February 2004

Summary: Mayor Gavin Newsom declares same-sex marriages valid in the city and county of San Francisco, Alysia's ballet performance with Colleen and Pedro, we get television, Patrick makes a special Valentine's Day dinner for me, Patrick is nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Erick's birthday dinner at Watercress, Travis's 29th birthday party at his place in Campbell.

Dates on this page

Sun Feb 1, 2004

House chores: laundry, dishes. Ordered new case fans and assorted computer hardware for the computers. Installed Gemstar TV guide. Did more backups and filing. Patrick and Aaron saw Mike Albo's show called Spray. Started reading issues for an upcoming election. There's a $12.3 billion bond on the ballot to improve deteriorating schools—yikes! I thought we already said yes to a previous school bond. Dinner at home with Patrick: spaghetti with mushroom sauce, shrimp chips.

Mon Feb 2, 2004

Got all wet in a thunderstorm while waiting for a bus. Cold, wet. Argh! Joel's floaty pen collection has about tripled coz he did a sweet deal with a woman he found in a floaty pen forum who decided she was tired of her collection. He also showed off a new scarf he's been knitting. And he's gotten Kristina hooked on knitting as well! Today is Cindy's birthday, but she took the day off, so we'll celebrate it tomorrow. Edited and sent my draft of e-mail migration issues to Kevin Souza. Prepared my timesheet for last month for Cindy. Contacted Tim Yu of SF Micro to arrange for our office to use their services. Made an appointment with David Mischel to discuss authentication needs for the Student Directory on the Web project. Followed up with Richard Moncreiff regarding our wireless access point installation request. Answered simple e-mail questions for David Ferry and Tam Khuu. Followed up with ACPE about a broken link—they were linking to our very old website. Lunch with Joel and Ena at Cybelle's Front Room (9th and Judah), which opened just last Friday in place of the old Front Room. The place was all cleaned up and remodeled—it's a significant improvement. Two very nice leather couches face the fireplace, and this wall is painted a pale red with framed European artwork: food posters and a woman's portrait. I knew our server wasn't from around here by his accent and because he brought me milk with the Earl Gray tea I ordered. Turned out to be Irish, we found out later from the other server. She took away the milk and brought me a pot of hot water. Joel pointed out, "They shouldn't be serving hot water from a coffee creamer," and I had to agree, since the hot water drooled all over the table no matter who poured it. I had a mushroom burger, Ena had the shrimp louis salad [yes, the menu says "louis" instead of "louie"], Joel had a monster slice of canadian bacon with pineapple pizza. A plasma or LCD TV played VH1 classics from the 1980s: Pat Benatar, REO Speedwagon, John Cougar Mellencamp, Thelma Houston. Service was on the slow side, but friendly when it arrived. We had no complaints about the food—delicious, with portions somewhat larger than normal. Met with Susie. We covered a lot of ground, finalizing decisions about: the PHI link on the home page, the contact us section, the CSCC writing process flowchart, next steps for the Clinical Pharmacy and CSCC subsites. Made edits specifying the live date of PharmCAS, sent to James for review. Dinner at home with Patrick: ordered in Ha's because Patrick had a bad allergy attack today and wasn't feeling well enough to cook. Lots of sneezing and sniffling. Set up Gemstar to record a program. There's a problem with the ATI Scheduler process—it won't start automatically even though it appears in msconfig correctly. We got one show to record by leaving Gemstar open, but I'll have to see if there's a way to fix the ATI Scheduler problem so shows can be recorded even if Gemstar isn't open. Nothing obvious shows up in Google. Installed Windows Updates—another critical update for IE6.

Tue Feb 3, 2004

Staff meeting. Cindy's birthday was yesterday, so we had the party in conjunction with the staff meeting. Everyone brought something chocolate. Made changes to the student directory for Chris: use special characters in names. Added photos to the BSIC and IRC pages, sent links to Susie for review. James had small changes to the admissions calendar before I made the pages live. Prepared then uploaded a new issue of School of Pharmacy News from Susan Heath and Laura Myers—a new design that Susie and Martha and Laura had worked on—it's very nice. Fixed a broken link on our site for Martin T at Academy X. Chatted with James about computer stuff: dsl and laptops. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover Ha's. Watched Young Sherlock Holmes on DVD, which we both enjoyed very much. Be sure to watch this film to the very end.

