January 2013
Summary: New iMacs arrive for both home and work, reorganized the living room, new sound system arrives, White elephant gift exchange, cousin Alex visits, brunch with Bill.
Dates on this page
Tue Jan 1, 2013
Slept in. Breakfast at home: masala chai; 2 eggs scrambled with sour cream, green onions, and grated three-cheese blend, salt, pepper, paprika. Housecleaning and organizing. Uploaded photos to Flickr. More housecleaning. Lunch at home with Patrick: pizza from deli refrigerater. More housecleaning. Rearranged furniture in my bedroom. More housecleaning. Dinner at home with Patrick: blue-corn-shell soy protein tacos. Watched one hour of Bottle Rocket (1996) on Netflix instant watch with Patrick.
Wed Jan 2, 2013
Fixed some minor problems with the hours tables on the Recharge Spa website. Updated the price list for Drew with one minor change. Weight training: pec crawl. Breakfast at home: oatmeal with diced gala apple, cinnamon, soy milk, hot water. Rode Muni to work. Installed PGP Encryption Desktop on my MacBook Air for work and encrypted the drive—no problems. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Updated computer requirements pages to be set up for fall 2013. Archived website backups to external hard drive. Assisted Joel with setting up PharmAdMIT 2012 again after settings were accidentally removed. 1-on-1 conf call with Michael. Approved timesheets in HBS. Reenabled monitoring for bioegrad.berkeley.edu which has been disabled over the break due to too much downtime. Check-in with John K via email. Errands: bank, atm, post office. I sat down to lunch at Soi Gow and moments later my dentist Dr. Lee walked in and upon realizing that she had planned to dine in I invited her to join me. We talked about Europe, Spain, holiday break, her teaching at UOP, iPads, new patient forms and processes , EMR, websites. An unexpected treat to the afternoon. Errand: hardware store. Finalized and placed new hardware purchases for OSACA and OEIS. Followup with hardware purchases with Cindy, Frances, and Lisa. Patrick picked me up in the car so that I could bring home the new iMac. I am not setting it up tonight. Dinner at home with Patrick: same as last night. Patrick and I had a brief chat with upstairs neighbor Jackie about recent noise issues. Lamp maintenance. Adjusted website monitoring settings for home websites. Investigated amplifier and speaker purchases, decided to not purchase anything new. Recharge Spa work for Drew: removing an employee, new job posting, new form. Late meal: leftover tofu and cabbage soup.
Thu Jan 3, 2013
Weight training: crunch. Breakfast at home: oatmeal with diced gala apple, cinnamon, hot water. Rode Muni to work. Set up Joel and Rick with a workaround for server problems with PharmAdMIT. Posted updated schedules for Lucia. C3 check-in conf call. UCSF overhaul conf call. Calendar management. Updated strategic plan milestones draft for Susie. Responded to a domain request from Sara G. Followup with YG about email archiving support request. Chatted with Lisa about slow network behavior. Lunch from Carmelina's: taco, water. Organized my bookshelf some. Created and organized bookmarks for preview-, dev., stage., and live sites in our web project. Lots of linkchecking. 1-on-1 conf call with Eric: overhaul. Chatted with Lisa about slow network behavior. Snack from the cafeteria: grilled cheese on wheat with lettuce and tomato, water, peanut butter cookie. Followup with Rick about PharmAdMIT speed. SOP IT wiki: began creating online presence documentation. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: spaghetti with garden marinara sauce. Finished watching Bottle Rocket (1996) on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Dessert: stroopwafels from Neil.
Fri Jan 4, 2013
Weight training: one-arm dumbbell row. Breakfast at home: 2 eggs scrambled with parsley, green onions, grilled zucchini; 2 hash browns; 8 ounces of vegetable juice, hot water. Rode my bike to work. Watched part of a SASS intro video. Hardware purchasing research. Conf call with Eric, Greg, and John K: settings.php files, organization. Ordered a carrying case for my work MacBook Air. Hardware purchasing research. Today I needed to purchase a flatbed scanner that can scan slides and negatives. Resolution was important but did not need to be extremely high. I preferred models that had the slide/negative attachments built into the lid. It needed to work with OS 10.8. I eliminated all brands other than Canon, Epson, HP, and Brother since too small of a brand is more support risk than I'd prefer. I eliminated Brother because they seemed focused on scanning for business documents and, occasionally, photos rather than mostly photo, slide, or negative scanning. I eliminated Canon because I couldn't find or open the user manual for the CanoScan 9000F. Their website took me to a DMG which took me to an installer which I ran but then I found no user manual. I found 2 other installers inside the DMG and installed both of those, still no user manual. I found an app installed on my Mac called Canon IJ On-Screen Manual and opened it and chose File then Open and all menu items were grayed out. Canon's website still uses Adobe Flash to permit comparisons among scanners. I was using Chrome, so Flash should have just worked, but when I opened my comparison page the table was blank. I launched Safari and opened the same page but then realized that I don't have Flash installed separately (having uninstalled it a long time ago because Firefox would annoyingly remind me to manually update it every couple of weeks). Not worth installing Flash just for this. Canon might have great scanners, but I was left with a really awful experience just trying to find information about them, and not being able to easily access the user manual left me feeling like I would not have a fun time supporting it. HP had only two scanners that could do slides and negatives: Scanjet G3110 and Scanjet G4050. I eliminated the G3110 because it didn't support OS 10.8. The G4050 did support OS 10.8, but I decided against it since the hardware design was from 2006. In the end, I chose Epson Perfection V370. It met all my requirements and preferences, and it's brand new. This model was not available in BearBuy, so I made the purchase with my pcard at Amazon. One unfortunate thing was that the user manual was not available in PDF but was available in HTML. I archived this website using WinHTTrack then stored the archive on our network. Web updates for Joel: reply to an interview invitation, others. Lunch at Reverie Cafe: veggie breakfast burrito, water from my klean kanteen. Errands: Cole Hardware, Walgreens. More interview reply ack work with Joel, pushed it live. SOP IT wiki: documented how to initiate a three-party conference call. New iMac for work arrives, but I do not unpack it immediately. SOP IT wiki work: lots of online presence documentation. Rode my bike home. Charged my bike taillight via USB. Dinner at home with Patrick: Chinese food delivery from Tsing's via Eat24: appetizer combo (small), shrimp and scallop soup, chow fun, sweet and sour fish fillets. Patrick's fortune: All the darkness in the world cannot put out a single candle. My fortunes: Courage is the hallmark of the warrior. Action speaks nothing, without the Motive. Spent a bit of time setting up a collaborative grocery list with Patrick in Asana.
