October 2013
Summary: 40th Castro Street Fair, bought a new camera: Panasonic Lumix G6, Dance party at 550 Barneveld, Calistoga Weekend (Jacuzzi Winery, Villa Palma, Larkmead), House of Air with Sean, BADcamp at UC Berkeley
Dates on this page
Tue Oct 1, 2013
Weight training: door pull ups. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Breakfast from The View Cafe: egg and cheese on croissant. Codejam with Greg H, John K, and Eric D which was really just a productive meeting and not a codejam. Susie returned after a long absence and we brought her up to speed on our activities. Kidney Project website edits for Sara G. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Helped Susan H identify people in an image to be uploaded to The Archive. Room scheduling. PID updates for Shirin. Org chart update for Susie, Sharon, and Mitra: Tina B's new title. Followup with Orlando, Jesse, and Sierra about Acrobat XI Pro for students. Redirected a wireless problem report from student CJ to ITS. Followup with Tran L and John M about old ITFS requests that are still incomplete. Lunch from The View Cafe: veggie california sandwich with pickle, small chocolate chip cookie. Redirected a website problem report from students about the ASSP website to Sierra then to Jennifer R at SAA. Prepared a list of other student org websites in the same situation. Followup with Cindy about the student progression database project. Confirmed with Ed F that he received the check we owed him. Documented supp app solutions to problems in the SOP IT wiki. Followup with Doug C about public student directories and our list of directory information. Downloaded internal archives of our main website. Used SiteSucker to archive our website externally. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Rode Muni to 9th and Judah. Dinner at New Sandy Cafe: seafood vermicelli rice noodle soup, hot tea. While on Bus 66 waiting for it to leave, a woman whom I have seen ride this route many times held the door of the bus and refused to leave because she was waiting for someone to arrive. At least that's what she seemed to have claimed. This lasted about 7 minutes before she temporarily removed her hand from the door and the driver quickly closed the door and drove away with her pounding on the side of the bus begging for it to continue to wait. About 10 other people were on the bus one of whom said he had worked 15 hours at the medical center and needed to be up in the morning to return to work. I'm not sure if the woman has mental health issues, but it sure seemed like it. Rode Muni home.
Wed Oct 2, 2013
Weight training: dumbbell curl. Breakfast at home: ginger-pecan granola with fresh blueberries, almond milk. Rode my bike to UCSF Laurel Heights. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Made some small edits to a PDF for Joel. Prepped CP chair's council edits for Greg. Joel asked if there was a way to not see the arrows in a picklist in a PDF form after data had been entered but still keep the data. After a few minutes of searching, I found a Javascript that would do the job. It's called Flatten Page Content Tool. Unfortunately, Adobe doesn't make it very easy for someone to find where to install such a file. People gave instructions for a command to run in the Javascript console but I couldn't get it to work after several minutes and gave up trying that method. I was able to figure it out on Mac but could not for Windows. Using Acrobat XI Pro. Updated three class schedules for Lucia. Followup with Cindy on the missing ASSP calendar. Check-in with Michelle A for her missing image. Lunch at JCC: I ordered the spinach nut burger with fries but received the spinach nut burger with potato chips. Not enough time to correct the order. Drank cucumber-infused water. Sprint start meeting with Eric, Paula, Greg, and Rodney. Today was the second day in a row that I could not get wifi working on my laptop and ITS fixed it on their end somehow after I reported it. It might have something to do with OS 10.8.5. (Eric and Greg were on 10.8.4 and did not encounter problems.) Calendar management. More followup with Joel and the Flatten Page Content Tool. Followup with Marc A about Acrobat XI Pro installs for comm team. Had trouble logging in to Box Sync on my laptop. It wouldn't work even though I knew I was using the correct credentials. Styling work on the new websites: editor cleanup. Rode my bike home. Late dinner at home by myself: ravioli with mushrooms and bell peppers in marinara sauce that Patrick had cooked last night, hot water. Installed TED Talks for iPad.
Thu Oct 3, 2013
Weight training: wrist curl, one-legged standing calf raise. Breakfast at home: ginger-pecan granola with fresh blueberries and sliced banana, almond milk. Troubleshot CrashPlan: unable to connect to the backup engine. I resolved this by manually turning the engine off then on using sudo launchctl in Terminal. Checked that Patrick's iMac doesn't have the same problem; it does not. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. Calendar management. OSACA staff meeting. Met Lisa L from ITFS. Chatted with Tran and Lisa about the shared office laptop and a local admin account. Followup with Sierra about Acrobat XI Pro for students. Listserv management: updated preceptors list for Monica. Helped student LA with crash problems in Adobe Reader. 1-on-1 with Cindy. Lunch to go from the cafeteria: packaged ham and cheese on marble rye, pom-tan Hint water. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to MCB. Drupal User Group meeting and ate my lunch. Greg and Rodney demoed SPS, Eric gave community initiative updates, and John led a discussion about updates and scheduling. John also announced a new migration request form in Service Now. Walked to Castro and Market because it was a nice day to do so. Rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: packaged deli cornmeal-crust veggie pizza, side bowl of packaged dal. Watched about two thirds of The Matrix Revolutions on iTunes purchase with Patrick.
Fri Oct 4, 2013
Breakfast at home: a small amount of ginger-pecan granola with almond milk. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Surprise party for Paula in my office went very well for what little planning we did. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Code jam with Eric, John K, Richie B, Stefan T in Library 201: search, pharmacy microsites. Lunch with same and Rich T at Nan King Road Bistro. Among other things we talked about baseball and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Rich had to leave early with food to go—not enough time. More code jam in S936. I resolved a problem with failing to log in to Box Sync. I had ITS on the phone and the engineer was going to send my ticket to level 2 after we tried a few things and failed but I was persistent and resolved the problem on my own with level 1 on the line by removing and reinstalling Box Sync. Rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: I made vegetable fried rice and egg rolls, both from frozen. Finished watching The Matrix Revolutions on iTunes purchase with Patrick. Weight training: reverse wrist curl.
Sat Oct 5, 2013
Laundry. Weight training: door pull ups. Breakfast at home: two eggs scrambled with grilled vegetables and spices (celery, red bell pepper, mushrooms, kale, dried parsley, fresh thyme, sea salt, pepper), two biscuits with Earth Balance spread. