Day 106 – plants and books and termites

Went to the Creamery for a burger and coffee. Breaking with tradition I did not order a chocolate/chocolate shake. Just a burger with coleslaw (not fries) and coffee.

Walking from my car to the Creamery I noticed

Mac’s Smoke Shop

and remembered the many times Marian and I would browse the magazine racks there. It’s been a long time since I bought magazines on a regular basis; I stopped doing that even before I stopped buying physical books. But I remembered one of my favorite magazines for occasional purchase, WoodenBoat. I think I bought WoodenBoat for the first time in an airport gift shop, and bought occasional copies for years after, when traveling, or at Mac’s. I always found the highly detailed, loving accounts of boat restoration to be deeply relaxing. I could sink into (well, poor metaphor there) a copy of WoodenBoat for a couple of hours.

So for the heck of it I walked into Mac’s and scanned the magazine shelves. I wasn’t even certain the magazine still existed, but on about the fifth rack I checked, there it was, and in good health, too, a hefty perfect-bound block of pages, solid in the hand, full of ads for WoodenBoat classes and WoodenBoat boat plans and even WoodenBoat t-shirts and hoodies! It is clearly surviving in the Internet age. I bought a copy, and one article occupied the whole of my dinner.

On return home I found an email from Katie the

tax person

, saying that my submitted workbook and documents look good. Yay me!

Watched a documentary on the fall of Theranos, then took WoodenBoat to bed with me.

Monday, 3/18/2019

Up and about. Started the day with a run. Then wrote checks for the cleaning lady coming tomorrow, and while I had the checkbook out, one for the hairdresser I’ll see on Wednesday. (Now if I can just remember to take the check with me on the day.) Watered

the plants;

I’m happy to say all the remaining ones are doing well. On day 2 I threw out the bathroom ferns I’d never liked; and of course Beau and two philodendrons went to Liz’s place. Of the remaining eight, I’m pretty sure I will take at least four with me when I move.

Spent two hours

scanning

20 slides; only about 40 left to do. The slides in this part of the pile were from a trip we’d taken across Canada in our first RV back in 1989. That slide group had never been scanned, which surprises me; I had scanned the groups for all our major road trips, I thought. But not that one. Well, getting to it now. Somewhat emotional viewing this group; they were from a time when both of us were strong enough to go for reasonable-length hikes, something not true in the past decade.

After lunch I decided to drop down to

FOPAL

and see how the Computer section was doing. The sorters had delivered four boxes since I was last there, so I culled those and priced the better ones. Most of the 50 or so books I priced I marked for 3 or 4 or 7 dollars, but four were “high value”, meaning they had market prices over $25. These go on a special shelf to be sold separately. One little pocket-sized “reference book of graphic algorithms” has a going price over $75, who’d’a thunk it? With the — or, I guess it is now “my” — computer section tidied up I came on home.

There I boxed up all the remaining books from our collection of paperbacks. There is one tiny section of stuff I need to review, and a collection of Women’s Basketball books that I need to think about, and that will be it. All the, what, something like 1,000 volumes that we’d saved because we might want to re-read them “someday”? Gone.

I also cleaned out a drawer of computer-related stuff. Man, how many USB cables does one person need? Some items to trash; some for the sale; a few set aside to keep.

Termites.

About 3pm there was a knock at the door; a young man with not great English, and a car that had “Fumigator Services” on the side, said he needed to measure the house so that the termite inspection report could be completed. Uh? I said go ahead, then emailed Chuck. He replied quickly that yes, the termite inspection had found termites, and it was legitimate that an estimate for a fumigation would be in the report. He apologized for the lack of notice, said he’d tried to tell these services to contact him before going to the house.

Well, so there are termites. No huge surprise; we had a termites in 2005 and the house was tented then. Our first clue then of a serious infestation was when we noticed little crumbs of dark-brown sawdust piling up on the table beside Marian’s favorite chair. They were working in one of the exposed beams that make our living room ceiling so charming, and crapping down on the table.

Nothing so blatant now; I presume the inspector found their little tunnels running up the inside of the foundation, perhaps. However, this is a serious strike against the idea of selling the house to owner-occupiers, and greatly raises the odds of selling to a developer. The cost of a fumigation will surely be in 5 figures. I could look up the receipt from 2005 but you know? I don’t care. IThMISEP and they’re welcome to it.

