January 2006

Summary: Patrick and I moved to a new home

Dates on this page

Sun Jan 1, 2006

Pre-breakfast: banana, yogurt, orange juice. Cut my hair. Breakfast: eggs, sausage, hash browns. Patrick and I ran errands in the inner Sunset and outer Sunset. We stopped in at Bob Gluck's new home (new to us)—he was throwing a New Year party. Patrick chatted with Maxine and others. We met Loren and Nancy, chatted with them for a while. Visited with Mom Ryan and Kerry for a short time. Stopped at Maxfield's for chai and hot chocolate. I dropped Patrick off in the Castro—he was meeting his friend Wei for dinner. I shopped for groceries at Safevay. Edited and uploaded new year's eve photos. Photos from my trip are still forthcoming...

Mon Jan 2, 2006

Back at work today. Updated current student schedules (link to School of Medicine electives). Updated current student news. Helped Joel with his Palm Pilot and PalmOne (Pa1mOne) software. "Outlook Calendar OLERR:0D-0050 OLERR:0D-0001 OLERR:0D-0005." Solution: temporarily gave Joel administrator rights, clean uninstalled Palm Desktop (including removing U.S. Robotics registry entries), removed Outlook Calendar offline items, restarted Outlook with 'outlook /resetfolders', reinstalled Palm Desktop, resynched the Calendar with Desktop overrides Handheld, restarted the computer, resynched with Synchronize. Tested adds and deletions in both directions. All fixed in about 2 hours. Also troubleshot another problem for Joel—he's no longer able to see advertisements on web pages (he enjoys seeing them). Our site license version of Webroot Spy Sweeper seems to be preventing him from seeing them even if we uncheck the Host File Shield preference. I was also unable to uninstall Spy Sweeper—no Uninstall or Remove button appears when I select it in Add/Remove Programs control panel. I submitted a ticket to the helpdesk for resolution. Snack: raisins. Web page updates for Cindy and James. Lunch: roast cow and cheddar sandwich, orange juice. Updated a listserv for Joel. With Kim's help, I updated the photocopier page to reflect the copier's new location. Installed Firefox 1.5 at work for me. Updated my list of online file storage solutions for people who are unable to send or receive attachments or people who otherwise need an online method of sharing files. You can find it by searching Google on "ucsf pharmacy unable to send attachments" (without the quotes). Chris had pashmina and silk scarves for everyone after returning from his vacation. He also bought me a little winter cap with ear flaps—I love it! I distributed my gifts for the office staff which I brought back from Hawai'i: small bottles of body lotion and Hawaiian-themed Post-It note pads and (for Joel) Hawaiian floaty pens. After work, Patrick and I had dinner at Thai Chef: fried rice with cow, salmon in green curry, tea, water. Afterwards, we went to the Castro Theater showing of 9 to 5 using a gift certificate Patrick had gotten me over a year ago. It was a lot of fun seeing that old film again with an enthusiastic crowd. The condition of the film was pretty miserable—washed out colors, lots of scratches, sound spotty in places—but it was easy to overlook those problems with such a great combination of talent from everyone involved.

Tue Jan 3, 2006

Breakfast: yogurt, banana, orange juice. More catching up on all the e-mail I got over vacation. Forwarded messages accidentally tagged as spam by the mail server. Negotiated the forthcoming redesign upload of the clinical pharmacy subsite. Chatted in e-mail with Bev E about website accessibility guidelines for UCSF. Helped Mike L figure out whether to fix or surplus an old HP LaserJet 4ML that was jamming. (We decided to send it to surplus since new black-and-white laser printers can be had for $124.) Lunch: Joel and I got sandwiches from Subway. Kristina stopped by to show off 7-month-old Myles—he's such a cutie! Told Jeff M I agreed to helping him review applications and resumes for a new position in his unit. Sent Joel a new PDF proof for his post-it notes project which the printer printed incorrectly. Helped Chris troubleshoot a printer problem. Helped James find workarounds for not being able to send attachments in e-mail. Dinner at home with Patrick: pizza. Chatted online with CD. Shopped online for rugs with Patrick.

Wed Jan 4, 2006

Breakfast: yogurt, banana, orange juice. Chatted with Kirk H about VPN installers and CD-ROMs and USB drives. Coded new news stories for Susie. Met with student CHK with VPN and switching from Outlook Express to Outlook. Helped Lucia troubleshoot an InDesign problem. Attempted to repair a flagpole for Joel but it didn't work—the pilot hole I drilled probably wasn't big enough, so the metal hook I attempted to screw in broke off (similar to the previous two attempts others had tried). Created a cover page template with our office logo for Stacey using Microsoft Word. Installed QuickTime 7, Firefox 1.5, and Google Safe Browsing for Firefox for 3 users. Reinstalled Spy Sweeper for 2 users. Coded new news stories for Susie. Reviewed resumes for Jeff M. Signed up for an Educause account. Converted a paper document to PDF for Cindy. Met with Susie to discuss various web issues. Helped Chris with a question about Outlook and workday hours. Patrick picked me up from work in the rental car. We ran an errand then came home. Dinner at home with Patrick: big tube pasta with spinach and peas in alfredo sauce, leftover pizza. An easily misinterpreted headline from today: "Search continues for Java victims." Another one: "Chinese director tops Cannes jury."

Thu Jan 5, 2006

Breakfast: yogurt, banana. Submitted a ticket to ITS regarding the following problem with Outlook 2003 for Windows. I'm attempting to let others see my work day hours. My calendar has been shared with appropriate permissions to these other people, and they can see my calendar events as expected. However, a problem exists with the display of my work day hours versus their work day hours. As an example, under Tools > Options > Calendar Options, in the first section (Calendar work week), I have set start time and end time set to 9:00 AM and 5:30 PM. When others view my calendar in Day or Work Week view, the differently shaded hours correspond to their work day hours (e.g., 8 to 5) instead of my work day hours (9 to 5:30). I'm expecting their calendar to show the appropriate lighter shading for their work day hours and my calendar to show the appropriate lighter shading for my work day hours. Similarly, all shared calendars I can view show my work day hours (9 to 5:30) instead of each person's work day hours. This is problematic because not everyone works the same work day hours and it's sometimes very difficult to schedule meetings correctly when you cannot see others' work day hours correctly. It surprises me that this groupware solution is unable to let us see this information as we expect. Is there a way to make this work as I expect? If not, please forward my feature request to your Microsoft contact. Thanks!.—Coded new news stories for Susie. Prepared old computer equipment for surplus. Helped Chris reinstall his computer's mouse drivers. Worked on the Center for Consumer Self Care site for Jeff and Bill. Helped Lucia with the fax machine. Chatted with Susie about the news stories, helped her with setting up a customized Google News page so she can check for references to UCSF School of Pharmacy. Uninstalled MSN Messenger from Cindy's computer. Small meals throughout the day: leftover cow stew (twice), raisins (twice), fruit cup (once).

