniter with a knob, if not a remote, to raise and lower the flame. Nobody now wants to lean in with a lighter and have the gas go FFWOOFF at you as it lights. You can lose eyebrows on that thing if you aren’t careful. So I looked at Yelp for gas fireplace installers, and got in touch with one. In a later phone call, Eric said he’d stop by tomorrow about noon. That’ll be convenient, I’ll be there meeting with Chuck anyway.

That out of the way (Lordy but my mornings are productive) I headed off to FOPAL. We are coming up to sale weekend, the place is overflowing with books. But my computer section is just comfortably full of I think some really interesting stuff that I think will sell.

On the way back to C.H. I stopped at the hardware store and found a nice little brushed-steel trash container to sit behind the toilet, so that’s crossed off.

By coincidence I ran into Craig Diane and Patti on the way to supper so sat with that group. Pleasant chat, and I learned things about C.H. internal politics and policies.

Day 212, book, museum

Tuesday, 7/2/2019

I began the morning by driving to the Y for a small workout. I departed late enough that the dining room was open, and I picked up a bagel and banana to eat while I drove. However, I want to be able to do my workout here, and drop the YMCA membership. However, that will mean changing the workout, as two apparatus that I use, aren’t in the C.H. gym.

Right now, the fitness director has announced her departure, and a new one hasn’t been appointed. There is a buzz of email on the house list of people lobbying for the director’s assistant, Clark, to be promoted. He’s apparently very popular with the residents. I have no opinion; he seemed nice enough when he evaluated my fitness back on Day 152.

Anyway, when that is resolved I intend to get with whoever is director and ask for help in mapping out an exercise routine that will strengthen the particular muscle groups that I’m concerned about, and that I can do here.

That done, I edited another chapter of my book, and explored one of the websites where I might get hard-copy made. That would be Blurb, which I used to produce two photo books for the Cardinal WBB team back in 2012 and 2013. I still need to check out Kindle Direct, because why not be able to sell through Amazon?

During this I was getting emails from Chuck with documents to e-sign and return. We are finally and definitively separated from Lawyer Lady, and good riddance.

I had a quick lunch and headed off to the museum to lead that tour that I accepted yesterday. Stopped briefly at Tasso street to sign Deborah’s sales agreement. The tour were a dozen residents of The Terraces at Los Altos, another upscale senior residence. They could have been a random selection from C.H. Anyway I had fun with them and they seemed appreciative.

Back to C.H. in time for the monthly Upgrade Progress meeting held by Angela. She went over again the timeline for the 7th floor moving back and the 6th floor moving out. No changes but a little more detail. Our common areas, except for the laundry room, will be closed for renovation starting later this week.

Between 3:30 and supper time I began to explore a replacement for PhotoShop. I am a bit of a PhotoShop power user, very familiar with it, have used it to process hundreds of scanned slides etc. A couple of years ago, Adobe changed their pricing so that one no longer could own the latest PhotoShop (or Bridge or LightRoom, etc) but only leased them via an annual payment for Creative Cloud membership. I put up with this while finishing up my slide scanning, but did not renew when it came due this spring, and all that software has stopped working. Actually I still have a five-year-old PhotoShop that works, but it would be nice to have something current and supported.

There’s The Gimp, the open-source image editor. I picked up a book on it last week at FOPAL, so downloaded the program and checked it out. It lacks several features that I used heavily, as well as having a confusing UI (and the book wasn’t very good either). No.

For certain things, GraphicConverter is very useful and I have it on both computers, but it isn’t my favorite tool for image editing.

Some time ago I bought a copy of Pixelmator and it would probably do most of what I want. However I recently heard of Affinity Pro and decided to try their trial download. And Wow! am I impressed. For $39, here was a program with every feature of the latest PhotoShop, and more. I watched a couple of their tutorial videos, tried out a couple of things, and immediately bought it. Yes. Nice.