Supper; a bit of television; now I think I’ll go to bed and relax myself by finishing that issue of WoodenBoat magazine. (Hey, better than alcohol.)

Day 104, two tours

Edit: I forgot to mention that last night, I went to a TheatreWorks production, Marie and Rosetta, about the life of Gospel and Rhythm and Blues singer Sister Rosetta Tharp. Very nice production, good music, and a terrific performance by a knockout young actress, Marissa Rudd. She could be a star in time.

Saturday, 3/16/2019

I had signed up to lead one tour at the Museum at 2pm. Yesterday Katherina, the volunteer manager, put out an urgent call for somebody to lead a private tour at 12:30. I like private tours and I was going to be there anyway, so I took it. So after a lazy morning I headed out for the museum. The private tour turned out to be a family group, mom, dad, several nice kids from 10 to 16, roughly. Apparently they’d come early, early enough to catch the 1401 demo at 11:00, which they had enjoyed a lot. They professed to enjoy my tour, also.

After finishing that tour I walked out across the parking lot to the 7-11 to get something for lunch. Several people in our lot were complaining; apparently thieves had broken the windows in three or four cars. My car was fine, but it is unsettling to have this happen in a familiar place. After a snack I led the 2pm tour, about 15 people.

On the way home I stopped at the FOPAL building, mostly to pick up a couple of empty boxes to bring back full. But I went in and looked at the Computer section. There were about five boxes of sorted books. I think I may go in there on Tuesday afternoon and do some culling and pricing.

At home I had an email from Kathy at the tax accountant’s, asking if I had sent in the workbook yet. I was going to wait until I’d talked to the advisor Tuesday, but this tipped me over, and I went and clicked “send to preparer”. Answered Kathy’s email asking that she check it soon as I wasn’t sure I’d done it right.

Not sure if I mentioned this before: with Marian’s demise, there are three important documents that need to be re-made: my “advanced health care directive”, “nomination of conservator”, and “general durable power of attorney”. All of these named Marian as the person responsible for me if I am incapacitated. In all three, my nephew Dennis was first alternate. Now I need to do these documents over. I had emailed Dennis asking if he would be the first in line, and today he responded he’d be “honored”, so that’s set.

I also called Marian’s cousin Darlene, who I like a lot and has been very supportive, and asked if she’d mind being the first alternate and she said “absolutely”. So that’s set, and hopefully I can get those drafted and done next Tuesday.

Day 103, many little tasks

Friday, 3/15/2019

Didn’t mention yesterday, that while I had planned to do the laundry today, I decided to start it last night, for no particular reason. Continued with the second load before sitting down to breakfast. Then out for a run, which went OK. On return, folded the two dry laundry loads and started the third one.

Sat down to do some desk work. Paid a credit card bill. Then edited and started the upload of the video I shot on Wednesday (and didn’t even mention in that blog post, I was so taken up with describing the FOPAL process). Anyway, the video is up and within an hour I had a comment, “another great video”, from one of my 150 or so subscribers. Yay me.

Got into the tax accountant’s workbook and I think I have entered all the data and uploaded all the 1099’s and other documents. I’ll hold off on the final click of “send to accountant” until after Tuesday’s meeting with the financial people.

Yesterday I got the official letter of acceptance from C.H. So I sent an email to Kim the marketing person asking when we should meet, and shortly got an invite to come in next Wednesday, after talking to my financial advisors.

Went out to ship that box containing the brown pitcher to Laurel, mail a letter, and pick up a couple of food items. Just love ticking off items on my to-do list!

Continued a productive day by scanning another batch of slides. Something happened here, and I’m not sure what. There was a train of thought where I was initially patting myself on the back for a good picture, and then realized that no, I could not have taken that, it had to have been taken by Marian. And some of the other slides were of trips we had taken in 1989, and 1992, and so on. And suddenly I was sniffling and for half an hour was not-quite-crying, in the strongest grief spasm I’ve had for a week or more.

I have a ticket for a play at Palo Alto Players for 8pm. It’s now almost time to depart, so I’ll report on that tomorrow.