Fri Jan 6, 2006

Breakfast: yogurt, banana. Returned the rental car to Hertz. Lunch 1: small turkey and cheddar sandwich. Ran into a problem with Firefox 1.5 upon launch on one computer: "...failure in Chrome Registration..."—I was temporarily able to work around the problem by uninstalling all extensions. However reinstalling any extension caused the error message to return. I logged in as admin, started Firefox 1.5—this appeared to be the first time I had done so as admin—closed it, then logged back in as a normal user, and now the "failure in Chrome Registration" error message no longer appears—weird! I learned a couple of days ago that you cannot install Google Safe Browsing for Firefox as admin and expect it to be installed for the normal users of the same computer—it must be installed on a per user basis while logged in as that user. Started sweeps of Spy Sweeper sweeps and defrag. Installed QT7/Fx1.5/GSB for more computers. Verified that Spy Sweeper was installed on some computers—it had disappeared on some computers during my vacation. Lunch 2: small turkey and cheddar sandwich. Picked up the car from the auto body shop. The place I used was Stan Carlsen Body Shop (415-221-0100, 522 Frederick Street), and I'm very happy with the work and price Aaron Deo and his staff provided. I had to do a lot of shopping around to find the right place, and I'm now glad to say I've found a body shop I can trust which is saying a lot because I have had a bad repair shop experience in the past. I had gone to the "official" BMW body shop at 1140 Harrison and it was the only place where I was not given a written estimate. They verbally said the repair would cost $2000—"$3000 tops"—and I knew I needed to look elsewhere. Their web site was also out of date with some details. I also went to Autobody Garage (415-371-8822, 565 Bryant Street). This place gave a quote which turned out to be pretty low but when I asked if the repairs were guaranteed in writing Karry hemmed and hawed and gave me the impression that the answer was no, so I went elsewhere. I was recommended to Marta at Colma Auto Body Shop (650-756-7110, 7252 Mission) by a friend. Ironically, when we met, she told me, "This will be the lowest quote you get" and instead it turned out to be the highest—$500 more than the lowest quote. Marta was the first person to tell me how long the repair might take: 4 days. I then went to 19th Autobody Center (415-334-5050, 3950 19th Avenue) where I almost got the repair done. I was happy with everything we discussed during the estimate, but Cliff never called me back to set up an appointment for me to bring the car in. I had called twice and received one callback but it seemed he didn't really want my business. At Stan Carlsen Body Shop, their website says you get a free car rental with repairs over $1000. This turned out to be a really great benefit. They called Hertz to pick us up and take us to the rental car. My car was repaired in 3 days, right on schedule, and everything was fixed to my satisfaction. I believe we were treated honestly because upon picking up the car I was told that one portion of the repair wasn't necessary and why (paint blending—the door panel matched without requiring blending). Consequently, they deducted several hundred dollars from my total when they could have easily pocketed the difference. To top it all off, they gave me the lowest quote of all the places I visited. After I picked up the car I returned to Hertz because I left a bag of stuff in the rental car, then I went home where I realized I couldn't get into the house. I had forgotten my house keys this morning when I left home, and Patrick had alreadly left to spend the evening with his friend Wei. I drove to the Castro for dinner at Osaka Restaurant. Did a little shopping and stopped at Cliff's for some hardware. Briefly ran in to Bill L on the street. Later ran in to Danny, Phil, Drew, and Antoine and we chatted a bit. Some of them were going to Club Dragon and I told them I was a definite maybe depending on when I could get back in the house. I drove home and ended up waiting for Patrick for several hours—he had forgotten all about me! Consequently, I didn't go to Dragon, but showered, then went to bed.

Sat Jan 7, 2006

Breakfast: my favorite breakfast plus a banana and yogurt. Patrick and I bought 4 rugs for us and something for Patrick's mom at Ikea East Palo Alto. We shared a small meal there: pig and cheddar sandwich, Swedish dessert combo, side of mashed potatoes. The dessert combo was the best. Three pieces: green marzipan-wrapped treat with rum-infused something (very brown sugary) on the inside, then both ends dipped in dark chocolate; a gumdrop-shaped dome of dark chocolate rolled in coconut with marshmallow-tasting heavy whipping cream on the inside; and a tiny lemon tart. The meal was really inexpensive: $8.37 including two soft drinks. Nap. Archived documents.

Sun Jan 8, 2006

Breakfast: scrambled eggs with spinach, a banana, yogurt, orange juice. Lunch at New Tsing Tao with Patrick: he got spicy deep fried chicken lunch plate, I got cashew chicken lunch plate. His fortune: We learn most when we are teaching. My fortune: You are a dreamer and your thinking is inspirational. About $14 after a $2 tip—a very inexpensive lunch. Patrick took a nap. Installed Sophos Enterprise for 3 computers. Shopped online for various things: a DVD burner for Windows, air fresheners, Aquaphor in fun size or lip balm size (it no longer exists), wireless audio solutions. Archived documents. Edited old childhood photos of Patrick. Uploaded photos.

Mon Jan 9, 2006

Usual breakfast at the cafeteria. Coded new news stories for Susie. Repaired a screw-in hook on a flagpole for Joel. (The solution was to use a 3/16" drill bit to drill about half or three-fourths of the full length down, then to also use a 1/8" drill bit to drill the full length down, then screw the hook in. Previous attempts failed because the drilled hole was not big enough, and it caused the screw portion of the hook to break in half.) Organized digital files. Linkchecking. Removed and reinstalled Spy Sweeper for Chris, then sent this report to ITS: "One of my users has found that the Spy Sweeper window no longer appears when he double-clicks the Spy Sweeper icon in the system tray. It used to work fine in the past, he has had no new software installed and no system configuration changes that we're aware of besides the usual Microsoft security updates. He also noticed that Spy Sweeper would no longer animate the tray icon as a radar screen during (just after) startup. When the Spy Sweeper icon is double-clicked, nothing happens, even if we wait several minutes. (The Spy Sweeper main window normally appears instantly.) If we right-click the tray icon, a popup menu appears with only 2 choices: Restore and Help. If we choose Restore, nothing happens, even if we wait several minutes. If we choose Help, the Spy Sweeper Help window appears as expected. (With normal, working installations of Spy Sweeper, right-clicking the tray icon gives many more than these 2 options.) In the Processes tab of the Task Manager, SpySweeperTray.exe was running, but not SPYSWEEPER.EXE nor SpySweeperUI.exe. I uninstalled Spy Sweeper using ssecleanup.exe located in C:\program files\webroot\InstallFiles\ then restarted the computer then reinstalled Spy Sweeper downloaded from its.ucsf.edu on 9/23/2005 (filesize 11,386,525 bytes) then restarted the computer. This did not resolve the problem—we found the same behavior as before. I again uninstalled Spy Sweeper using ssecleanup.exe located in C:\program files\webroot\InstallFiles\ then restarted the computer then removed all registry entries which had "webroot" in them then restarted the computer then reinstalled Spy Sweeper downloaded from its.ucsf.edu on 1/9/2006 (filesize 18,873,479 bytes). This did resolve the problem. No action necessary—I'm just submitting my case report in case it helps anyone else." This took about an hour's worth of troubleshooting. Fast lunch from the cafeteria: roast pig with gravy and mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables and a dinner roll with butter.

Tue Jan 10, 2006

Student computing committee meeting. Staff meeting. Reviewed resumes for Jeff M. Helped student PS with VPN. Minor updates to a web page for Chris. Lunch: chicken boob sandwich from Subway. Dinner at home with Patrick: canned soup for me, frozen dinner for Patrick. We watched the behind-the-scenes documentary for Kung Fu Hustle on DVD—it's fun.

Wed Jan 11, 2006

Breakfast: egg muffin sandwich, orange juice. Telecommute day. Prepared the 2006-2007 calendars. Minor web page updates. Converted a document to PDF for James. Lunch 1: bowl of canned fruit. Reviewed resumes for Jeff. Lunch 2: canned soup. Last week I figured out how to uninstall Spy Sweeper when it does not appear in the Add/Remove Programs control panel. Run C:\program files\webroot\InstallFiles\ssecleanup.exe, then wait about 3 minutes. Also: How to remove Sophos: Run C:\progra~1\sophos~1\setup -remove.

Thu Jan 12, 2006

Breakfast: a banana, yogurt. Finalized and made live 2006-2007 calendars. Lunch: two pig and cheddar sandwiches. Doctor appointments today.