Day 199, gym, tidy up, counters, FOPAL, furniture

Wednesday, 6/19/2019

Between breakfast and time to leave for the museum at 10:30, I totally blitzed a bunch of unsorted stuff. Weeks ago I cleaned out the desk by moving all sorts of office and stationery items, also some electronics and things like cameras, into the drawers of a tall narrow chest. Plus there was a big box of office supplies of various sorts. Now I went through all of that.

I populated the two “desk” drawers, shallow drawers at the top of the file cabinet that sits under the drawer-less computer desk, with the usual things, neatly arranged. Back in 1975-77 when we lived in England, we accumulated the cute little tins that the Brits sell candy in. They make perfect little drawer organizers.

I moved often-used printer supplies into the little table the printer sits on. I put lesser-needed supplies and such into drawers in the tall chest, but more rationally organized.

Then I cleared off the plywood counters in the bathroom and kitchenette in hopes the real counters would be installed today — and in fact, just as I was ready to leave, the guys with the counter tops arrived!

I joined the other docent named Dave to lead tours for a group of Berkeley students. Not the usual Comp. Sci. class, rather a group of Swedish exchange students doing graduate studies in management. So older, and not quite as tech-y as some student groups. Older, but not old enough. When I hold up a vacuum tube and say, hands up who knows what this is, not one one hand went up.

The 1401 team was there early and volunteered to give this class their demo when Dave and I finished our tours, so the Swedes got the full deal. They seemed appreciative.

Then I got some lunch, and changed clothes (I didn’t want to wear my fire-engine red docent shirt to FOPAL, and brought a Tee and jeans) and went to sort books. When I signed out at 4:15, I was honestly bushed. I stopped by Tasso street to look for the indoor/outdoor thermometer, but it wasn’t there. It must be packed in one of the 2 boxes I’ve not opened yet — I hope.

On arrival home I found my Corian counter tops installed, but still no sinks or faucets.

There is a possibility that a guy will want to look at and maybe buy the sofa tonight, and I really hope he cancels. I don’t want to go out again. As soon as I had settled in to writing this and relaxing, a man arrived to install the sinks and faucets. Then Harry, the guy who borrowed my old Kodak carousel projector, called to ask if he could come return it. So it’s a three-ring circus around here.

Deborah texted; Tony wants to pick up the sofa. So I grabbed a quick supper and went back to Tasso street. Forgetting to bring the front-door key. Oh, wait, the secret back door key stash is still there, I think. Yup, so I could get in. And now have moved the secret back door key to the bag with the other keys, so that won’t work again.

Tony took the sofa and one chair and the ottoman, but couldn’t or wouldn’t spring another $100 to get the second chair. Off he went and I went home to find both my sinks and faucets in. But the kitchen sink has a slow leak around the trap, so there’s that to fix.

Craig called to set up his formal floor-manager interview with me. And finally it was the end of a long day!

Day 194, counting down to move

Friday, 6/14/2019

First up, I went for a run (“the last run on this route” — just about every thing I did today was “the last” something.)

Then I rearranged the to-do lists, moving “Kill AT&T and DirecTV” to Saturday morning, just in case they would actually cut off service immediately. Then did a bunch of small things, including the laundry. I’m trying to arrange so that all my clothes are either clean, or on my body, when the movers come.

I found two drawers of stuff I’d never triaged! One was the travel drawer, all the stuff like toiletry bags, foreign plug adapters, etc. that one would rummage through when packing for a trip. The other was just a drawer of “decide later” items that I’d collected back in, probably, December. Well, “later” is here, so I went through that, selected a few things to keep, left the rest for Deborah to try to sell.

I was still flip-flopping on the TaskRabbit thing. TaskRabbit support responded with the PDF of their Certificate of Insurance, so I emailed that to Angela. (Responded at 8am to a ticket I opened at 10pm, not bad.)

Then I drove to Channing House and found Angela in her office. She was in the middle of conferring with the new Director of Facilities, who introduced himself, so that was handy. We settled that I would get at least enough Facilities help to set up the bed, and as much more as they would be able to do on a Saturday. She reviewed the PDF I’d sent, and she and the Facilities guy looked at it and agreed that normally, such documents name the organization, in this case Channing House, specifically, and this one was generic. She said she would ask them for a customized one, and I saw later she’d written to support@taskrabbit, copying me, but I doubt there will be any useful reply. So I canceled that Task, and I’ll rely on CH staff.

Back home, I shut down the big iMac and packed it up in the original form-fitting Apple shipping box. And then… there’s nothing more to do, today.

Well, while at CH, I picked up my mail, and there was the bag of TO-5 form transistors that I wanted to replace the two a museum visitor filched. So I have the transistors to show-and-tell. (Specifically the TO-5, which look like metal top-hats on three legs, because that is the shape of the transistors on the circuit boards that are on display. It’s an old style not much used now, but I think having the one I show look just like the ones on the exhibits, is important.)

OK, but I hand the transistors around for inspection in a little clear plastic box. It was the perfect size, about 2 inches tall and about ¾-inch square, to hold two transistors. I can’t remember where I got said box, but it is gone now. So I spent a wonderful half hour on the internet trying to find a similar box. Amazon, Etsy, Ebay, Nope.

At 3:30, Deborah texted, could I see a buyer for the desk today? OK. So I hustled around and cleaned the dust off Marian’s desk. Sam arrived and we carried it out to his car and he gave me cash. Deborah says with Craig’s List, cash is king. I’m not used to having a wad in my pocket. I need to do a cash deposit pretty quick, my money clip is stressed.

Deborah wanted to know how old the desk was. I am not sure. Marian had it when we married. From 1965 to 1968 she was in Hawaii and I doubt she would have shipped a lot of furniture back and forth. So I can only guess she bought it between 1968 when she settled in her apartment in Menlo Park and started working at IBM’s Watson Court building, and 1973 when we married. I told Sam it was probably bought around 1969-70, and he was very impressed. “So, it’s like… fifty years old already?” He looked about 40-ish to me, so I guess, anything is an antique if it’s older than you are?

A week ago, a Susan Gilbert at CH emailed asking if I’d join them for dinner Friday night, so at 5:15 or so I need to leave for that. A Social Event. Tidied myself up for that.

OK let’s try to remember names. Susan and Keith Gilbert. Keith said, “Your biggest problem moving in, is remembering all the names. Like me.” I gotta like this guy! They’ve been at CH for just a year. Ann Clark, Bob Schwaar, longer time. Lennie Stovel, she is new also, and hasn’t moved in yet. Impressive people generally. Lennie managed software development for Stanford Libraries. They’d all attended colleges like Wellesley, MIT, Stanford.

Burning off the last recorded shows on the DVR which will be shut down later.

Day 193, Shustek, realty, bed, TaskRabbit

Thursday, 6/13/2019

A strange emotional thing this morning. As I was starting my drive to the Shustek center for a day of artifact work, I was thinking about the impending move, and suddenly I was full of emotion, sadness, grief. I was driving down 101 wiping my eyes and cursing that I didn’t have any Kleenex in the car.

I’ve been cruising along, staying on top of the situation, managing the logistics of buying furniture, packing, scheduling, like a boss, and while occasionally feeling unfocused anxiety, not any strong emotion. And suddenly this business of moving house was a major thing. I couldn’t talk about it without my voice getting husky and breaking. It’s like grief for my lost partner, but now for losing a home. Or, as I wrote back on day 3 or 4, another big shard of the old life falling away.

Well, you can say this for grief, it sure clears the sinuses.

At Shustek, Greta asked me to do packing. After new objects come in and are cataloged, they move to the “need photo” rack.

Tray of seven happy artifacts waiting to be scanned

After they are photographed, they move to the “pack” rack. Now small artifacts get stowed in acid-free cardboard trays, which get stacked in acid-free cardboard boxes and, after all the bar-codes have been scanned so we know what box every object is in, the boxes will get shipped to the Yosemite warehouse for shelving.