Sat Jan 5, 2013
Breakfast: leftover shrimp and scallop soup, hot water. Heater maintenance. Bicycle maintenance: cleaned the seat post of grime. We're planning to reorganize our living room. Today I researched whether I need new speakers and a new amplifier, and I realized that for years I have not been paying proper attention to sound quality. We have no television (and don't want one). We watch movies on Netflix DVD or Instant Watch on my 23-inch iMac. I will soon be upgrading to a 27-inch iMac. Currently the iMac is connected to a Sony STR-D715 amplifier via an analog cable. Our speaker system is a Bose Acoustimass AM-5. We get sound from 4 speakers, but it's not really surround sound. Today I learned that I can use a TOSLINK cable from my iMac to an amplifier that can process the multichannel surround sound then feed them to speakers. I decided to buy the cable from C2G (Cables 2 Go) via Amazon. I purchased the Logitech Z906 sound system, also via Amazon. Lunch: leftovers. Errands: Walgreens, post office (mailed a frying pan to Calphalon), auto shop. Rex Garage fixed my car for free. I wanted to pay him something for his time (about 30 minutes), but he refused I'm guessing since the fix didn't involve parts and wasn't that much time. The problem was that in the trunk the left well was filling with water and I couldn't figure out why. No seals seemed to be worn. In examining the problem together we eventually found a tube that wasn't properly connected to an outlet point to the outside of the car. The mechanic reconnected it, pumped all the water out with an interesting evacuator device, and reconnected all the components we took apart. I couldn't believe he didn't charge me for the work. Home. Washed the garage door and front door, washed windows at the rear of the house. Bicycle maintenance: changed the battery for my rear-wheel Spoke-Lit, readjusted my helmet straps. Snack: leftovers. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: delivery from Extreme Pizza via Eat24: bbq shredded pork pizza, salad, hot water, cocktails. Watched The Dark Knight Rises on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Recharge Spa work for Drew: jobs updates. Late snack: salad.
Sun Jan 6, 2013
Provided my 23andme saliva sample. Breakfast at home: two eggs scrambled with parsley, paprika, green onion, two hash browns, hot water. Ironed clothes from laundry a while back. Updated current students news. Removed and rearranged furniture and did a lot of cleaning in the living room. Set up my new iMac. Lunch: tacos. It took about 2 hours to copy my data from my old iMac. The Time Machine backup didn't migrate as I expected but these were new since only 2.5 weeks ago, so I just started a new one. Patrick made pumpkin-seed-encrusted dinner rolls using a dough he prepared yesterday from scratch and a recipe from Patricia Wells at Home in Provence. Had to reconfigure CrashPlan two ways: (a) Java reinstall, (b) manually remove volume name from /Volumes. Set up the soon-to-be-deprecated speakers and amp in a temporary position. Watched some videos on YouTube to test the temporary speakers and the new, bigger, widescreen screen. Tried to watch some videos on Netflix, encountered errors in both Chrome and Safari. Called Netflix support. They had me clear the Netflix browser cookies, but that didn't resolve the problem. Removing and reinstalling Silverlight fixed it. In /Library/Internet Plug-ins find and remove Silverlight.plugin. Then reinstall Silverlight. Watched a few minutes of Planet's Funniest Animals: Ssn 9: Ep 1 then switched to How It's Made, "Aluminum Foil, Snowboards, Soft Polymer Contact Lenses and Bread" and watched the whole thing. Dinner at home with Patrick: teriyaki seitan sliders on pumpkin-seed roll, hot water for Patrick, hot pumpkin spice tea for me, leftover side salad for both. Continued editing Patrick's new book: pages 64 to 65.
Mon Jan 7, 2013
Breakfast: pumpkin-seed-encrusted rolls with Zimmerman's Humboldt Medley jam. Rode my bike to work. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Posted signs in the IRC. Chatted briefly with student KH. Helped Joel and Rick with a PharmAdMIT issue. Set up my new iMac. Migrated files over the network from my old Mac Pro—this took almost the entire day. Lunch at Burgermeister: veggie burger with fries, lemonade, about $12. Java install. Upon restart, I received a circle-slash with spinning gear. Tried starting in Safe Mode by holding Shift during restart. This did not work. After some time the Apple with spinner changed to a circle-slash with spinner. Started recovery mode with Command+Option+R—it started successfully. Opened Disk Utility and ran verify disk—no problems with the disk. I ran repair disk permissions. It found some permissions to fix and fixed them. I ran repair disk even though verify found no errors. Restarted normally. Apple with spinner, then after a few minutes this changed to a circle-slash with spinner. Back to recovery mode. Reinstalled Mountain Lion from recovery mode. On the old computer, I verified disks and repaired permissions in Disk Utility. Windows drive = ok. Time Machine drive had problems. Startup drive = ok. On the new computer, the reinstall of OS X completed successfully, and upon restart I received Apple with spinner, then after a few minutes this changed to a circle-slash with spinner. Called Apple Support, spoke with Jonathan who instructed me to reinstall OS X again but erase the drive first. If that didn't work he gave me a different number to call to handle a return shipment. I erased the drive and reinstalled OS X. Back to the old computer: ran repair disk on the Time Machine drive. New computer OS X reinstall completed. I completed setup without migrating data. Restart succeeded, and I logged in. Set some trackpad and mouse system preferences. Shut down. Cold start—successful. Restart—successful (twice). Began manually copying data from the old computer to the new computer. Set lots of system preferences on the new computer. Prepared items for surplus and created a draft request. Rode my bike home. Had trouble with the lock on our door. Checked Patrick's key and it had the same problem, so I reported it to Ed. Dinner at home with Patrick: he ate chicken soup from Simmone, I ate red-pepper-and-tomato soup from a box and corn off the cob from frozen both with a little diced parsley, salt, pepper. Tested an Apple SuperDrive purchased in November 2012 with an iMac purchased in December 2012 and received in January 2013. It successfully played our DVD of Hero after encountering an error at the beginning. Deleted my Meetup account because it continued to send me email messages I didn't want even after I selected the unsubscribe link. Uninstalled Arcana Startup Sound, which seems to not work past 10.6.8. Downloaded SEP to reinstall to resolve error message "Insecure Startup Item disabled. (/Library/StartupItems/[item name]) has not been started because it does not have the proper security settings." Continued editing Patrick's new book: page 66 to 68. Removed and reinstalled SEP. Configured scans. Dessert: two chocolate-covered cherries.