Wed Feb 4, 2004

No 8:30 am bus! Grr! No 8:50 am bus! Grrr Grrr! Took me 90 minutes to get to work. Cleaned up changes to the student directory for Chris: use special characters in names by adding htmlentities functions. Link checking. Lunch in the workroom with Melissa: I had leftovers, Melissa had turkey sausage and a salad. Tried resolving printer driver problems for Melissa but wasn't sure if I was successful. Her printer is an HP LaserJet 4000N. When printing PDF files to the PCL driver, sometimes she gets not-bullets instead of bullets. Printing in Postscript resolves the problem but she gets an additional page: Error: undefined, Offending command: width, Stack: /TextInit -mark-. HP no longer has a recommended Postscript driver for that printer on their site. Will continue troubleshooting later. Reinstalled Sophos on Kristina's computer—somehow it went missing over the past few days. Set up Mary Anne with an account to access the student directory on the Web. Asked Susie some questions about proposed changes on the faculty page. Converted draft schedules for P1 and P2 students to PDF and uploaded them and sent out an announcement. Updated current students news. Updated the student directory with more changes from Chris (long program students). Patrick and Erick saw A Doll's House at ACT. Dinner at home by myself: cellophane noodles, mushrooms, bean sprouts, fish cake, in organic chicken broth. Installed new case fans in the computer.

Thu Feb 5, 2004

Oatmeal for breakfast. CACDI meeting where I got to see an in progress version of the new UCSF Web site (www.ucsf.edu) demoed by Julie Bernstein and Andy Evangelista. It is very much improved. Joel and I met Patrick at Pasta Pomodoro for lunch. Joel had the mista salad with grilled chicken boobs, Patrick had pollo alla grigio, I had tortellini with cow sauce. Our server was the cheerful and glitter-faced Anthony ("Thanx!"). $29.19 before a $5.00 tip. Met with Mark Melin, a contractor for ENS who provided us with a radio frequency survey to ensure no conflicts for our wireless access points we plan to install. Mark was very helpful, very knowledgeable. Updated our network configuration chart. Prepared an order for ordering the required wireless access point equipment. Cable management for Debrah and Kristina. Dinner at home with Patrick: fried shrimp wrapped in wonton skins, Chinese greens, seaweed-flavored rice. Went to bed early because I wasn't feeling well: light-headed, a sore stomach. I think it was due to rubber cement fumes.

Fri Feb 6, 2004

Research on certification programs. Helped Chris by e-mail with Eudora errors. Changes to admissions section for James. Lunch at home by myself: egg noodles with egg, baby bok choy, garlic, ginger, fish cake. Dinner at home with Patrick: stir-fried vegetables, teriyaki chicken, rice. Chatted with Lani and Rob—we decided to not visit them tomorrow because Matthew was getting over croup and I did not want to risk Patrick catching it. (He gets sick easier than I do.) Patrick and I watched America's Test Kitchen—they had a show about jambalaya. Patrick seemed to think they got most of the things right, though I cringed that they chose to use canned tomatoes. We also watched a gay Chinese film called Happy Together—a story about a dsyfunctional relationship involving lots of cigarette smoking and booze drinking. I walked out about halfway and went to the bedroom to read from Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson instead—too much arguing! We couldn't tell if it was in Cantonese or Mandarin—Patrick thinks it was a little of both. Part of it took place in Argentina, so there was a fair amount of Spanish in it, too.

Sat Feb 7, 2004

Woke up at 3:00 AM, couldn't sleep. Read Google and Wired news, Wired mag, Chris De Lay's blog, Travis's blog. Back to sleep at 6:00 AM. Woke up at 10:00 AM. Cut my hair. Ate breakfast (a cherry danish which Patrick picked up). Organized little hardware: screws, nails, picture hanging hardware, stuff like that. Set up an all new system of backup tapes for all our computers. Set up CD ripping. Reripped CDs we own that were missing or lost on the computer. Emergency dinner at McDonald's on Homestead in Santa Clara: BBQ grilled chicken meal for Patrick, McChicken meal for me: $11.58. Patrick and I saw Colleen and Pedro this evening. Went to a ballet at Roundhill Studios for almost-five Alysia which was lots of fun. She danced in a polka! There were other performances, so the whole show lasted about 2 hours and they had ice cream afterwards. It was obvious that a lot of work went into the entire production—particularly the costumes—and it was touching to see the instructor so dedicated to her students through her passions of ballet and dance. We went back to Col and Pedro's place to chat in their dining room. I never really knew how much Pedro drinks! I didn't have any, but Patrick did and he fell asleep in the car on the drive home. We met Colleen's dad Tom and Pedro's mom. We left around midnight. It was so good to just talk and laugh with her. Their house has had lots of improvements since we were there last some 2 or so years ago. The front yard has changed from dirt and rock to a beautiful green lawn with lighted rock paths leading from the door to the driveway and sidewalk. The backyard has a large deck, a jacuzzi, another beautiful green lawn, and lots of fruit trees: orange, blood orange, and some others I don't remember. We talked about Pedro's strong dislike for George W. Bush's policies (and those of republicans in general), work (Cotherix, Alpine Healthcare), Europe, China, languages, and friends from UCSF whom we still see (and those we don't). I had forgotten that they had cats, but Patrick seemed to do rather well. No sneezing at all; just a little sniffling on the way home. It was an evening well spent.

