April 2002
Summary: My sister Lani gives birth to her second son; Dinner at Mecca with Clay, Amy, and David; We move to a new home in Parkside
Dates on this page
Mon Apr 1, 2002
I spent most of today pricing digital cameras because Susie needs an estimate by tomorrow. Take out from McDonald's. Patrick goes to film class. I redesign Tina's website in 6 hours.
Tue Apr 2, 2002
Met with Susie and Andy at Palio to discuss Phase 2 in our Web redesign strategy. Defragged Ena's and Chris's computers. Uninstalled Office XP for James and Melissa because it seems the letters feature in PharmAdMIT 4.0 is not compatible with it. Updated virus definitions. Cindy gave my my 6-month performance review (2 months late). She didn't have anything bad to say, so I was pleased. (But see tomorrow.) After work, Patrick and I checked out a place at 72A 28th Street. The landlords, a man and woman, seemed pleasant and laid back. I think we impressed the woman with our letter of introduction, as she commented that it was the best thing she's seen all day. The place was about 500 square feet, but was a 1 bedroom. Consequently, the ceilings were very low and the bedroom was really small—too small even for our queen bed. They were asking $1200 (which included all utilities and free, new washer and dryer down the hall), but Patrick and I agreed it wasn't worth more than $800 to us. I would have felt comfortable with the managers, however, if the unit and the price were different. At 9:00 P.M. tonight, I was working on Tina's Web site and Patrick was mixing music on MixMeister when some woman ran north down our street screaming in Spanish and waving a flashlight wildly. Several seconds later, a police car rushed down the street in her direction, and a heavyset policeman (is that redundant in San Francisco?) followed shortly thereafter on foot.
Wed Apr 3, 2002
I created the presentation materials for the demo of the School of Pharmacy Web site that I shall be doing in 2 weeks. Joel and I had lunch at Nan King Road Bistro. Cindy and I talked about my performance review. I wasn't very happy to hear that she didn't seem to have sent my feedback from our meeting in August 2000 up the chain of people responsible for determining my salary. In August she told me that the University of California sets the same salary ranges statewide for positions, so it fails to take into account the cost of living in each area. Someone in my position in Davis or San Diego would make the same amount of money, but would have a better quality of life because their rents are less expensive. I told her that I'd already started looking for other jobs and that Patrick and I were already researching other cities to which we shall take our talents. I love the things I'm doing at work, but we're tired of having 46% to 77% of our income stolen by San Francisco landlords. The technology boom ended last year, and rents are now dropping (27% reported recently) but they're not dropping fast enough to make it worth our while to stay. Two days ago I found a great document at the Web site of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy. The document is called "Technology and Tolerance: The Importance of Diversity to High-Technology Growth." The report by Richard Florida and Gary Gates provides a rather detailed analysis of measures of tolerance, diversity, and high-technology success in 50 metropolitan areas of the United States. We found very interesting data, such as Austin, Texas ranking third (behind San Francisco and Washington, D.C.) in gay population. (Atlanta was fourth, San Diego was fifth.) Austin also ranked #1 in technology growth and #4 in the population with college degrees. We had been considering Charlotte, South Carolina as a city in which we might live, but after seeing its very poor numbers, it got the big X on our list. (All Charlotte's measures were in the 30's or 40's [out of 50] except for technology growth, which was 12.) I installed Office XP tutorials for Joel. I made business cards for Tina. Patrick and I signed up with RentTech. I checked out Craigslist fora (including San Diego and Austin).
Thu Apr 4, 2002
At 8:47 A.M., a car blasting "Another Brick in the Wall" by Pink Floyd. This was unusual because of the time (most Cars That Go Boom do their thing in the afternoon or evening) as well as the choice of music (it's usually disco or Mexican music instead). Susie and I met with Tracey Lee, Georgia Hansen, and Michael Grafton to discuss how best to transition their Web subsites to our new templates. The meeting went well; we'll start with the easiest of the 4 and work our way up. All three seemed eager to explore the possibilites with our new Web look.