Tue Jan 8, 2013
Reported MacKeeper spam to iCloud admins. Ran Mac Hardware Test on my new iMac at home—no problems. Breakfast at home: two eggs scrambled with dollops of sour cream, two hash browns, hot water. Rode my bike to work. New iMac setup: installed Chrome, CS5, Acrobat 9, Office 2011. Chatted briefly with Stephane about setting up a headless test workstation for Ray C. Restarted the new iMac—successful. Installed Java update, SEP, PGP. Installed OmniGraffle Pro. Deleted license from old OmniGraffle Pro. Added license to new OmniGraffle Pro. Reopened Word, Excel, and PowerPoint three times each to get rid of the dialog that opens automatically—so annoying. Installed Caffeine, Alfred, Cyberduck, Filezilla, Firefox 18, Flip4Mac, Silverlight, Movi, Remote Desktop Connection, Skitch, TextWrangler, VLC, Xmarks for Safari. Installed fonts. Had trouble installing FontShop Shinntype Preface Bold due to font validation errors. Lots of setup and configuration. Helped James J with a question about a supp app issue. Chatted briefly with Sara G about posting a news update for The Kidney Project. Let Valerie R and Joe C borrow two video adapters. Late lunch to go from Carmelina's: tostada, refried beans, no meat, mild salsa, refused free drink. Ate at my desk, drank water from my klean kanteen. Coded the 2013-2014 calendars. Updated 2012-2013 calendars with the graduation ceremony date. Helped two students today: one failing to set up email on an LG Intuition VS950, the other no longer seeing calendar information in CLE on an iPad (but desktop browser is okay). Troubleshooting VS950 issue with Tran and the student. The solution was to use the Exchange protocol. I didn't notice it because there are two places in this Android phone where mail protocols are listed during an account setup and because the Exchange protocol was already (incorrectly) configured and so it wasn't showing in the list of available protocols to install. Chatted briefly with Tran about Tivoli for Mac (probably not worthwhile to install) and PGP Encryption Desktop for Mac shows no drives available under "Encrypt a disk". Submitted a ticket for the no drives available PGP problem. Rode my bike to Nan King Road Bistro. They let me bring in my folded bike and set it next to my table while eating. (I don't consider it lockupable.) I wasn't sure if they would and asked nicely while entering. Dinner by myself at Nan King Road Bistro: jasmine green tea, hong kong chow mein with tofu: $14 after a $2.something tip. Rode my bike home. No problems with the door lock today with either Patrick's key or my key, so I'm not sure what happened yesterday. Responded at length to a Straight Talk thread I started on Facebook which received many replies.
Wed Jan 9, 2013
Breakfast: small bowl of fruit and nut granola with soy milk. Rode my bike to work. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Social media meeting with Sara G, Shirin H, Paula J, Eric D. Beverage from The View Cafe: large chai tea latte. 1-on-1 walking meeting with Michael. Worked with Tran to install BigFix on my new MacBook Air for work. Web edits: staged updates for the current students calendar and news and sent to Cindy for review, made live the 2013-2014 academic calendar for Cindy. Helped student MZ with a question about a system I knew nothing about. Sent Shawn H and Julie C feedback about default locations in Service Now. Listserv management: redistributed a message from Erika L at Hastings. Forwarded a schedule question from student KJ to Lucia. Forwarded a CLE question from student TT to the Education team. Checked in with Lolita about meeting scheduling. Lunch to go from The View Cafe: fresh spring rolls, small pom-lime Odwalla: about $8. Sprint start meeting. Worked with Eric on hosts file configuration and other migration setup issues. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Pushed live updates for the current students calendar. Calendar and listserv management. Ordered a few small items needed following new computer setup. Downloaded and installed VMware Fusion 4.1.4. Got Win XP running again. Dinner at home with Patrick: ginger-vegetable noodle soup with noodles made from tofu, orange juice for Patrick, orange juice with banana schnapps cocktail for me. Installed iOS 6.0.1. Started my old iMac and deauthorized it in iTunes. Wasn't sure if I had to do a similar deauthorize procedure for VMware Fusion, so I upgraded it from 4.1.1 to 4.1.4 and found no deauthorize procedure. Deactivated CS5.
Thu Jan 10, 2013
I logged in to Apple Bug Reporter for the first time in a long time and found that on September 19, 2012 they resolved the problem I reported (#8869612) in which iCal alarms interrupt the playing of movies in DVD Player. Sam happened to stop by this morning and Ihe and Patrick and I chatted about old laptops, iPads, mifi, and cellphones. Breakfast: small bowl of fruit and nut granola with soy milk. Rode Muni to work. There was a higher-than-normal percentage of dressupedness today, probably due to the all-faculty meeting this afternoon. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Calendar management. Forwarded a LexiComp request from student SL to Rodney. Followup with student MZ about a reported problem with RIO, the system I had never heard of before. Had a fantastic 4-minute chat with Ian G about our telephone system. Ian responded to my request in the Chat with the CIO group in Chatter asking why the red light on my phone doesn't light when I have a message waiting. Ian explained that I am currently using a digital feature set for my phone and that the red light message waiting feature is included only in the analog feature set. If I were to switch from the digital feature set to the analog feature set, I would lose these three main features: (a) the ability to have additional lines on my phone which permits me to listen in on that other person's line and see when it is in use, (b) the ability to see the caller ID name in the LCD display, and (c) the forwarding feature would be less easy to use—instead of a single keypress I'd have to remember to dial 5 1 before the number to which to forward. I didn't care about any of those features. Regarding (a), I have never had a reason to listen in on someone else's line. I have never had a reason to make a call pretending to be on someone else's line. I have never needed to know when someone else's line is in use. Regarding (b), most of the time the feature doesn't work anyway because many people have requested caller ID privacy or there is some other reason why the name doesn't appear in the display. Regarding (c), I have never used the forwarding feature. I forgot I could even do it. The only thing I was worried about before switching from digital set to analog set was the blink rate of the red light. He told me that it was definitely blinking and not solid, so I told him my concern ("I don't want it to be too Vegasy") and he said he would check and get back to me. Minor website update to announce the new website for Office of Career and Professional Development. This office's acronym is OCPD, and whenever I see it I think "Orange County Police Department." Chatted with Joel and Shirin about iMacs, forthcoming new computer upgrades, Keynote, Macs, PharmAdMIT for Mac, iPads, iCloud, MacBook Airs, appleinsider.com. Within minutes I took a lot of notes about what we talked about. Answered a question for student TN about Microsoft Office licensing. 1-on-1 with Michael. Tried renaming my Windows XP VM and failed, reported the problem to Tran. Chatted with Eric about various issues. Followup with Michael about a message delivery failure related to Acquia and Genomics Core Facilities. Updated a meeting invitation with a link provided by John K to maps he created of the Acquia infrastructure from his perspective. Followup with Erika L from Hastings. Followup with Cindy and Susie about CPFM moving hardware between Laurel Heights and Parnassus. Sent my documentation of the monthly pcard procedure to Susie and Cindy. Completed pcard paperwork. More followup with student SL and LexiComp. Responded to a request from La'Trece for a group breakdown of recent hardware purchases. (This took a lot longer than I thought it would.) Downloaded VMware Fusion 5.0.2 (light)—successful. Adjusted keyboard shortcuts in VMware Fusion. Clinical Pharmacy faculty meeting. Quick lunch from Courtyard Cafe: tuna salad sandwich on toasted rye with a side pickle wedge. All faculty meeting. Much detailed discussion surrounding the curriculum and accreditation requirements. Chatted with Eric lateish about various issues. Web update: graduation ceremony date, time, and location. Followup with Tran about his response about hard drive encryption. Submitted a request to CPFM to move computer hardware between Laurel Heights and Parnassus, then sent messages to keep everyone informed. Followup with Jo Anna G to ask what does CTA stand for and to confirm that I'm supposed to be at the meeting to which she invited me. Followup with Walter S about pharmchem server and websites migration. Followup with Sara G about a recent request for new news to be published. Rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: delivery from Jitra Thai: yellow curry tofu, steamed rice, sticky rice, bbq pork, mango with sticky rice; green tea. Played with Dictation and Speakable Items in OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2. It didn't work very well with voice commands. Followup with James and Joel about Chris C's recent request for sample applications. Followup with student MZ about RIO. Followup with Mayene at FontShop about a recent experience trying to use fonts purchased from them. Downloaded and installed VMware Fusion 4.1.4 (light)—successful. Late small meal: leftovers from dinner.
Fri Jan 11, 2013
This morning I realized that I'm unable to find my most recent Windows XP VM on my home computers. I have a backup but it's older than my most recent. I don't know how that happened, but it's not a big pain. I hardly used Windows at home in the past several years. Breakfast at home: fruit and nut granola with diced bosc pear, 6 ounces of vegetable juice. Rode my bike to work. Found an picked up a dime along the way. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Updated a broken link reported by Michelle K. Hootsuite training with Eric and Shirin. Coded a special news page for The Kidney Project for Sara G, review, push live. Lunch: veggie california sandwich from The View Cafe, water from my klean kanteen. Responded to a request to add the color printer to Danielle's computer. Calendar management. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Printer install for Danielle. Updated the FTS page on the SOP IT wiki with new info from Greg. Patrick picked me up in the car so that I could bring home the Logitech Z906 sound system that arrived today. Dinner with Patrick at Enjoy Vegetarian (all items without meat): wonton soup, soy sauce chicken with vegetables, tomato and beef with noodles.
Sat Jan 12, 2013
Signed up with Tumblr for the first time ever. Uninstalled the Mac application called Alfred. For the umpteenth time Alfred failed to find a file I knew existed and when I switched to Spotlight, Spotlight found it. Alfred was indeed faster at finding things than Spotlight, but for it to tell me something doesn't exist when I know it does is unacceptable. (Spotlight is no less guilty, but I am cleaning house you could say.) I had previously tried resolving this problem using troubleshooting tips Alfred provided, but was unsuccessful reliably resolving the problem despite trying all their tips. Lots of vacuuming and continuing to rearrange furniture and sound and computer equipment in the living room. Cut my hair, showered. Ambrosia Bakery. Drove to a cousins reunion at Lani and Rob's in Sunnyvale. Dex brought meats from Freedom Meat Locker and Rob grilled them. Lani prepared panko-encrusted fish fillets, green beans, half-n-half rice, salad. White elephant gift exchange with Rob, Lani, Dex, Johnson, Chika, Alex. Rob received a cookie kit and tin from Dex. Dex received red and green Tupperware cups and Hawaiian salt from Lani, Lani received an original Omniture-branded iPhone in a custom bright green. Chika received a Playstation 1 (1998) from Rob. Johnson received Tina's tagine and cookbook from me. I received a copy of Apple DVD Studio Pro and an Eddie Bauer fold and view mirror from Johnson, Alex received a Palm m105 (2001) and TOMS Shoes (which fit him without socks) and a red Tiger Balm baseball cap. Afterwards we watched football that Rob had recorded earlier: Niners vs. Packers. It was a particularly exciting game with 4 ties. Niners won. To bed late. Wound up with extra cookies from Ambrosia Bakery because no one sent me the address to the party to which I had been invited.
Sun Jan 13, 2013
Drove from Sunnyvale to San Francisco with Alex. We dropped his bag at his hotel then drove to my place. FaceTime and Google Hangout with Tina for about an hour and a half. Lunch at Shanghai Dumpling King with Alex. Dropped Alex off at his hotel. Home. Weeded the driveway, cleaned a bit in the laundry room. Nap. Shower. Caught up on journaling. Checked in on work email for a few minutes. Ironed two shirts that had been waiting for ironing for several weeks. Dinner at home with Patrick: dim sum from Simmone, Les Jamelle pinot noir 2011. Unpacked the Logitech Z906.
Mon Jan 14, 2013
Breakfast at home: oat and honey granola with diced gala apple, lactaid milk. Tried to take Muni to work but my bus arrived 3 minutes early. Went home. Responded to work emails. Rode Muni to work. Took 8 flights of stairs two at a time. Email followup with student NN. 1-on-1 with Rodney. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Ordered a new listserv for a student organization. Followup on TeamWork tickets. Installed new mouse pads and ethernet cables that arrived. Downloaded and installed CodeKit 1.5.1 (8248). Copied home folder files from my old computer to my new computer. Downloaded and installed git 1.8.1 from http://git-scm.com/download/mac to my iMac. Got git pull working. Reprepped the old Mac Pro for delivery to Laurel Heights. Similarly installed git 1.8.1 on the MacBook Air. Management activities. Cable management. Finally got all the cables off the ground under my desk. Downloaded and installed Sublime Text 2 (2.0.1) on my iMac. Installed CodeKit and Sublime Text 2 on the MacBook Air. Installed ruby on iMac and MacBook Air. Began installing Compass for iMac and MacBook Air but got stuck, sent an email to Eric C for help. Dentist appointment. Routine cleaning and exam—all went well. Rode Muni to Van Ness Station then to O'Farrell Street. Arrived early for tonight's event, so I walked around the Tenderloin for a while. Alex met me at Great American Music Hall for the Great American Pop-up, an event with crafts, food vendors, and DJ music. I had two vegetarian/vegan tamales with chips and salsa from Donna's Tamales: $11. A margarita on the rocks with salt from the bar: $9 plus a $1 tip. The tamales were good, but not extraordinary. The margarita was weak. Met Alex's friend Katie who worked for Dora's Donuts. We each sampled a chocolate stout donut hole and tiny malasadas. Rode Muni home. Completed setting up the Logitech Z906, plugged it into the iMac using RCA. The speakers sound really great, and setup was very easy. I realized today that I need to move the Airport Express and the Z906 control unit away from the top of the desk; the lights on these devices will interfere with moviewatching. Submitted anonymous complaint to Muni about both 66 busses running 3 minutes early this morning. Orange juice with Sprite. Stretches.
