Day 270, Yosemite and theater

Thursday, 8/28/2019

Drove to the east bay to the Yosemite ave warehouse for a day of “curatorial review”. Toni and I went through five boxes of artifacts, verifying the number, noting condition, adding notes to the database records. We found several items that hadn’t been photographed or had been photographed poorly, and passed those to Bud and Sherman who were doing photography.

This might sound boring but it had its moments. One came when we were looking at a large circuit board. Its database record description basically said “PCB board”, plus the usual dimensions and other details that we always note. But what was it, actually?

I knew from its appearance that it was an S-100 bus board, because I had owned and worked with many of them in the CP/M era, roughly 1976-1980. It had two ZIF (zero insertion force) sockets with handwritten labels in marker, 2708 and 2716, which I was pretty sure were EPROM chips. So, it’s an EPROM programming board. All I had to do was type the maker name and a couple of words more, “Solid state music s-100 programmer” into a search and there it was complete with a photograph of the identical board and even a link to the original manual! So we could enter a much more informative description and that URL into the database entry for that artifact.

This is the kind of thing that us old-fart museum volunteers can do almost without thinking, but would be hard for anyone else.

Back to C.H. to clear my email and get a quick supper, and then off to the Pear Theater to see a production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband. The cast did it quite well and it was fairly enjoyable.

Day 263, Shustek, dinner

Thursday, 8/22/2019

In the morning I did a fifteen-minute workout based on a couple of online tutorials. It was enough to bring up a sweat and addresses my main concerns about core strength. I’ll keep adding to it over time.

Then I brought up the three drawers from the woodshop and put them back. Five of nine drawers refinished inside, and I’m not sure if I’ll bother with the remaining four, as I don’t use them much.

Off to a day at Shustek. Toni and I worked all day cataloging more of the collected donation of the Mother of Multimedia at Apple (Day 235).

Back to C.H. at 4:30, just time to change into my new blazer to attend the Sodexo Stop Hunger Dinner. This was a special annual event; I had to sign up and pay $80 in advance. Sodexo (our food contractor) donates the meal, all the money goes to local charities that feed the poor one way or another. The menu was elaborate, five separate courses, all very well presented and attractive to the eye. Flavors, not so great. But pretty to look at.

Clear Bloody Mary Consommé (juice of cherry tomatoes with tiny chives and vodka)
Ahi Crudo: small slices of almost-raw Ahi with chopped hazelnuts. I really don’t like raw fish so this pretty dish was wasted on me.
Arroz Caldo: basically a nice risotto decorated with chives and bits of pork belly
Adobo & Gnocchi: five-hour ox-tail braised in ginger and vinegar, with gnocchi made of sweet potatoes. The orange gnocchi were pretty but just a touch leathery; the meat was good.
Coconut Lychee Aspic Cake with passion fruit.

So they were really trying. I give them a 9 for imagination and for presentation, and about a 7 for flavor.

Anyway I was invited by Craig to join his table, which included his wife Diane, Kathleen (a different Kathleen from Day 260), Joanne, Connie, the other David, and a guy whose name I didn’t get although I’ve met him once before. Lot of pleasant conversation for about 2 hours, and now I’ve had my quota of socializing for a while.

Day 256, docent, Yosemite, supper

Thursday, 8/15/2019

Starting a long busy day I didn’t exercise, but had breakfast in the dining room. On Monday I had seen an email from the museum about a private tour Thursday morning that needed covering. On Tuesday I had checked and it still wasn’t covered, so I reluctantly decided to do that tour and join the archival crew after lunch. So I left at quarter to ten for the museum where I met with a nice group of a dozen high school students in some kind of Stanford summer program. They paid attention pretty well, and Pat came in entirely of his own volition and gave them a 1401 demo, which they loved, as everyone does.

Drove to Yosemite where Aurora was trying to get people trained in her grand plan (see Day 242). Unfortunately there were not enough laptops to get everyone working, and I and Toni ended up sitting around at loose ends. So I left early.

In today’s mail: the replacement checks from Schwab, that I only ordered two days ago. Way to go, Schwab!