Sun Feb 8, 2004

Tried making a tip card (e.g., for tipping in a restaurant—15% or 20%) for Dianne but I didn't want to make the type too small for her to read. The attempt I did involved folding a laminated 3-panel double-sided card, but the folding part doesn't really work—the laminate is too stiff. Instead, I'll find out from her what size works best for her purse or whatever she carries. Patrick takes a nap after waking up early to do tai chi, breakfast, some writing and reading. He's reading from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which he found in hardcover at the library. Organized desk drawer stuff and stuff in closets. Returned Happy Together DVD to Le Video. Patrick mailed 3 submissions of a short story to journals. Drove to the beach, walked along the ocean for a while. Stopped at a Safeway on La Playa we never knew existed. Got 2 doughnuts and a strawberry Nesquik milk. Drove home. Patrick wrote while I organized computer CD-ROMs, choosing some of which we're ready to get rid. Dinner at home with Patrick: chow mein. Watched The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on DVD which we borrowed from Sam. The plot was laughable but entertaining. I wouldn't recommend anyone to go out of his or her way to see it, though. Archived data. More backups.

Mon Feb 9, 2004

Edited the writing process flowchart for Medicine Question of the Month and handed off the new draft to Susie. Dropped off a thank you note for Kathy Pang for Patrick. Printed copies of computer requirements for the ACC meeting tomorrow with Kevin Souza et al. Link checking. Susie took a rain check on today's meeting—we rescheduled for tomorrow. Spent most of the afternoon shopping for blinds or shades for the windows between my office and the workroom and James's office and the workroom. I'll double-check the measurements tomorrow, but I think they're identical: about 81" x 63". We tried to find honeycomb shades that do top-down / bottom-up but practically all of them have a maximum width of 72 inches. Additionally, practically all of them are colored on one side and white or gray on the other—we want color on both sides. Consequently, I think we'll have to forego the top-down bottom-up feature completely since I think it highly unlikely we'll find it in larger than 72 inches AND color on both sides. I ordered color samples of miniblinds and pleated shades from decoratetoday.com. If Smith and Noble did regular miniblinds I would have ordered from them, too, but they don't. Helped Cindy install a clock in the student lounge. Cindy approved the estimate for the computer arms installation, so I made photocopies and routed it accordingly. The trash cans for the kitchen arrived, so Ena and I set them up. Finished prepping changes to the admissions section for James, sent him an email with all the links for review. Chatted with Kevin Souza about tomorrow's ACC meeting. Brought home the empty box that the trash cans were shipped in—will probably use it to send our old HP ScanJet 5pse scanner to HP for recycling. Dinner at home with Patrick: nutty rice, baked chicken boobs. Watched the first half hour of The Mummy on ABC, recorded the rest. Did more computer backups. Chatted briefly with the Hawkster.

Tue Feb 10, 2004

Scanned a flyer for Terence Kiang, put it up on current students news. Met with Rob Slaughter, Kevin Souza, Heidi Schmidt, and ?—the first subcommittee meeting of the ACC—academic computing something—committee? I can never remember academic abbreviations and acronyms. Lunch with Joel: low-carb wraps and chips from Subway. We ate in the workroom after students finished counted ballots for the student body elections. One student brought in a little chihuahua she was dogsitting for a few hours. Fun! Met with David Mischel who introduced me to the authentication and authorization project he is working on. He is right on the ball, very knowlegeable, and I am glad he's working on the project. Chatted with Kristina and Melissa about plants, seedlings, orchids. Met with Susie: faculty database, faculty page. She also brought me 2 new books: The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition and The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law. Cool! Changes for James to the provisional reply pages. They are mostly simple edits except he needs a new form page for alternates to reply and his changes to the entering students page aren't what I'd do, so I'll talk with him about them. Cleaned off tape residue from the student lounge door window. Dinner at home with Patrick: delivery from mrpizzaman.com: chicken strips, french fries, breadsticks, chef's salad. About $20 before a $2 tip. Read about International Quirkyalone Day from a link on flavorpill. Played e-Scrabble. More tape backups.