Tue Jan 15, 2013
Stretches. Weight training: tricep kickback, bam bam. Breakfast at home: fruit and nut granola with diced gala apple and soy milk, half of an apricot hamantash. Rode Muni to work. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Eric C says I don't need to install Compass; all I need is CodeKit. Checked in with Eric D about a problem with www.bmi.ucsf.edu and a DealPly redirect. SCWG meeting. Office celebration for Don's birthday. ICRD work: add Peter W. Web updates for Shirin: Inside UCSF. Web team meeting. Calendar management. Forwarded an announcement. Followup with lab website owners on creating content drafts. Edited strategic planning preamble for Susie. Chatted with Valerie Richard about Apple video adapters for MacBook Air. Began pouring content into pharmd.ucsf.edu. Management activites, chatted with Debbie A on the phone. Web migrations status check-in with Eric D and Greg. Chatted briefly with Michael N to hand him some confidential info he needed. More content pouring. Rode my bike to Aggie's. Met with Aggie and helped her with her computer. Rode my bike home. Installed new valve caps on my bicycle.
Wed Jan 16, 2013
Stretches. Weight training: bam bam. Installed the TOSLINK cable from the iMac to the Logitech Z906. Refilled Straight Talk manually: $45.95 for another 30 days of service. Caught up on leaving Amazon seller feedback. Breakfast: oatmeal with diced pink lady apple and soy milk, a butter cookie with a raspberry center. Rode my bike to work. Encountered Remy A leaving as I entered at 2nd and Arguello, said hello, chatted briefly. Followup with Valerie and La'Trece about a recent computer order. Changed passwords for all my admin accounts on preview sites, notified Eric D. OSACA staff meeting. Notified staff of a new CMS called OrgSync that OSL is using. Followup with Susie about Desai Lab and Renslo Lab edits. Updated the lab sites status chart. Followup with Lucia about a request from student JK. Followup with Shirin about adding a new preview session date. Alerted supp app team to forthcoming core update. Dinner at Wo Hing General Store with Drew, Danny, Romeo, and Phil. Food was delicious, but nothing really stood out. Before they arrived, I sat at the bar and ordered a house hot chocolate of cocoa, cinnamon, orgeat, vanilla, cayenne, Casa Noble tequila reposado, combier marshmallows: $10. Not impressed. I could have made this drink at home. When we were shown to our table, I noticed that they gave us dish towels instead of cloth napkins. I think it was intentional. Walked to 16th and Mission, finding someone's driver license along the way and picked it up. Rode Muni to South Van Ness, walked to Muni underground. Rode L to 26th Avenue, then walked home.
Thu Jan 17, 2013
Stretches. Weight training: bam bam. Rode Muni to work. Returned the driver license I found yesterday to the police department on campus. Followup with Mark B about Barracuda not working as expected. C3 conf call. Content migration: PharmD /about. Submitted several style guide questions to Eric and Paula. Hardware shopping. Followup with Ian G about message waiting light and other phone issues. Followup with Tran about PGP and encryption and FileVault. Sent Susie responses to questions from Robin in lab comps. Delivered 6 webcams that arrived: 5 for OEIS, 1 for OSACA. Shared the Open Academy built-in style guide with Susie and ccd Eric. Lunch to go from Carmelina's, ate at my desk: salmon burrito plus cheese, water from my klean kanteen. Followup with Titus H about sharing info about his organization with the Drupal group at UCSF. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Acquia environment map meeting with Eric and Greg. Lab site comp review meeting with Eric and Susie. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Shared lab site comps with Michael. Followup on Jazzee with Lisa, Joel, James, Sarah, and Michael. Installed core and module updates for supp app—successful. Updated Drupal core from 6.26 to 6.28, User Import from 6.x-2.4 to 6.x-4.2, Token 6.x-1.18 to 6.x-1.19, and Flag 6.x-2.0-beta8 to 6.x-2.1. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: butternut squash ravioli in pumpkin cream sauce, bread, hot water. Dessert: half of a butter cookie with apricot center. Upgraded VMware Fusion from 4.something to 5.0.2 but didn't have my license key, so using it will have to wait until I retrieve it from work. Moved the Time Capsule and the Logitech Z906 controller to under the desk. Reinstalled the USB hub coz I ran out of ports. Realized today that when you use a TOSLINK cable plugged into an iMac you can no longer control the volume and mute from the Apple keyboard or remote or onscreen in System Preferences. All volume and mute is now controlled by the Logitech controller or remote.
Fri Jan 18, 2013
Organized a few things. Bicycle maintenance: tightened the half-fold latch guard. Reviewed books to give away with Patrick. Weight training: advanced, staggered-arm, one-legged push up. Rode my bike to work. Sent notice of successful Drupal update to supp app team. Followup with Mark B about cuda. Followup with Lucia about a request from student JK. Followup with La'Trece and Carlos about a pcard request. Notified Cindy of the network location for student photos. Chatted with Lisa about tai chi chuan. Helped student CR with a problem connecting a Motorola Razr Maxx HD to UCSF wifi. Nothing worked. The student left with some things to try. Followup about Jazzee. SOP IT wiki work: completed Qualtrics. Added procedures for beginning to use Qualtrics. Management activities. Management activities. Lunch: leftover ravioli, potato chips, water. Joel reported problems with his printer—paper getting stuck. Tran had cleaned the rollers yesterday but today the problem has returned. I swapped his printer with my printer, then realized that (a) my printer makes a terribly loud groaning noise when printing (but it does successfully print the page), and (b) the empty workspace in our office has the same printer he had, so I again swapped printers so that Joel now has the printer from the empty workspace. I plan to surplus his old printer and my old printer both. Sent Sue A a request about vidconf support in 936. More SOP IT wiki work: how to create a new website. Followup with student JK. Followup: Jazzee. Sent Zach S a problem report about an email address for a person in libwiki. Followup with Cindy: statement of legal residence. Chatted with Susie. SOP IT wiki work. Purchased steamed rice at Panda Express. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: wild cod tikka masala with steamed rice. Dessert: king cake leftovers with three sugars of color from Mom Ryan. I learned today that Straight Talk does not support group SMS. Watched the first hour of Looper on Netflix DVD using Remote Disc with Patrick. Continued editing Patrick's new book: page 68 to 71.
Sat Jan 19, 2013
Breakfast at home with Patrick: french toast (Joy of Cooking recipe), tea, orange juice. Home improvement: laundry, vacuuming, mounted a mirror in my bedroom, removed a hanging lamp in the living room. I decided today that Patrick's computer needs to be upgraded because it's super slow. Vacuumed the laundry room. Watched the rest of Looper on Netflix DVD using Remote Disc with Patrick. Switched the laser printer from my computer to the Time Capsule so that Patrick can print to it without needing to wake my computer. Folded and ironed clean laundry. Dinner at home with Patrick: celery soup from a box for him, roasted pepper and tomato soup from a box for me. Continued editing Patrick's new book: page 71 to 88. Late meals: leftovers.