Day 101, new FOPAL job and a find

Wednesday, 3/13/2019

Went for a run, remembering to log the start and end in my ZIO patch log. There’s a paper log book in the box, but that’s for fogies. I had downloaded the ZIO app for the phone and do my logging there.

After the run I stopped at the UPS store and bought a box and some bubble wrap. At home, I boxed up the Buckeye Pottery pitcher (see Day 91) to send to my niece Laurel.

In the night, around 2am, I was having a wakeful spell and thought about all the things yet to be cleaned out and evaluated. One thing that looms like an ominous cloud is a pair of large metal cabinets out in what we called “the shop”, an enclosed room on the side of the garage. In the night I am thinking about having to clean empty those cabinets and throwing away un-sellable stuff — they were the place we put anything that we might want to use again sometime but don’t want in the house now — and it occurred to me that the cabinets themselves would sell in the estate sale. Fine metal locking cabinets. Then I wondered, where are the keys for those locking cabinets? And in order to get back to sleep I had to get up, find a note-pad, and write down the list of things I’d been thinking of: “pitcher, cab. keys, taxes”. Then I could go back to sleep.

So now, after wrapping the pitcher, I went out and opened the cabinet doors and there inside each door, were the keys to that cabinet hanging on a neat little hook made from a paperclip just to keep the keys handy. Right where you’d look for them, although nobody has looked for them since the cabinets went in, probably before 2000.

Then I spent an hour and a half on the tax workbook. That’s pretty close to done. I hope to polish it off on Friday, although I’m not sure I’ll actually hit the “send to CPA” button until after I’ve talked the financial guys next Tuesday.

I needed to be at FOPAL at 1pm for a meeting, and was just dropping off for a short nap at 12:15 when Chuck called. He has scheduled a termite inspection for tomorrow and now belatedly wanted to make sure I’d be here. I won’t; I’ll be at the museum. But we agreed he should have a key and can then give the inspector access. So he dropped by the house at 12:40 for a key. No numbers from a developer yet, although he’s talked to one.

Off then to FOPAL where I got trained on a new task: evaluating and pricing books for a section, in particular, the computer section. In my previous (and on-going) job of sorting, we separate newly-donated books to their section. If a book is somehow related to computers, it goes in a computer section box. Piles of boxes then stack up in front of the computer shelves.

Today, working with an experienced volunteer, I learned what happens next. We go through the boxes and do a cull of books that aren’t worth pricing. Almost all “–for Dummies”, all stuff for Windows 95 and other obsolete software, almost all books published before 2000 (some judgement needed here), get packed into new boxes and piled up for the “H2” people. H2 is the building where “bargain” books are displayed. Everything in H2 is $1, and things that don’t sell there, go to recycling.

About one in four of the books look salable. These we take back to the office where we enter their ISBNs into Book Scout Pro, which aggregates prices from all over the web. If a book is selling at $8 or more, we write a price on the flyleaf and put it in a box of priced books that will eventually be shelved for the sale. If it is selling at less than that, it goes in an H2 box.

So I put in 3 and a half hours on that, in the course of which I made a find: in the middle of a box, in among books on Java and C++, was an original, 1931 edition of the IBM Songbook! I grabbed that puppy and put it with my hat. That isn’t going in the book sale, that’s going with me to the museum tomorrow.

After work I bought a few groceries (FOPAL is next to my usual grocery store) and headed home. Forgetting to stop at UPS and ship that pitcher, which now will just ride in the back of the car until Friday.

When I was initially thinking about my life “when I’m a bachelor” I had assumed that I would eat supper in restaurants fairly often. In fact, I almost haven’t. I think I’ve been out twice for meals (aside from several restaurant meals in Las Vegas of course). So I think I will go out tonight. Report on that tomorrow.

Day 99, Home again

Monday, 3/11/2019

Up, dressed, brushed my teeth, out the back door of the Excalibur — avoiding yet another trek through the blinking noisy neon jungle of the casino floor — and a Lyft to the airport. At the entrance to the security gate a TSA woman was telling people to wait, “security is full except for pre-check”. But I have pre-check, so whizzed on up the stairs. There I found the regular security line backed up, a couple hundred people probably in a 5-fold snake, but only me and one other guy in the pre-check line and I was through in 30 seconds. Recent flights I’d been noticing the pre-check line was getting crowded, but not here. I guess most people who go to Vegas for a weekend, don’t travel enough to go through the pre-check registration rigmarole.