Wed Feb 11, 2004

Cleaned off more tape residue from the student lounge door window. Swapped out a sticky keyboard for a new one for Chris. Confirmed recent critical Windows Updates were installed for me, James, Chris. Chatted with Mike Renoude who is double-checking that our wire to the WAP we're going to install is live. Met with Diane Nguyen, whose Win 98 laptop got infected with a bunch of viruses, worms, and trojans because she didn't have a firewall or anti-virus software. Purchasing McAfee VirusScan 8 and Personal Firewall online was no problem, but downloading and installing it was a pain. Their download process runs an ActiveX installer, so they presume you're installing to the same computer you download from. I can't believe how stupid this is. If I have an infected computer, I don't want to hook it to the Internet. I asked live support for McAfee if there was a way to download an installer and Patrick Samuelson told me no there was no way. So instead, I used Sophos tools to disinfect in MS-DOS mode, then connected it, and downloaded and installed McAfee. Dinner at Sparky's by myself: grilled chicken boob sandwich, fries, water: about $8 before a $1.75 tip. Brian Kusler's 34th birthday party and Brian, Kelly, and Jesse's place. Kelly made a huge pan of paella. I brought light pink tulips—it's hard to buy flowers that aren't red or pink or white around Valentine's day. Patrick decided to stay home because he needs to wake up early—this party is too late for him. Everyone else was there: Little Brian, Adrian, Nico, Simma, Kim, Nina, Big Brian, Deep, Tom, Eric. Brian and Kelly broke out a bottle of red wine which they bought in 1994 and which turned out to be quite deliciously velvety and full.

Thu Feb 12, 2004

This morning the 8:30 am bus 66 driver (driving bus #8820) arrived a few minutes late and did not make the bus kneel for the elderly Chinese women as they boarded. They got on, followed by a man who works at UCSF as well, and then me. I had my foot up on the stairs of the bus waiting for the man before me to pay when the bus driver started to close the door on my foot. He then reopened the door quickly and gruffly said something like, "Step up if you're gonna get on!" Showing my bus pass as I walked by, I glared at him without saying a word, and he gave me the evil eye back through his dark sunglasses. Why do Muni bus drivers have to be so mean? If he's late, why does he have to take it out on me? When I get to work, I visit sfmuni.com to file a complaint, but that Web site is down—not even a home page! Instead, I send e-mail to the mayor Gavin Newsom. Cindy and Joel each made delightful candy gift packages for everyone in the office. Made live faculty page changes for Susie, notified her. Met with Chris C who arranged to meet visiting staff Francis Schlemmer and Joe Kaufman from the University of Illinois to discuss how we use technology for students and faculty. Inspected a blue screen of death on Chris's computer: found some possibly suspicious entries in the event log, but further research turned up nothing specific. Problem happened while he stepped away from the computer. I did other stuff today, but I can't remember now (Saturday, February 14). Lunch with Joel and Patrick at Beijing on Irving. My fortune: Many receive advice, only the wise profit by it. Patrick's fortune: Good fortune is just around the corner. Today I was stunned by the news that our newly elected mayor Gavin Newsom participated in "civil disobedience" (as reported by sfgate.com) by issuing executive orders to the office that handles marriage licenses declaring that same-gender marriages shall be legally recognized by the city. By doing so, San Francisco becomes the first city and county in the nation to officially recognize marriages (not just civil unions) between two men and two women.

Fri Feb 13, 2004

Oatmeal and a cinnamon raisin bagel for breakfast. Work from home. Link checking. Modified link checking to start at 5:00 am instead of 3:00 am to see if that reduces the number of false positive broken links. (I suspect that some servers we link to are down for maintenance at 3:00 am Pacific each night.) Fixed a link in the proposed admissions changes for James. Spent the rest of the day working on Cindy's change requests for the graduation licensing and exams section. Dinner at home with Patrick: salad and mushroom pizza from mrpizzaman.com. Watched The Simpsons episodes, which are now getting recorded through broadcast airwaves through our Radeon All-in-Wonder 9600 graphics card. I fixed the antenna a few days ago so the signal is actually watchable.