Sun Jan 20, 2013
Prepped my old iMac to give to Sam. Breakfast at home: 3 hash browns, 2 eggs scrambled with green onions, 8 ounces of orange juice. Laundry. Switched the UPS power cord from the outlet to the right of my desk to the outlet to the left of my desk. Drove to Aggie's, helped her with her computer for 2.5 hours. Errands at Stonestown Galleria: Apple Store (two SuperDrives, one Magic Trackpad), Trader Joe's (various groceries). Late midafternoon meal: TJ's asian noodle salad with chicken, TJ's middle east feast. More iMac-for-Sam prep. Cleared the kitchen floor of items temporarily in that space. Moved my bed about a foot over. Installed a lamp hanging over my desk. Removed the lamp on my desk. Dinner at home with Patrick: TJ's mushroom tortelloni, baked sweet potato with butter and spices. More iMac-for-Sam prep. Continued editing Patrick's new book: page 88 to 95. Late meal: leftovers. Today while cleaning and organizing in the living room I came across the boxed picture frame that I had selected to receive several years ago as a gift from UCSF for my 10-year employment anniversary at UCSF. I had never opened the box until today because I didn't really need a picture frame. I didn't need a picture frame today, but I opened the box because it's a leisurely holiday weekend, and I was curious to know what the picture frame looked like. I still remember when I had selected this gift years ago. To me it was the least worst of all the gifts offered. I cannot emphasize that enough. I spent hours browsing all the selections, being disappointed in each one, until ultimately realizing that, no, it wasn't possible to find a gem amidst all the other awful gifts, and then I realized I had to spend even more time finding the least worst gift. In retrospect, I should have quit then and simply not selected a gift. Basically, someone at UCSF found a company that will stamp the UCSF logo on a wide variety of objects which, to me, were mostly cheap, plastic gadgets, then offer them to employees specifically for employment anniversaries. The picture frame is from Howard Miller, which is the world's leading clock company, according to the words beneath their logo on the box, which to me is weird because I've never heard of Howard Miller before, and I'm pretty old, and why would a company want to tell me they're the world's leading clock company on the box for a picture frame that they make and sell? Clearly they're not the world's leading picture frame company. And as I recall, I did not select a picture frame that had an LCD clock glued onto it. The frame model is 655-122 Rosewood Frame II. Upon opening it, I was immediately impressed with the quality of the frame. The rosewood is a deep, dark red with an extremely glossy finish that reminds me of decoupage. No LCD clock—confirmed. And then I noticed the UCSF logo at the bottom of the frame. I understand why it's there. I disliked and expected that. I dislike the logo because its presence limits what I can do with the frame. What do they expect me to do, put a photo of myself in it? I know what I look like. Its position also means that I can use the frame only in portrait mode and not in landscape mode. What disappointed me was that the logo was 4 millimeters horizontally off center. I also would have preferred the UCSF logo to be free-floating (or I want to say die-cut, but that's probably incorrect terminology to use here) rather than within a bordered box, but that's forgiveable. I will mention but won't further discuss the fact that this use of the logo does not observe the clear space rule and the minimum size rule specified by identity.ucsf.edu (presuming they apply in this situation). 4 millimeters off center is not forgiveable. That doesn't sound like much, but my eye instantly noticed the error. The logo is perfectly vertically centered, so I don't know what happened in the horizontal alignment department. I laughed, showed the error to Patrick, thought about throwing the whole thing in the trash, then put it back in the box. Even if I had discovered this on the day I received it, I'm not sure I would have complained. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make me feel recognized and valued, and the result was that I felt sorry that the university spent so much money and effort for nothing. I'll never use it. Could I return it and have it replaced? Possibly, but that's not the point. If I have to go through a gift return procedure to correct a production flaw, you've sucked out all the cheer one might normally associate with recognition. You just can't have errors like this and expect recognition to do what it was meant to do.
Mon Jan 21, 2013
Cleaned the bathroom. Laundry: bed sheets. More vacuuming in the laundry room and garage. Prepped old iMac boxes. Breakfast at home: two-egg mushroom and cheddar scramble with green and yellow onion, 2 hash browns, 8 ounces of orange juice, water. Restored bed sheets to bed. Updated Drupal from 6.27 to 6.28 for Long Life Good Health. Vacuumed walls and ceiling in the living room. Vacuumed more under my bed. Moved my bed back into the corner. Repaired a broken plastic switch on my old amplifier using Mod Podge. Adjusted USB cabling for my computer. Posted an item on craigslist to give away. Bicycle maintenance: air. Bruised my knuckle on the bike pump due to the very strong spring in the locking mechanism that attaches to the valve. Errand: Safeway for certain groceries. Home. Snack: tortilla chips with Sabra roasted pine nut hummus. More iMac-for-Sam prep. Posted two items for sale on craigslist. Dinner at home with Patrick: vegetable stew with mycopia mushrooms, butternut squash, rainbow chard, pearl barley; dinner roll with butter; hot water. Patrick baked a two-layer red velvet cake using a box mix from Williams-Sonoma which I received from secret santa Shirin. The frosting procedure will take place tomorrow. Watched Clue (1985) on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Hilarious! Thanks, Mike B for the recommendation. Late meal: star-shaped pasta in marinara from a can.
Tue Jan 22, 2013
Breakfast at home: pecan-praline granola with blackberries and diced pink lady apple, 8 ounces of carrot juice, water. Weight training: standing dumbbell curl. Rode my bike to work. While riding to work I realized that I forgot my phone. Was almost run down by a hostile driver on Irving Street while I was exercising my right to bike fully in the lane when required for safety. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. rsync setup meeting with Eric. Installed the Chrome extension called Reload All Tabs. Began editing the new update from the dean. Sprint end meeting with Eric, Susie, Paula, and David. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Replied to Susan M about an emergency photo request. Fast lunch to go from Panda Express: panda bowl with fried rice and mixed vegetables. My fortune: There is always time for you to try a new path in life. 1-on-1 with Cindy. Continued editing the new update from the dean. Redirected an ICRD request from Rick to Kim B. Followup with Sue about a request for backup coverage of vidconf support. Followup with student JW about a listserv request. Reviewed a survey for Karen G that is going to the Communicators group. Followup with Orlando about the Qualtrics record in the SOP IT wiki. Followup with Pam E about her new website. Followup with student RB about a meeting request. Submitted a phone request to ITS so that they will make my message waiting light work. Calendar management. SOP IT wiki work: "create a new website" page updated with new info from Jennifer R. Reviewed Susie's draft of the education pages content. Rode my bike home. Weeded who has the "show in news feed" setting in Facebook. Changed default post settings in Facebook from public to friends. Changed all old posts from public to friends. Unfriended one person. Blocked another person. Weeded Twitter followers. Weight training: seated dumbbell curl; advanced, one-legged, staggered-arm push-up. Dinner at home: leftover stew. Dessert: two-layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Patrick made the cake using a boxed mix made by ad hoc and sold by Williams-Sonoma, but he said that it being a boxed mix didn't save much time—there were a lot of other ingredients and steps that it was almost like making a cake from scratch. The cake was rich, pretty, and delicious. Changed more Facebook settings to make things more private. Via craigslist someone offered $65 for my amplifier, but I replied and held fast to my $100 price. More advanced, one-legged, staggered-arm push-ups.