Fri Apr 5, 2002
I met with Jeff, as he wanted advice on how to negotiate a common banner or header for the entire university as well as for specific examples that he was dealing with now (School of Medicine and UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Children's Hospital). We discussed a lot of the different issues—usability, screen real estate, organizational associations—and I gave him a bunch of Photoshop mockups to review. The office was quiet today, as James, Joel, and Cindy were gone to Fresno for an outreach presentation. Chris is still in Europe. And it's Debrah's regular day off. The afternoon was spent with critical updates. Dinner at home with Patrick: brown sugar and cinnamon carrots, potatoes, garlic-baked chicken. Napped. Went to Domenica's party while Patrick went to the Pilsner Inn. (He needed to avoid the cats.) It's Domenica's birthday, but she's also celebrating her leaving San Francisco at the end of April. The party was fun—a typical party except for the live DJ's from Alice radio and Live 105 mixing vinyl in Domenica and Corey's living room. I met Greg, Mike, Robin, June Bug, and a bunch of other people whose names I can't remember. I stayed about 2 hours. My favorite moment was this: a woman praised Domenica on her blouse—a skin-tight, long-sleeved knit with psychedelic prints and some flashy metallic cutouts on the back. She asked Domenica, "Where did you find that?" and Domenica said proudly, "Ebay!" Everyone laughed and laughed at that. We gave Domenica a bunch of cash as a birthday and going away present. Our card said, "Happy Birthday and Good Riddance to San Francisco!" While preparing to go to Domenica's, I was rinsing my contact lenses and the bottle got stuck for a second and suddenly it gave way and a dead ant squirted into my hand onto my contact lens.
Sat Apr 6, 2002
Today ants were found crawling all over our Brita water pitcher, which we usually leave out on the counter because neither of us like to drink refrigerated water. We'll be happy to be out of our current place. Breakfast at home: oatmeal. Patrick took a 2-hour nap—he thinks it was the antihistamines that made him drowsy. While he napped, I vacuumed the apartment and cut my hair. It's just below the top of my ears now, I've been letting it grow out some. Patrick bought flowers for his mom, who had just had very painful surgery on her shoulder. Lunch at Sunflower. Patrick and I went on a shopping spree in Union Square and the Castro because it's his birthday next Wednesday and he's kicking off the week-long celebration by shopping. When we arrived at Powell Street station, I was hurrying through when Patrick pulled me back to watch and hear an amazing violinist, a 30's-ish blonde woman. Patrick thought she must have studied at Julliard or some similarly renowned school of music. She wore pastel lemon jeans and a spaghetti string tank top with the Charlie Angels logo on it. She played energetically and passionately. We savored the nuances of her skills. In the 3 minutes we watched her, she earned US$5 (which includes one from us)—amazing! At the end of her piece, we clapped and smiled, and she smiled back at us. I asked her for her name, and she said it was Sonja. Hours later, Patrick still felt affected by her music, jealous of her art. He wanted to cry with happiness at her beauty. We shopped, and Patrick got 4 items of clothing: a muscle-tee (Gap), a long-sleeved lightweight sweater (Kenneth Cole), 527 jeans (Levi's), sweat pants (Perfetto). We snacked at Franciscan Croissant and Hot Cookie. Dinner at McDonald's. I finished my taxes today. I didn't owe as much as I thought I would, so I'm happy. I packed up a gift for Mia Levine and Katherine King and their new baby Parris Addison King-Levine: a cloth book that teaches how to tie and buckle and zip.
Sun Apr 7, 2002
We hunted houses most of today. Patrick and I shared a bagel melt at Que Tal, a pleasant cafe in the Mission. More house showings. Dinner at Jitra. Picked up some sundries at Walgreens.
Mon Apr 8, 2002
At 12:20 A.M. Patrick finished his revisions to Chapter 14, and I finished adding UCSF School of Pharmacy to my Web Projects page on frankfarm.com. Patrick (novelist) and I (Web developer at UCSF) helped Aaron Jason celebrate his birthday at India Garden (1261 Folsom). Also attending were Hilary (lawyer [eww!] construction company), Alina Bobina ("Kato Kaelin"), Pauline (Methralta filmmaker and executive assistant), Andrea ("Dreamer of Dreams"), Tracy (another lawyer), Nicole (working at the library and working toward Master's in Lib Sci), A.J. (infinitely tolerant), Jamie (sweet on the birthday boy). Our server was Mohan. Our bill came to around $220. Tara (contracts administrator) showed up late ("I don't like Indian food.") and after dinner Aaron opened gifts. Then we all went to Jamie's apartment for cake, which Tara had picked up at Safeway.