Routine flight home, but I noticed that miles of jumbled hills from I-5 west to the Bay were brilliant Irish green from a wet rainy season. I’ve noticed this wilderness before, hundreds of square miles, mostly roadless, that lies between US 101 on the west and I-5 on the east. But usually from the air it is mostly yellow with dry grass. Right now it is lush. If I was still a bike rider, I’d be planning a ride to Mt. Hamilton. Now I’m thinking, some kind of a weekend drive, in the next month before the green begins to fade. Down SR 25, maybe.

Once home I did a few useful things. I got out Marian’s jewelry box and the envelope of old receipts that show provenance. Tomorrow Suzanne’s friend Louise is going to come and practice appraisals on it. Then I paid a bill, filled out a survey questionnaire from the hospice company (all positive, they were great), and put in an hour filling out the tax accountant’s online workbook. Another couple of hours, probably, to finish the taxes.

A hobby I’ve had the last couple of years is doing video reviews of modern meal replacements. That’s going to end pretty soon, because when I move to an ILF, with all meals provided, I won’t have a reason to use these products. Right now I’m getting half of my calories from them. Recently I took delivery of a new one. It’s chocolate flavored, so I ordered bags of chocolate from two other, more established vendors. The second of those just came in today’s mail. So I shot stills and close-up video of the process of mixing a shake for each of these three. I put the shakes in the fridge to mature (they’re always better after chilling overnight). Tomorrow I’ll shoot myself doing a taste comparison.

I should have spent a couple hours scanning slides but I really wanted a nap, so I did that and then frittered away the time to supper on the computer.

Day 68, a damn good day’s work

Couldn’t exercise this morning because the car-detailing crew showed up promptly at 8 to start on the Prius. So I settled in to gettin’ shit done in the APR. First up, a few financial details. Brokerage statements are in for the various accounts, so I could update the portfolio spreadsheet that I had created, following Marian’s design on Day 31. The news is good; the total is about 7% up from year-end 2018.

Next I tackled a heap of my personal memorabilia that had accumulated in a binder and a big plastic envelope for years. I really didn’t know what I would find. There were a few keepers.

IBM History

One was a letter I had written to my mother from San Francisco at the end of 1966. At the time I was working for the phone company, and I detailed how in the new year I was to start a “ten-week course” to become a full-fledged “inside wireman”. What I hadn’t known then was that the ten-week course would be the most boring, leaden, plodding thing imaginable, taught by a crusty old guy who was marking time to his retirement and who had no real insight into the complicated systems he was supposed to teach. Before two weeks had passed I was looking for new work, and stumbled hopefully into the local IBM branch office. Because IBM was just in transition from older systems to the new 360 line, they needed people, and hired me.

The sent me to Rochester, Minnesota to be trained on the older electro-mechanical systems. Another keeper was a hand-written letter by me to my sister, dated April 24, 1967. (Of course in the present era, this would have been an email and probably lost forever.) In it I wrote in part,

We took a quiz on the 514-519 machines today after closing up the local night club the night before. (Shame on us.) I got a 90, top grade in the class. Also showed expertise in lab sessions, so should get a B. … Tomorrow begins 6 days instruction on another machine (085) followed by an 18-day course in tab machines…

When I give tours at the CHM, I point out those machines, the 085 sorter and the 403 “tabulator”, as historic, and try to explain how they were the essence of “business data processing” for fifty years.

Niece stuff

Most of the rest of the pile I discarded. However, I gave each letter a cursory glance, and noticed in several of them between 1961 and 1963, my mother mentioned my niece Laurel. She was living with my parents, her grandparents, during that time. Some of the mentions touched on things that were probably significant to her. So I set those letters aside, and put them in an envelope to mail on to her. I figure I can trash things about me that I don’t care to remember, but I didn’t want to make that call on her behalf. Not sure it’s really doing her any favor, as some of the topics may be painful memories. Hope it was the right thing to do.

Anyway at the end I had reduced a large pile to a wispy handful which I distributed into the pages of a family album, and there: done. All the Cortesi family history reduced to one smallish box.