The last time I did this work was seven or eight years ago, when the museum was packing the whole collection for the initial move to the Yosemite warehouse. It’s a nice Tetris-like puzzle game. The objects may be in this tray for many years. They shouldn’t be touching each other, because over time plastic can weld onto whatever it touches. We use archival bags and bits of foam to ensure that, and to keep them from moving. We test movement by tilting the tray 30º each way, nothing should move.

So I did that for three hours plus a break for lunch, then I had to leave early in order to meet with Chuck and Deborah at 3pm. Chuck had not met Deborah before; she was recommended by someone he used to work with but this was their first meeting. They got on well; I imagine he will call on her to manage client sales in the future. Chuck and I discussed the L.L. and her husband. He still isn’t sure what motivates her. She’s pretty tightly wound, apparently. We just don’t know if she is going to go through with the deal or will have a panic attack and pull out at the last minute. The last minute would be 5pm Saturday, when the time mentioned in the acceptance letter expires.

Chuck had just gotten a text from the other agent, saying that L.L. and her ex-husband slash architect wanted to do one more walk-through and inspect the foundation — on Saturday morning. I said, if they don’t mind stepping between guys moving boxes out to a van, sure. So maybe I’ll get to meet her. I’m not worried about them looking at the foundation, there’s a good story to tell there, about having it repaired and the house bolted down in 1990.

We talked about what to do if she does bail, and scheduled the day of the big estate sale with Deborah, for July 6/7.

About this time Bill, a client of Deborah who wanted to see the bed, arrived. He looked at the bed, gave me $200, and we arranged he could pick it up Sunday at noon.

On Wednesday I’d emailed Angela to confirm having Facilities help setting up furniture on Saturday. Today she wrote back saying I could have two hours of free facilities time and somebody would be available 2-4 Saturday however, the person might be called away if there was some higher priority item to do. What?

So now I tried to set up a TaskRabbit arrangement. But Angela said, they don’t allow outside workers without a Certificate of Liability Insurance. Now ensued a period where I texted back and forth with the particular “Tasker” I’d chosen, while myself delving deep into the TaskRabbit.com website, trying to find the elusive C. of L.I. He thought he’d found it, but it was at a URL that could only be opened by someone logged in as a Tasker, not by a Client. Eventually he sent me a screen capture of the document, which I forwarded to Angela, but by then it was after 5pm.

Later that Tasker just canceled out of the job. I restarted with another, but at 9:30pm he had no more luck at finding the elusive document. He said he’d try to get back to me by tomorrow at noon. Meanwhile I sent a late email to Angela stressing I would want a Facilities person between 2 and 4 Saturday. I figure if I also have managed to qualify the outside contractor by then, fine, there’s work enough for both.

I may end up assembling my bed by myself, and will be rather grumped if that occurs.

Day 191, power out, stuff, painting, condenser

Well, last night was interesting. About quarter to seven I was watching TV when I noticed red lights reflecting on my walls. Looked out, there’s a fire truck parked in the street. And just then the power went out.

I joined other neighbors on the street. Pat and Rich down the block had noticed fumes coming from a transformer on the utility pole opposite their house. They called various numbers and got no quick response, so finally they called 911 and got a fire truck in 5 minutes. The fire crew were standing around looking at the fuming transformer (like a 30-gallon oil drum up at the top of a rather high pole) when the power went out for our block.

The P.A. Utilities arrived a few minutes later, as one guy in a van. He looked up at the pole and talked into a mic. A few minutes later a truck with a cherry picker arrived. This guy went up in the air and looked at the transformer close up. And came down and talked on his mic for a while.

I went back in the house. It was now too dark for reading print. I read on my laptop for an hour, by which time there were two utility trucks, working different poles along the street. So I went to bed. As on the previous night, our Pacific Ocean cooling breezes failed to come in. It was still over 80º at 9pm. Expecting the power to come on, I lay on top of the bed in my clothes.