Tue Apr 9, 2002
I set up the newly arrived Dell Latitude C400 that our office purchased. It took several hours to verify that the installed hardware and software worked and to install the software we'll be using with it. It was very annoying to have to register Office XP—I had to do it over the telephone because the network connection wasn't set up for it. The process took about 5 minutes and went smoothly, but I didn't feel like I should have had to do it. Patrick and I went to Watergate for dinner. We're celebrating his birthday early because tomorrow is the Lambda Lit reading—a big deal, and we don't want Patrick to miss out on the networking opportunity there. Watergate's menu has about 10 appetizers ($7 each) and about 10 entrees (or "large plates", $17 each) and about 6 desserts. You can also choose a prix fixe meal: 1 appetizer, 1 entree, and 1 dessert for $25. It's like getting the dessert for free, so we both did the prix fixe. Patrick had the warm lobster martini ($5 extra, with cilantro, orange zest, mashed potatoes, champagne jasmine pearl sauce), the Grilled Herb Filet Mignon (Roquefort pecan wonton, baby spinach, bordelaise sauce), the Japonaise, and Graham's 10-year-old tawny port. I had the Dungeness crab salad, the Sonoma Duck Breast (wild mushroom/duck confit/foie gras essence, celery root puree), the profiteroles, and monkey-picked oolong tea. We also shared a glass each of Chateau Sirene cabernet sauvignon.
Wed Apr 10, 2002
I finished setting up the new laptop and tested out the wireless networking in the library. It works beautifully. Patrick's birthday! Woo hoo! Sam took Patrick horseriding. It was Patrick's first time on a horse. "I rode a camel when I was 12. It was fun. We had a lady as a guide and she rode us down to the ocean." Lambda Literary Awards reading.
Thu Apr 11, 2002
Breakfast with the Dean. I met many others at the breakfast as well: Frances Peterson, Elena Jahouach, Christie Dal Corobbo, and more. Lunch with Joel at Gordo. I redesigned the Contact Us section of the Web site to address e-mail routing issues. I took the office laptop home today to test the 56K modem. It works just fine. Salmon, asparagus, and McDonald's french fries for dinner. (Since McDonald's is right around the corner from us, I decided it's easier to get them fresh than to cook our own.)
Fri Apr 12, 2002
While reading Yahoo! News this morning, I thought I saw a headline that said, "Bush Calls for Ban on All Forms of Human Clothing" but after I took another look, I realized it said, "Bush Calls for Ban on All Forms of Human Cloning." Heh. I helped Kristina figure out what computer connections were in a room down the hall. I helped Joel figure out some bullet problems in Word and helped him get the laser printer to print very dark ink. I helped Melissa resolve a problem with file type associations. I discovered an error in the LISTSERVs that were built a few days ago, verified 488 data points by hand and rebuilt the 6 mailing lists. Lunch with Joel at Hotei. I updated 2 Web pages, 4 PDF files, and 2 Word documents for Cindy's changes to the academic calendar. I updated 2 PDF files for Debrah's changes to the Year 2 Class Schedule. I troubleshooted printer driver problems to the Lexmark Color Optra 45. Dinner at home with Patrick: stuffed pork chops, zucchini with dill, rice pilaf.
Sat Apr 13, 2002
Patrick and I hunted houses today. We saw 2 units in which we are interested and for which we applied. We didn't even get to see the place we laughed the most at: the landlord who had a studio apartment at 8th and Irving for $1250 per month (about $300 over the going rate right now). Another landlord who had posted an ad for a "1-bedroom apartment near USF with parking and laundry" at Geary Boulevard and Collins Street failed to call us back as she said she would to let us know the address of her 3:00 PM showing. Breakfast at home: oatmeal. Lunch at La Tortilla: mole chicken for Patrick, tostada chicken salad for me. Food slumming for dinner: frozen dinners from the grocery.