Sat Feb 14, 2004

Installed a new version of ATI MMC (which was released 2 days ago) to resolve some stability problems. Breakfast: cherry danish. Burned new copies of and printed labels for Patrick's mix cd: Mello 03. Lunch: leftover mushroom pizza and salad. Installed home server updates. Picked up some exquisite chocolate truffles for $19.00 at Joseph Schmidt (3489-16th Street) and a bunch of miniature roses for $27.13 after tax at Not Just Flowers (4109-18th Street) while Patrick was at home making a special dinner. Valentine's and Our 4th Anniversary Dinner, a four-course menu: 1. Les Bookinistes' Cream of Corn Soup, served over pan-fried shiitake and chanterelle mushrooms, shallots, and chives, then drizzled with hazelnut oil and celery salt. 2. A salad of curly endive, butcher's bacon, and Roquefort cheese, with French vinaigrette. 3. La Cagouille's Sea Scallops with warm vinaigrette and finely-diced tarragon, chives, and Italian parsley, served with Wild Mushroom Risotto (porcini, chanterelle, shiitake, and crimini mushrooms). 4. Dark Cherry Creme Brulee, with a pirouette cookie, following Tina's very delicious recipe, and with her invaluable assistance over the cell phone. Dinner also included warm Semifreddi's pugliese, a bottle of Apollinaris ("the queen of all table waters") and a dipping of olive oil with balsamic vinegar, as well as a very special printed menu, which rhymed each of the dishes with a poem about our four years together. Before he sugared and fired the creme brulee, we watched A Charlie Brown Valentine from TV. I washed dishes. This was easily the best meal Patrick has ever made for me, and I feel lucky to have his gourmet skills in addition to his devoted love.

Sun Feb 15, 2004

Breakfast: bacon cheddar scramble. Washed all the windows and screens since Norita had some people clean the house siding using high-pressure water. We thought they would have cleaned the windows when they were done, but they didn't, so I did it. Patrick and I washed the car after that. Lunch at home: leftover salad and bread and cream of corn soup. I washed dishes. Watched some Simpsons episodes. Napped. Erick's Birthday Dinner at Watercress with Erick, Travis, Robert, Joe, Shaul, David, Randy, John, and Justin. I had tiger prawns, sole with baby bok choy, Napoleon. Patrick had goat cheese wontons, salmon, chocolate genoise. Food was excellent, service was unusually slow. The restaurant was the busiest we'd ever seen. We gave Erick a copy of Patrick's brand new Mello 03 mix cd (which was—for one instance—formerly known as The Beat Archaeology 2). After dinner, we all went to Blondie's for drinks. Patrick and I both had a fun time meeting new people and celebrating Erick's birthday. Bought gasoline from Twin Peaks Auto (589 Portola Drive) on the way back.

Mon Feb 16, 2004

Took apart computer #2, then rebuilt it with all new components. It was the quickest I'd ever done an upgrade before. I knew exactly what to do because computer #1 was upgraded not long ago and the components were all the same. Leftovers for lunch. Dentist appointment with Dr. Natasha Lee. Dr. Lee didn't do my cleaning herself this time. All her staff has changed over since my last visit. Now there's an assistant (a hygienist?) named Emily who says she graduated from the School of Dentistry last June. All the new staff is very courteous and on the ball. I went in for just a regular cleaning and was told that I'm doing an excellent job of taking care of my teeth. Neither Patrick nor I like the art that's on the walls now. The one in Room #1 was of two skunks—yuck! Dinner at Nan King Road Bistro with Patrick: steamed dumplings, hong kong noodles, one hot tea for Patrick: $11.66 before a $1.75 tip. At home, Patrick and I watched So Close on DVD, which was recommended by Tina. This film has an even amount of cable fu martial arts action and cliched laughoutloud plot lines. You'll laugh at the disbelief you're asked to suspend, but nonetheless I found it an entertaining film. There are a few scenes with exceptionally well choreographed stunts.

Tue Feb 17, 2004

Today is the 4-year anniversary of me meeting Patrick! We combine our Valentine's Day and anniversary celebrations, so we didn't do anything particularly special today. Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnamon, brown sugar, and raisins. Took care of bills and paperwork. Did laundry. Did more computer setup: installed printer drivers and applications. Hand-synched HTML-Kit FTP settings. Attempted to go to Jenny's housewarming, but after driving an hour in 3-mile-per-hour traffic I realized that I forgot the maps and her phone number in a backpack at home. We turned around at Treasure Island and went grocery shopping at Trader Joe's (415-863-1292, 555-9th Street) instead. Dinner at home with Patrick: Trader Joe's salmon stuffed with couscous, salad. Washed dishes. Watched 3 Simpsons episodes. Backed up Patrick's old Briefcase file. Fixed Patrick's Windows Briefcase to sync properly with the new computer. Set up printing for him since the printer got swapped to computer #1.