I had been invited to supper by a couple, Mary and Andrew. Turned out they had also invited Lily and her sister (name forgotten), both residents but living on different floors, and Michael, the “newer new guy” who came in last month. Lily is vivacious and talkative, and promoting her harmonica playing group and wants me to help her get her book of daily meditations online as an ebook. She’ll be my neighbor when I move to the 4th floor. There was some talk also of my book, in which people expressed interest.

Michael indicated although not in any detail that he was a recent widower; some remark about “this last year has been such turmoil” or such words. And there was some talk about how hard it is for everyone when they are trying to downsize. I didn’t contribute to that although I certainly agree.

In the evening I joined an audience of 50 or so in the auditorium to view a documentary on the life of Judy Garland.

Day 249, Shustek, real estate

Thursday, 8/8/2019

I headed out to Shustek for a day of cataloging. Steve and I cataloged a NeXT system that was supposed to be “fully functional” according to the donation record. So of course after cataloging the pieces (system unit, monitor, keyboard, mouse) we hooked them all together and powered it up. We could hear fans spinning, and the monitor showed a very dim raster. In which I could read messages about system test complete, booting from SCSI drive 1, waiting for drive to come online… and that was it. The internal drive never came up. Unfortunately this unit was intended for the “study collection” meaning it was meant to be actually used in education classes, could be touched, and so forth. But without some work it isn’t going to fulfill that role.

After lunch we unwrapped something completely different.

It’s basically a tape cassette, kind of like an audio cassette but blown up to the size of a boom-box, and loaded with tape more than an inch wide. It’s made by IBM, with a big IBM logo on one end. What in the heck could it be? We would have been wondering still, except that volunteer Alan, whose mind is a wonderland of computer trivia, said, “Wait wait wait. Wait a minute. Look up ‘Harvest’.” A quick trip to Wikipedia and we found the IBM 7950 “Harvest” system, once a top-secret addition to the early “Stretch” supercomputer, which from 1962 to 1975 did cryptanalysis for the NSA. A major feature of it was a special tape subsystem called “Tractor” which managed a library of these tape cassettes. And here was one of the cassettes! No doubt it has never been erased, and that reel of wide mag tape probably contains all sorts of once-classified data. Which nobody on earth has the equipment to read now.

While this was going on I was exchanging texts with Chuck. An issue hanging on from last month is the foundation inspection that Lawyer Lady had done on one of her last visits. We have been trying to get some info on what this inspection revealed, apparently there were some small(?) issues, although not enough to bother L.L. Chuck suddenly thinks we should get them fixed and have a new inspection done. He spoke to the previous inspector but stopped short of asking for a copy of the report because, he says, if we have it, we must show it to buyers, and if it is “phrased negatively” it could harm the sale. So he is apparently in a delicate dance to get some details and a recommendation of a contractor suitable to do a repair, without actually obtaining a paper that we would be required to disclose.

I am all for doing this repair, which I expect to be in the low thousands, but I am very reluctant to hold off the open house to do it. I asked Chuck to please expedite contacting a contractor and getting an estimate. We’ll see. I can imagine this pushing the open house date back weeks, grrrr.

Came home to do laundry.

Day 242, contractors, Yosemite, realty

Thursday, 8/1/2019

First thing after breakfast I sent an email to Mark, the sales guy for Davey Tree service. I’d heard nothing from them since accepting their estimate for trimming several days ago. I get a response in half an hour, “We’re coming today.” Gee, thanks for the warning. Later I confirmed with Chuck that they hadn’t contacted him either. The problem was, there is a flooring contractor scheduled to start on the kitchen floor today, and the painters aren’t quite done either.

So I drove over to the house on my way to a day of museum work across the bay. The Davey team were already at work, a huge truck in the driveway supporting a cherry picker, and a guy up among the oak branches. Mark was just driving away, and we conferred, and then talked to the second tree guy who was on the ground. He didn’t see any problem and would keep an eye out for contractors. When I said “flooring contractor” he said, “what kind, laminate or what?” I said, “laminate” and he said, “Oh no problem, my cousin does laminate floors, and I know he won’t have much stuff to bring in.”