I was on such a roll I tried to tie up more loose ends. I emailed my sister-in-law suggesting we meet to go over the pile of Lacrampe family history that I hope she’ll take over from me.

I called IBM benefits, the ones who wouldn’t talk to me about Marian’s account, even to say if it was closed, until I proved I was her executor. This time the phone rep didn’t have anything to say about that; either she didn’t know that rule or else the account had been marked for me as executor. Anyway, all is well there. That was the last loose end of red tape needing to be tied up. Marian is quits with the world.

Finally I followed up on that painting I discussed on Day 46. On Day 54 I mentioned my impatience with the one gallery who wouldn’t return my calls or emails, and said I would contact another. Well, two emails to them had gone unanswered now. So this time I emailed the artist himself, reminding him of the painting, how he had toured Yosemite valley with us before making it, and asking if he had any idea how I should go about consigning one of his works. Hopefully he will be able to light a fire under one gallery or the other.

Afternoon

The detail guys didn’t finish until 12:30. I decided that, since I didn’t have any boxes, and since it was just before the biweekly sale so FOPAL would be jammed with stuff, I wouldn’t take any books down this time. I’ll take 3 boxes next week, maybe. Anyway so I will go to FOPAL on foot, a 40 minute walk, then take a Lyft home.

Evening

Which I did. Sorted. Appropriated a couple of New York Times crossword puzzle books that came in. Had an early supper, then out again at 7:15 to a play at the Bus Barn in Los Altos. Review tomorrow.

Day 62, “Yosemite”, Insurance

Thursday, 1/30/2019

I spent the bulk of the day at “Yosemite”, the CHM’s big storage space on Yosemite avenue in Milpitas. With six other regular volunteers I worked on “palletizing” a number of machines. These are smaller units that were stored at floor level. Aurora, the curator, wants to move them to one of the higher racks with the fork-lift. To do that, each unit has to be gotten onto a pallet and strapped down with “cordlash”, a high-strength fabric strap.

Allen, Steve, and Dave Bennet move a piece of a PDP-11/70 onto a pallet

Palletizing is heavy work, especially when you consider the volunteers are as old or older than the historic machines they’re moving.

One persistent problem is plastic foam. Designers liked to incorporate foam into these machines for sound deadening or air filtration. Unfortunately after 40+ years, the foam degrades to a crispy, dusty texture that fragments at a touch into a sticky snow that coats the inside of the machine and encourages corrosion. Foul stuff! I spotted black snow in one machine and traced it to air filters that had not been removed when the machine was initially archived several years earlier.

At lunch I mentioned having visited the Hiller aviation museum and it turned out four of the eight people at the table had been there, some several times.

Insurance

Back home there was one piece of mail on the doormat: an envelope from The Prudential. Thinking it would be an ad, I almost tossed it, but when I opened it found a check for $5000 — the payment for Marian’s IBM life insurance. I’m not sure how it came about that she had this policy. Maybe it was a perk they offered in the years before I was hired; or maybe it was an optional payroll deduction thing. I certainly wasn’t offered life insurance, that I recall.

At any rate, this check is one of the last pieces of bureaucracy related to her death. The books aren’t quite closed; I had an email from the financial advisors, saying they are preparing the paperwork to merge her IRA accounts into mine, and would get it to me soon.

This was a bit of a surprise. I had assumed that on her death, her IRA would have to be closed and the long-deferred federal tax on it paid. If I understand the email, though (and I’ve asked for a clarification) it looks as if her IRA will simply be merged with mine, and the money will continue to be tax-deferred. That’ll be a nice perk for a widower! Possibly with more net value than the old life insurance.

Basketball

Stanford women played at Cal. I lost track of the time and didn’t start the audio stream of the game until just into the fourth quarter, when the score was tied 69-all. (Which reminds me of the old joke about the couple who arrive late at a baseball game, to find the score 0-0 in the ninth. “Oh good,” says the wife, “we didn’t miss anything!”)

In the next few minutes Stanford got down by 5, then came back to lead by 1 point. With seven seconds left, Cal’s Aja Jones drove the lane and made a layup on the buzzer; Cal wins by one point. The announcer on the Stanford audio stream was going nuts, talking about the best basketball game he’d seen all season. Cal plays at Stanford Saturday afternoon; I’m looking forward to attending that game.