Fri Jan 13, 2006

Took today off from work except for helping James with a laptop setup around noon. Picked up the rental truck from San Francisco Mini Storage (415-252-0400, 1000-7th Street). Bought 3 tunhem cabinets and 1 docent bookcase and assorted goods at Ikea East Palo Alto. Patrick and I moved some of our stuff today from our old apartment to our new one.

Sat Jan 14, 2006

I bought drinks at 7-Eleven and doughnuts at the donut store next door to it for our movers today. Peter, Galen, Phil, and Drew helped us move our stuff out of our old apartment and into our new one. We bought the gang lunch at Xiao Loong. Walgreens. Dinner with Patrick at Round Table.

Sun Jan 15, 2006

Today was our last day at our old address. Brunch at Cafe for All Seasons. Our former landlords were on hand to help us partially take down the neighbor's fence so that we could fit our 86-inch-long couch through the front door. Patrick, Mom Ryan, and I cleaned until it was as good as it was going to get and we said goodbye to our home of 3.75 years. Bed Bath and Beyond. In our new place, Patrick and I assembled a Tunhem cabinet. Dinner at Eric's.

Mon Jan 16, 2006

MLK Jr. Holiday! Bought gas and returned the rental truck. Brunch at Mel's Diner. Patrick and I assembled a Tunhem cabinet. Walgreens. Dinner at Lakeside Cafe with Patrick: early bird new york steak for me, early bird chicken piccatta for Patrick, we shared a tiramisu for dessert. House setup.

Tue Jan 17, 2006

Reviewed resumes for Jeff. Organized e-mail. Followed up with student PS about reinstalling Windows on a laptop. Followed up with 2 other students regarding computer problems. Answered a query from a student regarding recommended voice recognition software for pharmacy students. Attempted to upgrade Spy Sweeper from 2.1.2 3855 to 2.5.1 4385. After I had spent several hours on the problem, I ask ITS for help and Marc W tells me that he disabled upgrades temporarily until Webroot delivers a fix for a problem found with 2.5.1 4385. Web updates to the course substitions page for Cindy. Unsubscribed from the annoying MDL mailing list. Arranged to help a student set up a student organization website. Submitted a request to ITS for a password reset. Reposted the P2 schedule for Lucia. Various upgrades and computer maintenance for 7 office computers. Ran an errand at Radio Shack. Lunch: sandwich from Subway. Dinner at El Toreador with Patrick: combination (cow and chicken) fajitas for two. Patrick had a Corona. About $30 after tip. Patrick assembled the Docent bookcase and the last Tunhem cabinet.

Wed Jan 18, 2006

Server maintenance. Confirmed temporary PharmAdMIT fix works for Ena—she had had permissions problems while upgrading to a new build. Restored some data from backup for James. Hardware store errand. Lunch at Minh Tri by myself: #38 (bun bo xao with imperial rolls) and vietnamese hot coffee with condensed milk—yum! Helped Susie with Outlook icons. Helped Mike L with removing his default signature in OWA. Email for grads meeting. Met with a student: laptop problems. Patrick bought a coat rack from The Container Store (415-777-9755, 26 Fourth Street). Dinner at Banana Island with Patrick: lobak, 2 malaysian iced teas, golden sesame chicken, capitan noodle. Looked in Cost Plus for things we needed in the new home. Grocery shopping at Trader Joe's.

Thu Jan 19, 2006

Chatted with Jeff and Bill. Sent Jeff suggested interview questions for the position he's hiring. Helped a student troubleshoot problems sending messages to listservs. Began troubleshooting "customer intervention required" error message with ZoneLD. Attended the ITS Security Workshop. Home. Secured three Ikea Tunhems to the wall for earthquake safety. Began setting up the rack mount computers and telephone. Dinner: Pizza at home with Patrick.