So I went off to Yosemite. Today I and Steve spent the day beginning the implementation of Aurora’s grand plan to check every box. We fetched down a cart load of boxes. I was running the computer and Steve was handling stuff. I would do a search on the box number, and tell Steve how many objects were returned by the search. He would count to make sure there were that many objects in the box. Only once was the count wrong. It was one too high. We had to go through the objects and check their numbers against the search results. Yup, there was one object not listed as being in that box. So we searched on its number, and found it was recorded as being in a different box on a different shelf. So we went and found that box and shoved the item (an unpopulated PCB) into that box. Problem solved.

Then I’d check whether each object had a photograph in the database. A few did not, and Steve would mark them with a “photo needed” tag and that box would go on the “to be photographed” shelf. Otherwise it was all good and went on the “return to storage” shelf.

We ripped through a dozen boxes in the day, at the end of which Steve commented, “Well, I said this was going to be a ten-year project. Now I think it might only be eight.”

I came home by way of Tasso street. The tree guys were gone and the trees looked fine. The oak branches are well clear of the house now. The big Pittisporums are not touching the house roof either, and there’s quite a bit more light in the back yard.

Inside I found that nothing had been done with the floor, apparently that guy didn’t come. The painters were pretty nearly done. I was distressed to find that they had sealed the butcher-block counter tops in the kitchen with something hard, that looks almost like varnish. That’s not right at all.

I texted Chuck with these observations. Later in the evening he called me up. He’d talked to the flooring guy who had said, well, some materials didn’t come in, so he can’t come until Monday. That pretty well messes up the time-line for opening the house on Friday week. So Chuck says now we’ll slip it a week to 8/16, and I have to agree. He’ll discuss the kitchen counters with Eric the painter.

Day 235, FOPAL meeting, Shustek, book

Thursday, 7/25/2019

First thing after breakfast I printed out the work estimate from Davey Tree Service, signed it, scanned it, and mailed it back to the estimator, authorizing that tree maintenance. Hopefully it will get done next week.

I went down to the garage, got the marked-up book from the car, and spent an hour finishing the edit of the printed copy. I started to enter the changes in the files but got distracted by noticing how badly Leanpub’s software was rendering the several poem stanzas I had quoted. So I started to write up a detailed problem report on the Leanpub author forum, and realized it was past time to leave, so left that undone.

I headed out for a FOPAL brunch meeting at the Mitchell Park Library. Janette, the volunteer director, told us a lot about the pickup gang, the few volunteers who go out and pick up donated books from people who can’t bring them to us. I went in with concerns about the flood of books and how we seem to be falling further behind all the time. I got some confirmation from Frank, a volunteer I enjoy talking with who knows the operations better than I. There is a mountain of about 100 boxes of unsorted donations in the Sorting Room, but Frank knows there are another 200 boxes, some dating back to last year, stacked in a courtyard by the bargain room. After the meeting I talked to Janette about this a bit; she pointed out that there are people who sort other times than the 2-4pm slots when we are open for donations. People sort at night and other times. In my opinion we need a lot more sorting, but I didn’t want to add to her burdens by harping on this point.

I did talk to her about giving a presentation about FOPAL at C.H. and she liked the idea. This evening I wrote to Betsy, on the Events committee, suggesting this.

From there I drove across the bay to Shustek. There I assisted Bud and Toni in taking inventory of the donation from a person who was the director of Multimedia at Apple in the 1980s and 90s. She apparently kept everything. Today we were just making a list of media items, dozens of VHS tapes, Betamax tapes, U-Matic tapes, Hi-8 tapes, CDs and audio cassettes. I read the labels, Toni entered the titles and other info in a spreadsheet, while Bud was going through every cassette type that had a read-only tab and breaking it out so the cassettes couldn’t be recorded-over. We got through a few boxes, with more to go.

Back home I finished and posted my trouble report with poetry formatting. Later in the evening I got a reply, saying basically that it isn’t completely implemented yet, and suggesting a work-around that I’ll try tomorrow. I’m a little dissatisfied with LeanPub. They have a basically good idea and good support, but they have been very slow to get their support complete for corner cases and smaller features. Well, I’ve no real choice but to leave the book there, for online sales. Kindle Direct will be another outlet.