Sun Apr 14, 2002
No rental showings today, so we simply waited to hear from the two places for which we applied yesterday. I get e-mail from Rob today, photos of my sister's newborn son, Matthew Kenji Honma, who was born about 17 days early. It was extraordinarily windy today. Brisk, tumultuous. I went to Walgreens to pick up a prescription, pens, and alcohol swabs, and the wind blew my baseball cap right off my head. I had to chase it a few steps, and the Latino or Hispanic shop owners selling cheap clothing and luggage made fun of me. Except for that small errand of mine, we stayed home all day. I had had a bit of wheezing that I don't usually get. Breakfast at home: sausage, eggs, hash browns, poppy seed toast. Lunch at home: ham and sharp cheddar on poppy seed bread. Dinner at home: roast chicken, steamed broccoli, mushroom risotto.
Mon Apr 15, 2002
I worked on the password protection for one page of the Web site and sent it out for review. I worked more on my presentation of the Web site for the University's Web developers. Impromptu dinner with Brian and Kelly at Warakubune, which was fine with them because they tried to go there yesterday but it was closed for a staff dinner and though they tried to weasel their way in, they were turned away. ("They know us. We eat there all the time.") Brian was recovering from a weekend visit by Paul Skavland. Kelly had gotten home a tad late, revealing an ongoing issue between B & K regarding Kelly's now-lengthy commute to Cupertino. Both of the landlords of the places for which we applied on Saturday called us back to let us know we were the chosen ones. George and Norita were our first choice, and Mary is our backup just in case.
Tue Apr 16, 2002
Ugh! This morning I resolved a problem with my Cobalt Qube 3 that has stumped me for months. The answer was provided by Malcolm McLeary in a message he wrote on October 2, 2001. I write it here in techie format, because only the nerds will understand it.—Problem: When checking for new software and updates in the administration panel in a Qube 3, the following error occurs: "BlueLinq was unable to retrieve a list of packages from the BlueLinQ server located at http://updates.cobalt.com/packages. Please check to make sure that http://updates.cobalt.com/packages is a valid BlueLinQ server and that you can query it from your web browser." Solution: Do one or more of the following: (a) Set the Bluelinq server to "http://updates.cobalt.com/packages/" instead of "http://updates.cobalt.com/packages" (i.e., include a slash at the end): Click the Bluelinq tab, then click the Settings button, then click the Advanced tab, then change the Bluelinq Servers field appropriately to include the final slash. (b) Provide DNS settings for the Qube 3: Click the Administration tab, then click the System button, then click the TCP/IP button. Set DNS Servers to working DNS servers. (e.g., if you can download packages.gz from http://updates.cobalt.com/packages/ from your Web browser, then copy the DNS settings from your current TCP/IP properties (in Control Panel & Network) to the DNS Servers field.—Cobalt and Sun support for my Qube 3 has been so bad that I vowed never again to get a Qube or RAQ. I again worked on the password protection for one page of the Web site because Chris wanted it to time out after a certain number of minutes. I updated some PharmAdMIT workstations to Build 0005. (Some others were still giving errors when checking for updates.) I also added code so that the page wouldn't be stored in the Web browser's cache. I worked more on my presentation of the Web site for the University's Web developers. After work, dinner at Howard's Cafe on Irving: Patrick had the chicken fingers with fries (after debating between the chicken parmagiana and the pot roast special) and I had the quarter pounder, plain, medium-well, with the turkey noodle soup. The soup tasted like it came out of a can, but the other parts of the meal were tasty. Our server forgot to bring the mayonnaise, but otherwise served us well. We met our new landlord George and his daughter (but didn't get her name) and signed the lease for our new apartment. George is originally from Strausbourg. We got 10 days of overlap to make our move a little easier. Patrick and I took measurements of all the rooms—we always map out our living space in Adobe Illustrator at one-tenth scale to see where our furniture will fit. We're worried that we'll have a hard time getting the couch and the mule chest in the apartment. Other than that, we're happy we made the choice we did. It's a bit of a side-step in terms of bang for the buck: we're trading a garage away for more luxuries in the apartment for a bit less that we were paying before. We took bus 66 to get to Norita and George's place. We took the L-Taraval MUNI train home. It was my first time riding both of those lines. On the train home, we saw a heavy metal kid practicing yoga, legs crossed and palms mirrored. He was listening to music, but it wasn't loud enough to hear. He wore a black leather jacket, the forearms of which were each set with an array of metal spikes. When we got home, I called Mary to let her know we've taken a different unit. Mary's unit at 1475 18th Avenue #1 was an appropriately sized 1-bedroom apartment (about 600 square feet). It was clean, on a quiet street, and would have been easy to move in to since it was at the front of the building and you only had to deal with about 5 or 6 steps. The unit had linoleum in the kitchen, either tile or linoleum in the bathroom (I can't remember now—probably tile), hardwood floors elsewhere, street parking only (and there wasn't much of that), coin-operated laundry at the end of the building (which was okay, but you had to deal with steps and if it was raining you'd get wet), garbage and water included, 1-year lease, "backyard" comprised of what seemed to be hundred-year-old concrete with weeds growing through it. (She claimed that the owners were planning to resurface the area soon—with new concrete! Somehow I had forgotten that concrete is more charming than a small garden.) She was asking $1150 (with a $1200 deposit). With only garbage and water included, this was a little higher than the current market rate for a 1-bedroom, even for a unit as clean as this. We said no to this one because the stove was unbearably tiny, the kitchen's floor space was about five feet square, the laundry would have been less convenient than we wanted, and because in talking about the other tenants in the building Mary had let on that our upstairs neighbor had been renting in the building for 20 years and this scared us the most.