At 10pm the light came on! I had just sat up when it went off again. I looked out; the utility guys were still working. At 2:45am I got up to pee; they were still working, now on a pole across from my house.

At 4am the lights came on to stay. There were still two Utility trucks and several workers. Hats off to the P.A. Utilities for working all night. This morning I see there are what looks like new transformers on two poles. Mind you, each pole has wires coming off in several angles to serve different houses. It is no joke steering the bucket of a cherry picker up through that to remove and replace heavy pieces of equipment — in the dark. Good work, guys.

Tuesday, 6/11/2019

Owing the heat I decided not to do explicit exercise this morning. Instead stayed in and took care of more minor to-dos.

I went around the house clipping the Virginia Creeper tendrils back from the windows.
I went on eBay and found somebody selling old-style (TO-5) transistors and ordered a few to replace the ones that some visitor pocketed from me (Day 188).
I made PDF files out of my Medical Power of Attorney and Advanced Health Care Directive documents — the same documents I need to hand in at C.H. — and emailed them to the people named in them as my representatives, Dennis and Darlene.
Then I went on the DocuBank site. This is a site where you can file your medical info, and you carry a card with your user id and a PIN, and any provider can download your info. I checked; yup, it had my old Advanced Directive, naming Marian as my rep. So I uploaded a new one.
I went out to the Comcast/XFinity store and picked up my new DVR and cable modem boxes, and stopped at Fry’s to buy a digital audio cable.

Somewhere in this flurry, Deborah texted to find out when a buyer could take my bed. I said, I don’t need it after Saturday. Could they get it Saturday? Um, no, I’m gonna be kind of busy; is Sunday OK?

Chuck texted; the Lawyer Lady wants to come by “with an architect” to measure the house inside and out to make remodeling plans. Could they come at 2? Oh sure why not. So at 1:45 I left and for lack of a better option (in hindsight I can think of several) went to FOPAL and did sorting for 2 hours.

Then at 4 I came home, changed shirts, and drove to CH for the 6th Floor Meeting and supper after.

This meeting was helpful in one way. CH encourages people to hang their art on the hallway walls. The wall outside your unit is your gallery space. You are supposed to identify your prints and paintings with your name on the back, but there are many that are not identified. People die or move away, their relatives don’t pick up their art (or don’t care), things collect.

There is a large painting of a lighthouse just opposite the 6th floor lounge where the meeting is held. Agenda item 1, Craig announced, is that one of the residents would really like to have this for themselves, as the wife grew up near the depicted lighthouse. The painting has no name on it and nobody has claimed it. Would the assembled meeting be willing to give the painting to so-and-so. Aye, so moved.

Next, what to hang there? Someone had offered a painting of the Stanford Quad. A picture of it was passed around on Craig’s phone and nobody much liked it. Well, I have my Linsky painting of Yosemite Valley and had been wondering where I could hang it for public view that would have adequate light. I put my hand up and offered it, and later passed around its picture on my phone. Everyone liked it, so that’s done. On Saturday it can go straight up on the wall opposite the lounge.

After supper I looked at my phone and found Chuck had texted about the L.L.’s visit. One, it wasn’t an architect she’d brought, but her ex-husband! Looking for his OK? Apparently he approved, anyway. Two, the $50K deposit has been wired to the escrow. That doesn’t mean the sale is locked in, she could still pull out, but it’s pretty solid. And three, oh by the way, while they were there, they noticed the A/C condenser smoking, and pulled the breaker on it.

See the first paragraph of yesterday’s post! Did I jinx myself? I put the breaker back and tried the A/C. I could hear a relay click, but the condenser fan doesn’t turn. The condenser is pretty old — I could go get the red binder and check, but why — so not a surprise. I went on Yelp and did the thing where you request quotes from multiple vendors. Hopefully I can get it fixed this week.