Wed Jan 23, 2013
Weight training: tricep kickback, front raise. Breakfast at home: TJ's granola and the 3 berries with fresh blackberries and soy milk, 8 ounces of orange juice, 8 ounces of cappuccino beverage for a powdered mix, water. Rode my bike to work. Linkchecking, kiosk work. 1-on-1 phone call with Michael. Calendar management followup with Lolita. Documented WarnMe emergency message sources for telephone, sms, and email in the SOP IT wiki. Responded to Andrew P's message about problems connecting a new Android device to UCSFwpa. Followup with student CR about same. Web content meeting with Cindy. Followup with JK about domain name selection. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Bought lunch to go from The View Cafe: hawaiian tuna sushi in a refrigerated package. Sprint start meeting. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Met with student RB about podcasts. Followup with Valerie and Denetra about a CPFM request to move hardware. Followup with RB and Cindy about RB's idea. Documented in the SOP IT wiki category names for faculty groupings. More followup with student CR about UCSFwpa. Followup with JK about domain name selection and hex color values for UCSF colors. Followup with JACS team. Followup with Tran about scheduling time for him to set up an admin account on my new iMac. Followup with Rodney about the IRC calendar. Management activities. Followup with Rodney about Qualtrics and SOP IT wiki procedure documentation. Followup with Susie about RCOs and the SOP IT wiki procedure for creating a new website. Worked until 8:50 PM—too many things to do. Rode my bike home. At 19th and Irving I had a friendly, brief chat with another bicyclist headed in the same direction. At 20th and Irving I said howdy to someone crossing the street. Snack: tortilla chips with Sabra roasted pine nut hummus. Dinner at home by myself. Celery soup. Added more to my journal entry for January 20. Dessert: slice of red velvet cake.
Thu Jan 24, 2013
Breakfast: TJ's granola and the 3 berries with sliced banana and soy milk, 8 ounces of carrot juice. Rode my bike to work. Again another hostile driver. Like yesterday, this driver really wanted to get ahead of the Muni train traveling on Irving Street. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Edtech meeting. Calendar management: set up PharmD content gap meetings. Followup with JACS team: posting correct info to the web in a timely manner, configuration options, DVI connectors and cables. Listserv management. Reminded Joel of our need to review the course schedule change page. Sent a request to BearBuy support asking for help finding a correct DVI cable. Responded to a request from Rodney asking if I had a copy of Windows NT to help one of our faculty members. (I do not.) WCWG lunch meeting: chicken sandwich, York peppermint pattie, water from my klean kanteen. Listserv management. Windows XP maintenance. 1-on-1 with Eric. More Windows XP maintenance. Created and sent a list to C3 of issues. More followup with C3. Followup with Pam E about her web content. Posted updated schedules for Lucia. Rode my bike home, stopping at Walgreens on the way for a few items. Dinner at home: Whole Foods small greek pizza from the deli case. Dessert: small piece of red velvet cake. Wrapped and froze cake. Beverage: decaf green tea. Browsed imgur today. I'm starting to get tired of it because I think the quality of content isn't as high as I remember it used to be.
Fri Jan 25, 2013
Breakfast at home: oatmeal with fresh, diced pink lady apple, cinnamon, soy milk; hot water. Rode my bike to work. Meeting with Susie and Cindy. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Management activities. Followup with C3. Followup with all about equipment transfers. Stopped by Nobel Wall and chatted briefly with Danielle, Lisa, and Cindy, who were overseeing our interview process. Errand: Walgreens. Lunch by myself at La Boulange: egg and swiss sandwich with smoked salmon on croissant, large chai tea latte. 1-on-1 with Eric: IPQB and CBS work for Rebecca and Susie. We completed the CBS work and prepped the IPQB work. Small edits to milestones section for Susie. Followup with Jamie K about setting up a new domain. Set my iMac to not sleep so that the screen saver could remove the image persistence that has appeared. Left work late, about 7:20 PM. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home: leftovers, hot water. Dessert: 3 pieces of almonds and sea salt in dark chocolate. Realized after a Google search that my solution for resolving image persistence is not the same one that Apple recommends. Oh, well. I'll see how it looks on Monday.
Sat Jan 26, 2013
For the past four mornings after inserting my contact lenses one of the two would feel strange enough that I felt I couldn't wear my lenses all day, so I wore my glasses instead. I swapped the left and right lenses to troubleshoot (I wear the same prescription in both eyes), and the problem switched eyes as well. I inspected the lens but found no tear. This morning the problem did not occur at first but did occur after a few minutes. I switched to a new lens, and the problem was gone, so I suspect that there was a small tear in the original lens that I was unable to see. Responded to some Chatter comments. Pushed milestones edits for Susie live. Laundry. Ordered a new iMac for Patrick. Breakfast at home with Patrick: egg scramble with mushroom, bell pepper, green onion, and for me only, cheddar cheese; hot water; orange juice. Patrick and I had considered for the past few weeks installing draperies to divide the living room from the dining room and kitchen and today decided against it because, although nice to have, we didn't need it that badly. Lunch to go from King of Thai Noodle Taraval: two orders of chicken noodle soup. Watched clips of things online: SNL, Jodie Foster's Golden Globes speech, Corridor Digital. More laundry. Cut my hair, showered. Recharge Spa updates for Drew. Troubleshot problems with the iMac crashing while InDesign CS5 launches. Installed and ran Adobe Support Advisor: "Inspection could not identify any issues. Please contact Adobe Support for further assistance. http://www.adobe.com/support". Ran Repair Permissions—successful. Uninstalled Adobe Support Advisor. Ran Repair Disk—successful. Restarted. Watched half of Pet Shop Boys: Performance on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Tried to open InDesign CS5 again—still fails.