Wed Apr 17, 2002
Our soon-to-be-ours apartment in Parkside is an in-law unit built in the not-quite basement portion of a single-family standalone house. Our landlords live in the house above, which is reached from a short flight of steps at the front of the house. Our entrance is through a side gate, down a clean concrete corridor. Our living space is about 550 to 600 square feet total, but it's split up rather unusually: living room 1 (135 sq ft), living room 2 (108+ sq ft), kitchen (104 sq ft), bedroom (94 sq ft), bath (40 sq ft), big storage room (34 sq ft), and two smaller closets (30+ sq ft). The unit is entirely brand new, so we're the first ones to live there. At work today, I gave a presentation to the UCSF Web developers group about the School of Pharmacy project in which I participated. The presentation went well even though I had only 10 minutes after a bunch of other speakers. Several developers came up to me after to say how they thought I had done a very nice job, and I was touched and appreciative of their praise. Our current landlord, Clay, returned from New York to finalize arrangements with selling the building we're living in. He took us and our friends and upstairs neighbors Amy and David to dinner because he felt like we'd all been through a lot of crud with the house selling process and he wanted to pay us back in some way for putting up with it all. We went to Mecca, and it was a fantastic choice. I had never been there before, and I was very impressed with the character of the wait staff, the finery of the surroundings, and the quality of the food. When we arrived at 7:45 P.M., a DJ was already spinning lounge music, which reminded Patrick and me of Buddha Bar in Paris. The rooms were all surprisingly dark. An early dinner and bar crowd had already made the place lively. We started out with drinks: Clay and Amy each had Cosmos, David had a ginger ale, I had a Smith & Wesson, Patrick had a glass of a French pinot noir. We shared two appetizers: seafood ceviche (shrimp, scallops, crab, halibut, red shiso, jalapeno-scallion marinade, US$13) and ahi tuna spring rolls (oven dried tomatoes, basil, maui onion, balsamic soy vinaigrette, US$12). Assorted breads were served in a stainless steel wire basket. Clay decided that the wine Patrick chose was so delicious he'd get a bottle for the whole table. We toasted to "new beginnings" as we all would be living in new homes within the next month. Patrick and I talked about the new home we had found and signed only yesterday. David talked of his new job working in a ten-person biotech firm in San Leandro. Amy talked of the tail end of her temporary job with Wells Fargo. And Clay talked about his new home and hanging out in San Diego. Dinner arrived: Clay had the grilled pork chop, Amy had the rack of lamb, David had the lemon chicken, I had the jumbo shrimp linguine with sausage, and Patrick had salmon with sesame noodles on a bed of marinated, thinly sliced cucumbers. For dessert, Clay and Patrick each had a glass of port. Clay, Amy, and Patrick each had the creme brulee trio: chocolate, peppermint, and ginger. I had the black forest chocolate cake with cherries. David had the sorbet trio: watermelon, mango, and ginger.
Thu Apr 18, 2002
Today I finalized changes to the password-protected page I built for the list of LISTSERVs off on which Chris had signed. I also built new code for the Medicine Question of the Month. I met with Rodney to discuss how to hook in to the SIS database. I updated Chris's computer with critical updates. I talked with Debrah about proposing a paperless process for the charts she had been printing regularly on our color printer. Patrick started packing today by cleaning out the garage and putting books in boxes. He also started painting again. He did a fair amount of work on the Bruno D'Arcevia piece that had been untouched since we moved in 302 Junipero Serra Blvd. He met with Aaron to return the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon CD we borrowed. Aaron was in a panic because today is Jamie's birthday and Aaron was planning something special for the evening. Dinner at home with Patrick: DiGiorno pizza, spinach with boiled eggs. We watched Iron Monkey on DVD.
Fri Apr 19, 2002
I made live a bunch of Web site changes: the list of LISTSERVs page, the new Contact Us pages, updated calendars for current students and prospective students, and more. I updated our links to press releases so that instead of showing a jumbled mess they are now sorted by date, most recent at the top, and only press releases within the past year are shown. Dinner with Patrick and Jenny Sampson and her friend Kevin. She invited us to dinner at her mom's house in Laurel Heights / Presidio Terrace. We brought a bottle of Italian wine: Alfeo Bolgheri Rosso 1999. We met Jenny's childhood friends Kevin and Leah, who were both great company. In the kitchen while Jenny and Kevin prepared the meal, we sipped drinks and told tales of our recent events—what most people call "catching up." We dined with candles and low lighting in the dining room and continued our discussions: childhood stories, cities we knew, restaurants we remembered. Dinner was a spinach salad, bread with olive oil, grilled chicken with polenta and sliced roma tomatoes, the wine Patrick and I brought. After dinner, Jenny gave us a tour of the house she grew up in. It's 3 floors, very tastefully appointed. Such a vast amount of space in San Francisco seemed a luxury to simply walk through. Jenny and Kevin are house-sitting while Jenny's mom is in London visiting Jenny's sister Juliet, who is nearing the final stages of her pregnancy. When we decided to leave, it was so late that Jenny decided to give us a ride home in her mom's Kompressor—a welcome treat. We got home and Patrick found a note from my mom on our doorstep.
Sat Apr 20, 2002
Patrick and I were planning to move today, but instead we took a daytrip up to Marin county. While on our way out, we met Samantha, a friend of Amy and David who came to stay with them for the weekend. We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and drove along the coast enjoying the sea air, the bountiful view, and the smells of forests. Along the way, we saw cows, sheep, deer, and lots of birds. We first stopped at Muir Beach, which we explored for almost an hour. The day was sunny but with chilly breezes. There were only a handful of people on the beach, most of them accompanied by dogs. We saw a small, black bird with bright red shapes like diamonds on its back, and I watched in awe as, in flight, it nipped at the tail of a gull several times its size. I started getting a sore throat. I installed security updates for my web server. Breakfast: oatmeal at home. Brunch: Parkside Cafe. Dinner: Water Street Grille in Sausalito: For appetizers, we shared crab cakes and smoky lentil bacon soup. Patrick had duck ragout over fettucine noodles. I had pork loin with macaroni and cheese and crisp onion shavings. The restaurant was on the water with a view south and east of San Francisco and Alcatraz.
Sun Apr 21, 2002
Today Patrick and I packed a load of stuff and moved it to our new home. We're both starting to feel good about our move as we get things done. Breakfast: oatmeal at home. Lunch: leftovers from Water Street Grille. Dinner: Oriental chicken salad from Safeway, Freschetta four-cheese pizza with creamy garlic sauce.
Mon Apr 22, 2002
On the elevator to work today I saw a woman flossing her teeth. I spoke with Princess at Pacific Bell to set up our new telephone number. I created academic and block calendars for 2001-2002 in HTML and PDF for the Web site. Lunch with Joel and Ena at L'Avenida. Patrick set up an appointment for movers to help us take our big pieces of furniture to our new home. Dinner at home: fettucine in a cheese sauce, steamed broccoli, leftover pizza. We invited Amy and David down to chat—perhaps our last visit while we still live here.
Tue Apr 23, 2002
Audrey finally installed rsync on our live server, so I tested it out and it works exactly as expected over ssh. Very efficient! I worked on calendar review issues. I started looking at requirements for our student database project. I started building an "About this Web Site" page so that we have a place to put templates and styleguides for School of Pharmacy web developers. Lunch with Joel at Nan King Road Bistro. Patrick met Pacific Bell to install two phone jacks in our new apartment. The wiring is all done. Hooray! I shopped for DSL.