Wed Feb 18, 2004

This morning Patrick woke me up and told me that he just found out he has been nominated by the world renowned Joyce Carol Oates for the National Pushcart Prize! He'll find out if he is selected in May. Breakfast: bagel with cream cheese. Joel made yellow cake cupcakes with pink frosting and multicolored sprinkles! James brought in oatmeal cookies! Yum! Checked on our monitors order with Hubert—they're expected to arrive by the end of the week. Checked on our computer arms installation with Emma—no answer yet. Answered questions for Chris about a virus attached to a file that he is unable to delete. Changes for James to the transcripts page, made them live. Changed front page news stories for Susie after her approval. Late lunch with Ena and Joel at Cybelle's Front Room: Ena had a bacon burger with garlic potato wedges, Joel had a mushroom-pepperoni monster slice with a side of small garden salad, I had a mushroom-pepperoni monster slice. Waters all around. Server was Niki, who Joel persuaded to change the plasma TV channel at his whim. Licensing and Examinations changes for Cindy. Home. Upon restarting after hibernation, computer #1 had the problem described in Q294427: showed two options: "Continue with system restart and "Delete restoration data and proceed to system boot menu"—Choosing Delete restoration data resolved the problem.

Thu Feb 19, 2004

Reinstalled ATI MMC—kept getting error message "Unable to start TV" when it began recording a show. Upgraded ZoneAlarm. Bagel with cream cheese and cherry scone for breakfast. Met with Cindy for a regular update of things. More changes to the licensure and examinations pages (formerly known as the board exam and licensure pages) for Cindy. Helped Debrah with a red dot problem in InDesign 2.0. A red dot in the lower right corner of a table cell indicates overflow text, though it was impossible for me to find that fact in the InDesign manual. I ended up searching Google mostly unsuccessfully before searching the Adobe InDesign for Windows support forum on "red dot." It would be better for that red dot to display some explanatory text when one hovers the cursor over it. Helped Earl set up the Ergotron computer arms in the student lounge. After he finished, I set up the computer and all its cabling and wire loom cable covers. It works, and it looks great! Installing the Ergotron arms was not very easy to figure out because they came with instructions in multiple languages and with universally incomprehensible installation illustrations. One part came with 8 screws—4 of one size, and 4 of another slightly smaller size. We had lots of illustrations showing screws and screwholes, but nothing told us which size screws went with which holes. We had to guess many things or just try them out. Another example: the arms have a gauge indicator on the left side which is labelled A through J or something like that but since they provided illustrations which were unlabelled, I had no idea what the gauge was for. After many minutes of headscratching, my intuition told me it was a gauge of tension in the arm. The illustration showed a tool inserted a certain way next to the close-up image of the gauge, so when I did like the picture I figured out what the gauge was for (and my intuition was correct). I guess it would have been too inelegant for them to put the words "too tight or too loose?" or "tension control" next to their picture. Helped Chris C delete a virus-infected file that McAfee VirusScan somehow wouldn't let him delete. Dinner at home with Patrick: turkey meatballs and spaghetti, bread. The turkey meatballs were from Trader Joe's, and they tasted awful! Patrick said, "See! I told you! That Trader Joe! It's hit or miss with him!" And his Bella Vita Low Carb Roasted Garlic spaghetti sauce was too salty. Don't buy it! If they would cut back on the salt, it would be just fine. We like the cherry scones from him, though. A shower for me. Watched Simpsons episodes. Sam gave us 2 black leather wallet clip things from his mom Dianne—a nice small gift.

Fri Feb 20, 2004

Breakfast: two cherry scones. Met with Annaliese, Julia, Kevin, Chandler, and ? for an hour about ePocrates licensing. New flat panel monitors have arrived for our front office staff and for Cindy. Talked with the front office staff about the forthcoming monitors. Kristina in particular had concerns about moving the position from the side to the corner, so I gave advice and hopefully we'll set her up with the same computer monitor arm that James is using with much success now. I called SF Micro to install the monitors for us on Tuesday. Finalized my licensure and examinations prep work and sent the URLs to Cindy for review. Lunch with Patrick and Susie at Pomelo. Susie had the koh suomi or kuo suomo or kho siumo or something like that: spicy coconut curry with green beans over rice. Patrick had the seared ahi tuna with noodles. I had the transparent noodles with chicken and Chinese sausage and snow peas. We treated Susie to lunch in exchange for information about her trip to China which was last year today. It's always nice to spend time with Susie, and her blouse stylishly matched the bright green interior walls of Pomelo. Met with Susie to discuss Web issues. Kristina had a need-a-laptop emergency (not her fault, we think), but when we got to N225 with the laptop we found the problem had been resolved in a different way. Did research about some issues that Kevin Souza brought up for the Student Computing Support committee (which I think I've formerly referred to as the ACC) regarding the ITS decision to no longer provide personal web space for faculty, students, and staff. Ugh, such a big topic. Chris C and I borrowed a wrench and a pair of pliers from Rodney and adjusted the student lounge computer arm so that it was stiffer—it kept falling down slightly when people typed on it. Better now. Gave James a gel mouse wrist rest from the Cyberguys shipment that arrived today. Dinner at home with Patrick: herbed pizza dough and pizza sauce from Trader Joe's, mozzarella, yellow bell pepper, mushrooms, and some other veggies I forgot already or couldn't see under the sauce. Caught up on e-mail.