Day 228, Yosemite, concert

Thursday, 7/18/2019

Thursday means a slower start, breakfast in the dining room, and a 9am departure for the East Bay, this week to the vast Yosemite warehouse of the CHM. My task this day was to take photographs of artifacts. Aurora, the collections manager, has embarked herself and her band of volunteers on what will be a years-long process, a 100% inventory of the collection. Unlike the prior cataloging projects I worked in during 2008-9 and 2015-16, which had the fun acronym of CARP, Collections Accession and Reconciliation Project, this much larger project has no cute acronym, nor does it have a grant to fund it.

Anyway, this involves bringing down each box of artifacts and checking that it contains what it’s supposed to. The check is easy because the Museum database, an app named Mimsy, allows searching for artifacts by box number. Then you have a list and a count of artifacts that should be in the box, and can quickly verify that they are there and whether they have photographs in the catalog. A visual check finds whether the packing is optimal, so artifacts aren’t crowded, and noting any wasted space that could be used.

Typically everything will match up and the box can be moved back to shelving under a new and more space-efficient stacking scheme. Space is a problem, as the warehouse that once seemed so huge, is approaching fullness, and the Museum continues to accept new artifacts. Aurora calls the problem of space-efficient box stacking as “museum Tetris”.

For various reasons, some artifacts had never been photographed, and maybe one percent will turn up, or not turn up, to be in the box they’re supposed to be in. Today I was photographing things that needed it. Normally photography is a two-person job, but it can be done by one, and I enjoy doing it by myself, so that was a fun day.

On the way home, responding to a text from Deborah, I stopped at Tasso street to verify that a large cabinet was still in the garage. She has a potential buyer. It is there; and I was pleased to see that there was also a painting crew busily at work prepping the interior. So that’s moving along.

I at supper with Rosina, Robin, Mel, Mary (another Mary, there are a lot of Marys around here) and Ed. Working on this.

In the mailbox was a letter from the TSA telling me “Congratulations!” my application for TSA Precheck has been approved for another bunch of years.

From supper I took a Lyft to Dinkelspiel for another Stanford Jazz Festival concert. This was a much-anticipated (by others, I’d never attended one) Evening with Victor Lin. Lin is an enthusiastic teacher and proponent of jazz and, based on what I heard tonight, a superb jazz pianist. He opened the show with two long numbers that were just lovely to listen to, and to follow him through all the variations he was doing. This was the 22nd “Evening” he’s run, where he introduces students and teachers from the festival, matching them in unexpected combinations, giving them things to do outside their comfort zone, and hilarity ensues. Like bringing out four other pianists and having all five of them playing blues on the two Steinways on stage, swapping seats and reaching over each other. Tonight some of the combinations didn’t work, and the whole second half seemed slow and a bit of a downer to me, and other people who’d seen previous shows agreed.

The “other people” in question were Jerry, Betty and Margaret from Channing House, who were sitting at the other end of the row I was in. I was able to get a ride home with them. During the ride Margaret, finding I was in the process of selling my house, went at length into her (fairly recent, I gather) home sale. She had an early offer for the house as-is, but the buyers wanted a contingency on the sale of their own home and 90 days to do it. Margaret’s realtor advised her they were unrealistic, and wouldn’t be able to sell their house at the price they needed, so she rejected the offer, and went ahead with the painting and staging routine, which she apparently found stressful. In the end, the best offer they got was from the original buyers, whose home had sold, but their new offer was $100K less than before. She felt aggrieved by this process, reasonably so.

Day 221, Shustek, book

Thursday, 7/11/2019

Woke early, and the paper didn’t arrive until 6:45. This kind of inverts my usual morning, with internet browsing first and newspaper after. Not now, but when I am permanently back to the sixth floor next year, I will try to work out an arrangement to get the paper by 6am. I wonder when delivery happens on the 4th floor, where I’ll be soon?