Wed Apr 24, 2002
Robert, Martin, and Tony from Reliable Relocaters helped us move our stuff from the old place to the new place. They brought a medium-sized truck and lots of blankets and cushions. They worked for 4 hours (longer than we expected). Our sleeper sofa wouldn't fit through a narrow passage just before our front door, so it sat outside in the corridor between the two houses until Norita got home and let us put it in their garage until we figured out something to do. I worked more on the "About this Web Site" pages, including the public style guide and templates download pages. Dinner at Okazu, which was recommended by Norita. While we ate, a man with a seeing-eye dog came in unassisted and had dinner at the table next to ours. The staff was very accommodating and I was pleased to see how his actions created a sense of normalcy for people with visual disabilities.
Thu Apr 25, 2002
Patrick spent most of today continuing to set up the new place. Every day it feels more like home. He and Sam also made another run to get stuff from the old place. At work, I uninstalled unused applications from Chris's computer while he's on vacation in Australia. I also continued working on the About Our Web Site section. It's turning out larger than I thought, particulary because of the style guide. Dinner at home: spanish rice, Dixie-fried shrimp, french bread with margarine, and corn off the cob. (Almost all our food was either yellow or orange.) We also opened the bottle of Beaujolais-Villages that Norita and George had left for us. We toasted, first to Patrick for setting up the new place so quickly while I worked, and then again to Joel for finding the flyer which advertised our new apartment. I set up the computers in the rack mount box and figured out how we were going to run the telephone wires. We no longer have the yummy cable modem, so I'm using UCSF Remote Access Service to connect with dialup—a painful 3 KB/second (equivalent to a 28.8K modem).
Fri Apr 26, 2002
Signed up with sonic.net for DSL today. My other choices were DSLExtreme and ISOMEDIA but they turned out to be much costlier since I wanted 4 static IPs and didn't want to sign a one-year contract. I signed up over the phone, and it was painless. It took about 15 minutes, and I asked plenty of questions. I shopped for a different digital camera since Jason Spotz of csource.com called us to let us know that the Kodak DC4800 camera and expansion pack I ordered last week really wasn't available even though he told me then that yes he did have it in stock. I switched our dentist from Mat Kiisk to Justin L. Tin because it's closer to our new home and I didn't like Kiisk's office anyway. It's a very slow day at the office: Cindy, James, Kristina, and Joel are out of the office, gone to Long Beach for a presentation called Pharmacy Information Day. Patrick bought housewares including a toaster oven at Target today.
Sat Apr 27, 2002
I set up the front speakers in the living room. Errands at West Portal: Walgreens, Papenhausen Hardware, Radio Shack (surge protector). Got groceries at Safeway. Dinner at home: bowtie pasta with lima beans and jumbo shrimp in a cream sauce.
Sun Apr 28, 2002
We went to brunch at Grub and unexpectedly ran into Brian, Kelly, Nina, and Todd. They were just waiting for a table as well, so we joined them and had a fun time. Brian says he's thinking of setting up a porn studio. After brunch, Nina and Todd took off and we stopped by Brian and Kelly's for a few minutes before they started their day of chores, errands, and lounging about. We admired their new basket filing system: a metal rack with numbered bins kind of like you'd see in a lockerroom (except that I've never seen one of these anywhere). Brian said, "Yeah, it'll come in handy when we have that sex party..." Afterwards, Patrick and I ran a few errands: we bought soap dishes at Handy Handyman, then picked up a load of stuff from our old place. I earthquake-proofed the bookcase, and we adjusted it so that it stands vertically. Dinner at home: Patrick's homemade chicken soup. A few years from now, I wonder if Brian will laugh if someone asks to borrow their CD of archived Ellen episodes.
Mon Apr 29, 2002
Shopped online for a different digital camera for Susie. This took most of the day because I can only purchase from places that accept purchase orders. Updated the website with small changes.
Tue Apr 30, 2002
Went to the dermatologist today. A routine appointment. Validated the entire Web site by hand with the W3C validator and ran a first pass at AAA compliance with WCAG at Bobby. Most of our pages were already 99% compliant, but I needed to sweep the entire site to be sure.