Sat Feb 21, 2004

"User Accounts: Windows cannot change the password. (OK)" error when attempting to create a password for the first time in Windows XP. Nothing in Google on this. Solution: Start > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Local Users and Groups > Users. Select the user, uncheck "User cannot change password." We were thinking of going to the Orchid Expo with Melissa, but Patrick didn't feel like going and I was tired and achey all day. Lunch at Boudin Bakery and Cafe at Stonestown Mall. Dinner at home with Patrick: pork chops, tater tots, salad. Watched Lost in Translation on DVD.

Sun Feb 22, 2004

Breakfast at home with Patrick: veggie scramble, rolled biscuits. Watched Simpsons. Walgreens. Organized computer files. Made a few dining tip cards for Dianne who had lost hers a week or two ago. We didn't really have lunch today. Snacked. Patrick napped.

Mon Feb 23, 2004

Organized desk junk in plastic compartment boxes from Cyberguys, making Joel and Ena jealous. Handed off the student lounge computer cds and manual and monitor stand to Rodney. Joel brought in naval oranges from a tree in the yard of his grandmother's house in Modesto, which he visited this past weekend. James brought in a huge stack of cookies he baked which Ena said looked and tasted like they were made by a professional. Lunch with Joel: Subway sandwich meals to go. Made the necessary requests to have server admins temporarily restore the transcripts page for Melissa and James so they could see what it was like on February 4 at the request of Stu H. Finished and sent my SCS comments e-mail regarding the ITS decision to no longer provide Web space, printed copies for tomorrows meeting. Wrote up instructions for Larry on how we want our monitors set up tomorrow. Dinner at home with Patrick: Penne with vegetables and feta. Watched Simpsons episodes.

Tue Feb 24, 2004

Link checking. Updated faculty listings for Susie. Tweaked monitor installation notes for Larry. Updated current students calendar. Reviewed notes for SCS meeting. SCS meeting. OSACA staff meeting. Chatted with Larry about the monitor installs—he did a fine job, and Ena mentioned to me that he was very polite. Updated the SCS computer requirements chart with Rob Slaughter's data. Left a message with Mike R asking for product numbers for the Cisco wireless adapter we need—I can't figure out from Cisco's marketing confusing materials which is the right one. Prepped provisional admit confirmation reply pages for live for James. Dropped off keys to the student lounge computer locks to Rodney. Chatted with Chris C about calendering apps. Emergency Win XP upgrades for Debrah and Melissa since their new flat screen monitors made the text fuzzier than with their old CRT monitors. Debrah's went mostly smoothly. Melissa's crashed and burned with a "no more irp stack locations" blue screen of death while attempting to copy a partition with PartitionMagic 7.0. It's magic alright; it made my time and her data magically disappear! Stayed at work until midnight reinstalling Win XP on her computer from scratch, then installing Windows Updates, then reinstalling nearly all her apps, then installing Office Updates, then meticulously restoring her data and as many settings as I could forage from the backup tape. Had to do it because she's in a no-downtime window for the admissions cycle and because I didn't do a full backup like I usually like to do for Windows upgrades just in case. Ate popcorn for dinner coz that's all I had. Did Windows Updates and a reboot on the server since no one was in the office. Rode the last 43 bus to catch the last L-train home by 1:00 am. Had some canned soup, caught up on e-mail, in bed by 2:00 am. Patrick went with Aaron to a reading at the main library today for Elizabeth Stark and others.

Wed Feb 25, 2004

Street gutters magically turned to streams and rivulets overnight. Patrick accidentally fell into a 3-foot puddle, which ruined his morning just before class. Blueberry bagels with cream cheese for breakfast. Helped Melissa with a few final touches on her Win XP upgrade, now all is well. Send Chris C a file he needed from his computer. Lunch in the workroom: canned chicken pot pie soup. Met with Heidi S and Richard T about using the Library's LDAP server for our student database on the Web project. It was a quick meeting—25 minutes—and they have a few things to check out on their own to determine if we can set it up but so far it looks like it's a go. Hooray! James had me restore the Course Work As Part of EAP paragraph on the Transcripts page. I also restored Course Work As Part of EAP and Course Work Not As Part of EAP on the Foreign College or University page, but we didn't make that change live just yet. Link checking. Win XP upgrade for Cindy—no problems. Prepped Kristina's computer for a Win XP upgrade tomorrow. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick's first time making roast chicken the way that Jacques Pepin does—it looked beautiful and tasted delicious. Before and after dinner, we worked on a full-page ad that Patrick needs for Lodestar Quarterly. It shall appear in a forthcoming issue of Ten Magazine—the literary magazine for the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Set up an input method editor for Patrick on his computer so he can type Chinese characters directly into Microsoft Word and other applications without having to use NJStar. The Language Bar button was grayed out and it took me the longest time to figure out how to fix it. After downloading and installing the IME from Microsoft's Web site, I also had to install a new keyboard layout in the Text Services control panel. Once I did and applied the changes, the EN icon appeared in the system tray as expected. Today President Bush announced (essentially) that as long as discrimination is popular you should change the constitution to permit and enforce it. Huh?

