Fine end to a good week. Still figuring things out. New book idea. And it might even be the sort of thing someone would want to publish, if you can believe that.

More exciting tales from customer service: the handyman people got back to me today about the Patio Brick Situation, and asked me to describe the matter. I was walking Birch, wandering down the path talking bricks and estimates alongside the rushing creek. With rancor and malice towards none I described the course of events. The manager said that aligned exactly with her notes from her guy. Nice to know. She asked what I thought would be a good resolution to this, and I laughed - well that is a difficult question, because if I say I want this much, and you say yes, I’ll think I should’ve asked for more, but if I ask for the moon and you agree, then I’m really taking advantage of a situation that was not created out of malice or trickery. (Sorry, tricknology.) Since I have to buy the brick now, and it took an afternoon of my time to find it, and I have to go back, let’s knock off two hours of the mason’s cost, which, if your estimate is current, brings us under the twice-the-cost estimate he gave when he showed up.

To this she agreed. Then I ordered another job just to show I was being a Decent Chap About It All, and continued my walk in the woods.

Part of the winnowing of Stuff, the precursor to true downsizing, includes going through two coffee cans full of CDs and DVDs. They’re from the early part of the 21st century, and they’re mostly backups of home movies. Some of them contain raw footage, in case I ever wanted to recut. This will never happen. Most of the disks are bad. No surprise, really - we were warned. DVDs rot. I feel bad for people who committed their family history and memories and files to the disks, thinking hey, shiny, digital, permanent! And then the DVD player grinds and grinds and says no, sorry. Can’t read that. You take it out and look for scratches. None. It’s dead, Jim.

One disk looked unfamiliar, and turned out to be some movies made by friend who’s not only a former friend, but dead. College friend. He cut off everyone and wouldn’t say why. Saddened us all and confused us as well, and we never had a chance to get together again. So it’s bittersweet. There’s lots of footage of my old apartments - well, a minute or two, but it’s precious, and most people don’t have that since most people didn’t have friends who were videographers in the 80s. What really gets me right in the sternum is the shots of Football at the Giant Swede’s, complete with the Crazy Uke.

We’ll be convening Friday night for more of the same.

 

Anyway, your host, yairns and yairns ago. We were making a video letter for Jack, who'd decamped for California years before.

 

A shot of the old Valli, that storied pub, the place where so much of my college life took place.

 

 

And a shot of the intersection past the freeway, my old apartment house, and the world-famous grocery store and cultural center, Ralph & Jerry's.

 

 

It all looks so ordinary. It was. It has that tired cold winter look. It's nothing special. At the same time, a few seconds of seeing everything move - and I mean truly move, as it actually did, not revived by technology - is bittersweet and valuable, at least for a few of us.

Speaking of technology. More unexpected low comedy from the AI video generator. I've been using it sparingly for the Small Things video project. I've been successful with 2 out of 20 attempts.

It's a shot of the old Forum cafeteria. I wanted to add some simple movement. As usual, the lack of highly specific prompts leads to slightly comic results. One man decides to crabwalk away:

 

 

Here, two shadow beings enter from the Mirror Universe:

 

 

Just back up, mister, and keep backin' up 'til you're out of my sight

 

 

Annnnd that's enough of that.