Anyway, I had some time to pass before leaving for a day at Shustek center. I passed it by starting to prepare the cover files for the print book. The first issue is, what to put on the back cover? I have a lovely illustration for the front, and the PhotoShop file for it (which Affinity Pro opens nicely, fortunately as I no longer have PhotoShop access).

ttbb_cover

So I opened that and considered. I had some notion I could make a back cover by copying the base image, clone out the hiker figure (I love how the hiker is androgynous, could be man or woman, but still projects confidence and courage), leaving only the mountains, darken them, and put them under a night sky. So the back cover would be the same scene, but hours later, at night and the hiker has moved on.

I started doing that, then decided to find my night sky image. Googled “royalty free night sky” and of course there are gazillions of them, among which the following caught my eye.

starry-night-small

It could be my hiker! Clearly this is my back cover. I’ll extend the sky upward into black to fill out a portrait-mode image, and put a block of text over the upper third with advertising copy. I’ll still have to work out a spine image, probably just a solid color with the title text.

So off to Shustek where Toni and I cataloged and arranged some of the multiple box donation of one Julia Wolf. (Not the mathematician in wikipedia, but a software security researcher.) Ms. Wolf has apparently attended every security conference and hacker conference held in the last 15 years, Black Hat, DefCon, ShmooCon and many others. At every conference she collected brochures and freebies like pens and backpacks, and bagged the schwag from each conference and labeled it. So now we were separating the artifacts (pens, badges, backpacks) from the texts (brochures, stickers, anything printed) because these classes are stored in different systems.

Sat alone at dinner; Patti (from my floor) came by and asked if I prefer to eat alone? Well, sometimes, yeah, not always. Tomorrow night, can you join me and some others? Of course! So dinner set for tomorrow night.

Day 207, Shustek, Tasso

Thursday, 6/27/2019

I drove to Shustek for a day of photographing artifacts and then, when the “ready to pack” shelves were full so we couldn’t place any more photographed items, Sherman and I turned to packing.

Deborah was to do some pricing and setup for the sale this afternoon. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to work Chuck’s lockbox. She called me, then she called Chuck, and found out the changed combination, so all was well.

I stopped by Tasso on the way home, but she’d already left. I chatted briefly with neighbors across the street. Former neighbors, I guess.

Back at C.H., while getting my mail before supper I was accosted by Betsy, who has the job of introducing new members at the members meeting, one of which happens next week. So she invited me to dinner with her and her husband tomorrow to get some material for introducing me.

Before bedtime Deborah texted wanting me to meet with a possible washing machine buyer tomorrow. I’m doing a docent tour at noon, but we managed to settle on 2pm for that. So tomorrow has: tour at noon, washing machine looker at 2, dinner at 5:45, and I’m going to a play at 8pm. Checked the map. From my new home, I’m just 0.6 mile from Lucy Stern center where the play is, an easy walk.

Big day, better get some rest.

Day 200, Yosemite, Jean

Thursday, 6/20/2019

Drove to the Yosemite ave. warehouse for a day of artifact work. This was the first time I did this starting from University Avenue downtown, instead of from Page Mill Road. An extra half-mile of slow traffic. On the other hand, this was the first time I started from inside a covered garage. The Prius hardly knows what to do with itself now it is living inside a building instead of being exposed to birds and oak leaves 24/7, like it was for the previous 7 years.

During lunch with the rest of the artifact volunteers, I engaged in a long text conversation with Deborah, who had someone that wanted to buy the washing machine, but had only a pickup truck and wanted help loading it. Eventually it was settled that I would meet them Friday morning for this. I was not enthusiastic about this, and was pleased when a few hours later, Deborah texted that the person had canceled out.

From Milpitas I drove to Mountain View to pick up sister-in-law Jean. She wanted to see Channing House. For her age of 92 she is remarkably healthy. She uses a cane for balance and admits to no longer walking the mile to her church for daily mass. She drives instead.

She was favorably impressed by my new context. She got a free dinner because there was nobody at the entrance to the dining room to whom I could report I was bringing a guest. Her white hair and cane were sufficient camouflage that nobody suspected she might be a visitor.

I am concerned about what she may do going forward. She has about sufficient income to continue living in her current situation, but if she needs more care… And what kind of obligation do I have toward the support of my late wife’s sister? These are not easy issues.