Thu Feb 26, 2004

Updated the antivirus and firewall pages, sent out an urgent email to my unit and all students regarding Netsky.C and MyDoom.F worms. Troubleshot a linkcheck problem—the dev server ran out of disk space because the SAA server had an infinite loop redirect problem. Julie B and I hashed it out. After a while, Jina says the server is back again and now linklint runs fine. It was the first time Julie and I had ever seen an error 414: Requested URI is too long. Updated a broken link for a medq article. Disinfected a laptop for a student which had gotten the Netsky.C virus. HIPAA physical security meeting. Helped James with the laptop, ensuring that it would be able to meet all his needs on his trip to DC. Chatted with another student about a computer worm infection. E-mailed another student about WebMail problems. Sent out an e-mail to all students about problems with WebMail. Sent out an e-mail to all students about problems with the SAA Web server. Dinner at home with Patrick: Seniore's chicken special pizza, salad.

Fri Feb 27, 2004

Linkcheck. Dealt with reports that the saawww.ucsf.edu site was down, sent e-mail to Jina. Spent the day working on license and examinations changes for Cindy and confirmation form changes for James. Patrick has lunch with Erick at Fuzio. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover Seniore's pizza, new salad.

Sat Feb 28, 2004

Breakfast: shrimp omelet with avocado, mushrooms, cheddar (but feta for Patrick), side of hash browns. Town Hall meeting with Gavin Newsom, Bevan Dufty, Mark Leno, Carole Midgen, and the city's department heads at James Lick Middle School in Noe Valley. Brian Kusler later described it using the exact same word I was thinking when I was there: lovefest. To my knowledge, this was one of the first opportunities for people to publically thank Gavin Newsom for his decision on February 12 to legally recognize same-sex marriages in San Francisco. Somewhere between 750 and 1000 people showed up with smiles and applause and signs saying "Thank You Mayor Newsom" and when he entered the building he received a 5-minute standing ovation. Newsom accepted our thanks humbly and graciously. During the question and answer session, he reaffirmed his commitment to making changes from the way Willie Brown ran the city to making certain that the department heads work together with the people of the city instead of pointing fingers at each other. Over the course of the next 2 hours, they announced interesting developments such as a single citywide telephone number—311—for all city services and zero-emissions standards for all Muni transit vehicles by the year 2020—a first in the nation for such a plan. Since Newsom has been in office only 2 months, it remains to be seen whether the vitality he brings will turn out the results he's promising, but I am hopeful after hearing him speak. Standing ovations were also given to his newly appointed acting chief of police, Heather Fong, and the newly appointed fire chief, Joanne Hayes-White. Lunch at Fuzio in the Castro. Patrick went to Muddy Waters to study the speech he needs to give on Monday while I went with Brian and Kelly to the San Francisco Herb Company which sells a large variety of herbs at wholesale prices. Brian was picking up a bunch of essential oils for his soapmaking. Fun! After that, we went to the grand opening of the Apple Store downtown in the old building space occupied by Sephora. The place was packed, and Brian chatted with Travis and ?—some Apple employees he knew. Brian had shown up right when the doors opened, and said that Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown had to wait around because Steve Jobs was late. Brian left for the town meeting because the line out the door stretched around the block. Brian and Kelly's pal Deep showed up too. Went to Travis W's birthday party at his place in Campbell. Met a whole lot of nice people—Travis has a great collection of friends. Talked mostly with Dale, Paul, and (I forgot his name—the Asian guy who decided he was a metrosexual).

Sun Feb 29, 2004

Slept in. Ate leftover chow mein from Travis's party. Napped. Ate leftover chow mein from Travis's party. Watched old recorded TV: cooking shows and Chinese New Year parade. Finished the Lodestar ad for Ten Magazine. Ate leftover chow mein from Travis's party and chicken shau mai from Trader Joe's. (The shau mai was just okay—would have been better with pork.) Watched the Simpsons.