Fri Jan 20, 2006

Asked Brian W to add a student to a WebCT course. Redirected a student to the Registrar's office to obtain her UC ID number. Troubleshot problems sending to the listserv with Peter A. Chatted with Joel, who had been out of the office for what seems like weeks. Wrangled with WinFixer trojan (aka Vundo) and mljjh.dll for a student laptop, lost. Stopped at Radio Shack. Handed off Photoshop files to Mark B so he can see how I created the ones I use on our site for IT instruction. Troubleshot problems with PharmAdMIT updates for Ena and James. Tested HTML e-mail through listserv—seems to work fine. Troubleshot VPN problems for a student. Dinner at Danny, Phil, and Drew's place with Danny, Phil, Drew, Tuan, Tuan, Antoine, and Patrick: steamed catfish, mashed potatoes, sticky rice, vegetable shish-kabobs. Picked up Mom Ryan at the airport. She returned from New Orleans where she pulled off a special surprise birthday for her brother Tommy.

Sat Jan 21, 2006

I've been exhausted from moving and setting up the new apartment. I think I spent this entire day setting things up. I set up the new computer monitor today.

Sun Jan 22, 2006

Shopping: Bed Bath and Beyond, Pier 1. Stopped at Barnes and Noble for coffee. We discovered that although it looks like Starbuck's inside Barnes and Noble, it's not really Starbuck's. They use Starbuck's coffee but they cannot accept Starbuck's gift cards. Home Depot. Lunch at Elephant Bar (75 Serramonte Center, Daly City) with Patrick: Patrick had baked onion soup, oriental chicken salad, hot tea. I had albacore tuna and a half and half (half iced tea and half lemonade). We shared an ice cream mud pie for dessert. Our server was Loni, who was very good. Walgreens. Dinner at Spiazzo (415-664-9511, 33 West Portal) with Patrick: portofino for me, fettucine gamberoni for Patrick.

Mon Jan 23, 2006

Requested a WebLinks account from Nancy W for Lucia. Troubleshot a problem sending to a listserv for (teaching assistant?) Grant S. Met with student SJ to help with a student organization website. More troubleshooting listserv sending problems with a student. Asked ITS if they could restore data from a student's web account. Monitor at work stopped working. One-on-one meeting with Cindy. Installed iTunes 6.02 for Ena. Meeting with Susie.

Tue Jan 24, 2006

Usual breakfast at the cafeteria. Helped a student with mailbox too full problems. Posted news for a student organization. Shared my announcement of web proxy for exchange with the student computing committee. Helped a student with VPN problems. Don Don sent me an instant message today: "hey, guess what? We're moving to Portland." We chatted a while about that and other things. Gave Cindy feedback on the message board project that's in the works. Updated a form on the web for Lucia. Met with student SS—we covered lots of different laptop issues and all is working well now after 2 hours. Lunch: salad. Helped Joel troubleshoot his Palm Pilot not synching (again). It worked for me today but when he tried it on Friday it was the same old error messages he had gotten before and the workaround I gave him did not work (start Outlook with /resetfolders). Minor changes to licensure and examinations section for Cindy. Met with Brian W about WebCT: I'm now a WebCT helpdesk user! Patrick bought two bathroom cabinets today from Target, one mirrored and one with doors and no mirror. Dinner at Bursa (60 West Portal Avenue): stroganoff for me, chicken kebab dinner for Patrick, two teas.

Wed Jan 25, 2006

Telecommute day. It's not often that a tutorial article on a web development technology makes you laugh out loud for several seconds, so I say bravo to Paul Adams for his July 15, 2005 Webmonkey piece called "Getting Your Feet Wet With Ruby on Rails" (specifically, page 2). Same goes for why's (poignant) guide to ruby—excellent! Helped another student with mailbox too full problems. Edited press releases from Susie. Helped student HA with problems decoding attachments in pine. Arranged with ITS when they can perform an upgrade on our wireless router. Reviewed a service contract for Lynn P. Participated in an Apple iPod conference call with Tom Jops and Jason Ediger who discussed iTunes U, a new service from Apple which provides free podcast hosting to universities. Minor web updates for Cindy. Stopped work. Bought laundry detergent and rubber feet and chair foot pads at Target while waiting for a table at Elephant Bar. Dinner at Elephant Bar (75 Serramonte Center, Daly City) with Patrick: two half and halfs, I had pan pacific soup with chicken, Patrick had hawaiian chicken luau. We shared a fudge fudge brownie. Our server was Alejandra, who was very slow.

Thu Jan 26, 2006

BK messaged me asking where I got my rack mount. Took me a little while to remember, but it's from smarthome.com. PharmAdMIT Build 0009 troubleshooting—turns out the problem is on their end, not ours (as I suspected). They sent a workaround for us which works. Helped Davide with LDAP setup instructions to the global address book. Lunch: panda bowl from Panda Express. Confirmed participation in a forthcoming seminar which Susie is putting together. Chatted with Kirk H about mailbox too full problems. Sent press release images to Wallace R per Susie's request. Reported to a student that ITS was unable to restore his/her web account. Made live a special press release for Susie. Sent Cindy final details and a sample announcement e-mail for the message board project (Idea Box). Set up work plan with Joel regarding the graduation regalia registration web form he needs.

Fri Jan 27, 2006

Usual breakfast at the cafeteria. Helped a student with wireless problems. Sent Alex K a small correction on one of Public Affairs' pages. Helped a student with laptop problems. Updated a web form for Lucia. Bought Muni bus passes. Patrick returned the mirrored bathroom cabinet that we agreed wouldn't work out. Mom Ryan came over for dinner. Patrick made cheddar biscuits and ?. Patrick and I installed the bathroom cabinet that he had assembled. It's from Target's Isaac Mizrahi line. Mom Ryan stayed the night.

Sat Jan 28, 2006

Mom Ryan wasn't feeling well—it appears naproxen causes her to vomit. Patrick took her home while I did more housesettingup. Napped. Cleaned the bathroom. Cut my hair. Showered. More housesettingup. Took a bath. Set up the speakers. Patrick got home after meeting with Nicole, a woman who needs a pet sitter. Walgreens. Dinner with Patrick at home: grilled tuna, mac and cheese, carrot and ginger soup.

Sun Jan 29, 2006

Breakfast: yogurt, banana, bagel with cream cheese. Patrick had cleaned up the 2nd bedroom. Shortly after I awoke, he took a quick nap. I tidied and archived documents. We went to BriKel's—Jenn Steff is in town for a short visit, and I haven't seen her in years. We had brunch at DeLissio then walked through Hayes Valley poking into various shops looking at things like travel guides, clear plastic chairs, upscale tote bags, and $4,000 dining tables. I really liked one store, Friend, in which the wooden wall curved seamlessly into the wooden floor. Afterwards we hung out for a while at BriKel's chatting about Seattle weather, housing, neighborhoods. Patrick and I left to run some errands. We went first to the Ace Hardware on Market Street. We needed two pieces of trim 1" x 1" x 9.5". They only sold trim by the entire length, so we paid $15 + $1 per cut. The two pieces of wood are for preventing our cutlery tray from sliding to the back of the drawer. They didn't have the plank we needed, so we went to Cliff's, which didn't have the plank we wanted, but we bought a compromise size there anyway. Everyone was a lot nicer to us at Cliff's than at Ace Hardware. I dropped Patrick off at Irving Street—he's meeting Wei tonight. Home. Installed the wooden plank which replaces the warped wooden plank in the 2nd bedroom closet. Caught up writing entries for my journal, which I've neglected since just before our recent move. I've mostly been able to backtrack my time at home through e-mail and receipts from purchases made at hardware stores and drug stores and restaurants. During our move, we ate out a lot because we had no access to a clean and stocked kitchen. I backtracked my time at work through e-mail. Paid some bills. Futzed with setting up long distance on the land line (still not working).