Sun Jan 27, 2013
Weight training: weighted leg lift. Breakfast at home: TJ's granola and the three berries with fresh blackberries and soy milk, hot water. Laundry. Added an item to my tumblr feed. Recharge Spa updates for Drew. Ironed a shirt. 30-minute nap. Brunch at Kitchen Story with Bill. We waited maybe 30 minutes for a two-top. Coffee and Frisco benedict for Bill, thai iced tea and mango salad with prawns for me. Food was good. My mango salad was unexpectedly spicy, but I did not complain about it. The cheddar basil biscuit that accompanied it was very delicious. It took a long time to get the bill, and when it arrived it was the wrong bill. We were busy talking, so it didn't bother us that much, but in retrospect I think we spent another 30 or 40 minutes just trying to pay the correct bill. Eventually a manager (I think) spoke with us and granted us permission to leave without paying, but I insisted on paying as long as it was the correct bill. A correct bill finally arrived with a 25% discount, I paid, and we left. (I had previously arranged with Bill that he would pick and I would pay.) Bought vegetable soup at Harvest Market. Said goodbye to Bill. I had had an exceedingly good time with him. Bought chicken cauliflower soup from Morning Due Cafe. Drove home. Laundry. Finished watching The Pet Shop Boys: Performance on Netflix DVD with Patrick. We were both very impressed with this show, and Patrick said it made him like The Pet Shop Boys even more. Dinner at home with Patrick: he had vegetable soup from Harvest Market. I had salad with carrot-ginger dressing, sunflower seeds, dried cranberry; tortilla chips and roasted pine nut hummus; two small handheld quesadillas. Bought online a large rug on sale at 57% off with rug pad. I happened to visit the website for Tong Palace (933 Clement Street) today and found myself wryly amused. It's an all-Flash website, and my first impression was that I didn't realize anyone permitted websites like this to exist anymore. Seamful, looping elevator music that plays upon load, an icon to toggle the sound, sound effects and animation upon hover of almost every element (almost like you might find in a video game), custom scrollbars, lorem ipsum on the page describing the privacy policy, five-point text (and the kind of Flash code that makes the text not scalable in the way most people know), images of food only 140 x 90 pixels—I could go on, but I'll stop there. The copyright date shown in the lower left corner says 2009, but it feels like it should instead say 1999 or maybe even 1994. I'm sure the food at Tong Palace is delicious, though. I just noticed that the bottom of my Kitchen Story receipt says, "Come create your story at Kitchen Story." Ha ha! Patrick said tonight that the chicken cauliflower soup from Morning Due Cafe was a whole lot better than the more expensive vegetable soup from Harvest Market. I think I might be getting a sore throat. Might be due to more-than-usual talking today. We'll see.
Mon Jan 28, 2013
Woke up with a sore throat, emailed notifications that I was sick, checked in on a few work emails. Back to bed. Slept for 7 hours. While I slept, Patrick had gone to the grocery. Late lunch: chicken soup with pasta and vegetables. Back to bed. Read from When I Knew, a book inherited from Chris and Nate. Napped for a few hours. Dinner at home with Patrick: tortilla chips and roasted pine nut hummus; soft tacos with black beans, cheddar cheese, and mild salsa. To treat my sore throat I made a ginger tisane and drank it with honey. Caught up on a few work emails. Some small web edits for Recharge Spa for Drew. Updated my iPhone 3GS from iOS 6.0.1 to 6.1.
Tue Jan 29, 2013
Feeling better than yesterday, emailed notifications that I was sick, checked in on a few work emails. Breakfast at home: pecan-praline granola with sliced banana and soy milk, ginger-honey tisane. Work emails. Nap. Lunch: leftover mango salad. Work conference calls. Water. More ginger-honey tisane. Rested. Dinner: we had some leftover steamed rice from Panda Express, so I fried that in a bit of peanut oil, added some canned, diced tomatoes, dorot garlic, dried parsley, and mild taco seasoning to make country-style Spanish rice. I ate that with some leftover canned black beans and some freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese over tortilla chips.
Wed Jan 30, 2013
Breakfast: small bowl of granola with sliced banana; 8 ounces of tomato juice. Rode Muni to work. Bought doughnuts and milk. Surprise office party. Web content meeting with Cindy, Shirin, and Danielle: careers and other pages. 1-on-1 conf call with Michael. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Quickly tested a survey to the Communicators group for Karen G. Prepared and sent a list of new open issues to C3. Lots and lots of calendar management and scheduling (new training with C3). Submitted a surplus pickup request. Lunch to go from the cafeteria: made-to-order tuna sandwich. IPQB work with Eric. Web updates for Shirin: info day. ICRD work for Rodney. Copied new copy to Asana for Susie. Sent John K links to the SOP IT wiki. More SOP IT wiki work: Qualtrics. Small communicators group website edit for Jeannine C. Strategic plan milestones edit for Susie and Joe. Followup with Ray C about his headless workstation in our office space for testing. Submitted a ticket to DLS to set up the new computer. Followup with a student request from August. CPFM picked up my old Mac Pro today to deliver it to Laurel Heights. That must mean that OEIS has received its delivery of three monitors from Laurel Heights. Asked Eric to send the HDMI-to-DVI adapter he has to Frances in interoffice mail. Followup with ITS about getting access to the MCCA download site. Followup questions for Cindy for the empty workspace. Picked up Chinese food takeout from Andy's Restaurant. Rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Andy's fried rice, chinese broccoli in oyster sauce, three ingredients, shrimp with snow peas, wor won ton soup. Patrick's fortune: Don't give in to cynicism. My fortune: Everyone agrees you are the best. Recharge Spa work for Drew. Just for the record, regarding the problem I reported to Seamless about reviews being truncated to 2,049 characters without warning, I received this reply on April 7, 2012: "Thanks for writing to us. My colleges and I have absolutely no explanation for the reviews character limit. Since this is something we do not deal with on a consistent basis or any basis really - What I'd like to do is forward your request to our Partner Relations Team so we can get an explanation. I hate to pass the buck, but I want to ensure your concerns are resolved in an appropriate and timely manner with the appropriate department." and this reply on May 20, 2012: "Thank you for your email. I apologize for the delayed response. I apologize that you haven't heard back from us. We're still waiting on an update from our partner relations team. Once we receive an answer we will follow up with you. Thank you!" and this reply on December 25, 2012: "There may be an update in the future to provide a better warning system before the character limit is approached. The reviews and ratings system in general is being looked at carefully for several improvements. Sorry there isn't a specific timeline, but we do appreciate your input and this was passed along to our Product Managers back at the time of your original email. Kind regards." I have not heard from them since.
Thu Jan 31, 2013
Breakfast at home: oatmeal with fresh, diced apple; cinnamon; soy milk; 8 ounces of tomato juice. Rode my bike to work. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Worked on some tickets in TeamWork. Followup with C3 and Lolita. C3 conf call. Followup conf call with John K, Greg H, Eric D, and Michael W. Created a new Chatter group for the Online Presence implementation team. Documented the procedure to create a new Chatter group in the SOP IT wiki. Followup with Dan P about a student request from August last year. Followup with Ed S and Hector J from Brother about the ADS2500 scanner we purchased recently and which Stephane had set up. Chatted with Cindy about a student's podcast idea. I think I ate leftovers for lunch today. Followup with Millo on the pharmchem server migration soon to be performed by Walter S. Followup with Sarah P about a forthcoming video standards presentation. Listserv management. Legal name change work for one student. Followup with Tran about a locked file in our network folder. Followup with John C about a student request from (I think) October or November last year. Followup with Susie about Drupal Web Starter Kit project. Listserv management. Sent Tran a screen snapshot of what I see when slow network behavior occurs. More legal name change work. Followup with Paula about lab website copy editing workflow. Followup with Doug C about same name issues. Rode my bike to the grocery at 5th and Irving, bought some lemons. Rode my bike home. On 20th Avenue, a white sedan passed me going about 35 miles per hour. I later saw it turn right onto Noriega. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers.