Thursday, June 19, 2008
Day off from work. Woke around 5, couldn't get back to sleep for a few hours. No breakfast (!). Small web edits for Danny. Showered. West Portal with Tina and Patrick: drinks at Peet's, breakfast pastries at West Portal Bakery—they were just okay. Tina bought wine at Wine Styles. Drove to Jenny's. Hung out with Jenny in her amazing home; she showed us examples of her wet plate colloidal photography—fascinating! We decided to get a bite at Bette's diner when we got a call from Jeremy who had just shown up at the house. We drove back and Patrick and I got out and Jeremy got in and Patrick and I drove down separately—we were running out of time. Late lunch at Bette's—we made it in the door minutes before closing. Tina will stay at Jenny's tonight. Patrick and I drove home. I napped, then went to dinner at Mary Anne's with about 15 others—a thank you to members of the Self Study Steering Committee and key participants in our recent and very successful accreditation process. She is the perfect hostess, and I even received a giant fortune cookie that I wasn't expecting. I believe she said she was also the chef. Plum chicken, roasted red and yellow peppers, steamed rice with parsley, garden salad, asparagus with baby roma tomatoes, more. Dessert: almond cake with fresh whipped cream, diced and sliced strawberries, and blueberries. A few words from Mary Anne and Barbara—a delightful evening, and I was honored to be invited. I really got the sense that these people are like a kind of family together—there's so much history among them. Home around 8. Watched My Own Private Idaho on DVD with Patrick. I forgot to mention that our temporary admin assistant Eric V told me the other day that Firefox 3 was out, and I immediately said, "Oh, no, it's not out yet" but then I went back to my desk and checked, and he was right! The reviews seem good, but I am waiting just a bit because I don't know if all my plug-ins are compatible and to check I'd have to hunt them down one by one. It would be cool if whatever current version of Firefox would check plug-in compatibility when a new version is released and, perhaps, offer the upgrade only when all the plug-ins I use are compatible. The way it works now is you upgrade and then it tells you what plug-ins you had are and aren't compatible. Kudos to Eric V for being better informed than me about a hot new browser release. Stretches. Weight training: superslow front raise, superslow lateral raise, dumbbell press, wrist curl. Late meal: steamed rice with leftover beef with broccoli.