Mon Jan 30, 2006

Pre-breakfast: a banana. Usual breakfast at the cafeteria. Restarted the server—smc.exe seemed to be taking up more system resources than normal. Worked on the regalia web order form for Joel. Lunch with Joel at Pasta Pomodoro. Got sticky hooks at the hardware store. Reposted the P1 schedule, which Lucia had updated to correct an error. Forwarded a listserv message from a student which had accidentally been tagged as spam. Dinner at home with Patrick: homemade pan pacific wontons, sweet potato bisque. Installed a Kensington lock on my Dell 2005FPW monitor. Got our ATI Remote Wonder II remote control working with PowerDVD. Here's my review of the Dell 2005FPW monitor. The Dell 2005FPW monitor is poorly designed in that the Kensington lock hole is placed in a location which interferes with the VGA cable enough that I would call it considerably difficult to attach the lock. You can unhook the VGA cable, which simplifies the attachment of the lock, but then the reattachment of the VGA cable is considerably difficult. For most people, it's painful to wrangle with all of this just once and then you leave it alone until you need a new monitor, but in our house the monitor will also be used for watching movies, and we'll be needing to unlock the lock and pick up the monitor and move it a few feet now and then. The Dell 2005FPW also fails to sleep properly. My 7-year-old Panasonic LC50 monitor sleeps properly, so I don't know what Dell's problem is. When I turn computers off but leave the Dell 2005FPW monitor on, it displays RGB bars instead of going to sleep, so I have to remember to manually turn off the monitor—it's very annoying. Consequently, I cannot recommend the Dell 2005FPW monitor to anyone for purchase. It's a giant screen, it's relatively inexpensive, and it is indeed a great value, but you must put up with these annoyances. Mine, manufactured November 2005, purchased December 24, 2005, Revision A03, did not have any bad pixels, and I did not notice any light leakage in the corners or anywhere else which other people reported when the monitor was first released. Installed flip4mac 2.01. Installed Winamp 5.13.

Tue Jan 31, 2006

Helped a student with e-mail. Updated a listserv e-mail address for Chris. At today's staff meeting, Cindy told us we'll soon be hearing news that the university will be taking money out of our paychecks in order to fund part of the retirement plan. This news did not go over very well with the staff or with me. It was mentioned that this will be seen by many as a pay cut, and it is for people who don't plan to spend the rest of their lives working below market wages for the university. I discover today, when I want/need it, that Chris Heilmann's Unobtrusive JavaScript article is no longer available. Eek! The entire domain, www.onlinetools.org, on which that article was stored is running, but there appears to be no content there anymore. Same for another domain related to him: wait-till-i.com. I've been coding a web form and needed to hide and show different fields based on selections chosen in the form. I weventually got my answers from webmonkey.com, alexking.org, bobbyvandersluis.com, haugland.ca, and others, but I would still liked to have had access to that article. Something funny I found today is the table of contents on howstuffworks.com for the article called "How Internet Cookies Work." Here it is: Cookie Basics, How Does Cookie Data Move?, How Do Web Sites Use Cookies?, Problems with Cookies, Why the Fury Around Cookies?, Lots More Information, Compare Prices for Internet Cookies. Now I know the next time I need some Internet cookies I can go to howstuffworks.com to shop for them! I just can't tell you how so very convenient that is! Joel and I attempted to have a lateish lunch at You See Sushi today, but it was really crowded and there was a screaming baby within as well, so we ate instead at Pomelo. When we entered, Pomelo was empty. When we left, our stomachs were full. Home. Dinner at home with Patrick: turkey burgers, soup. I started stapling speaker wire to the ceiling. Updated my address with a bunch of places online. Purchased a wireless router (U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg Router USR5461). We don't really need the MAXg-ness of this router, but my buying decision was based on this router's support of WPA2 for better security. Yes, WPA2 is probably overkill for what we need, but I like keeping things secure nonetheless. From the reviews I've read, this router doesn't seem to have great range, but that won't be a problem for us. We're just going a few dozen feet or so.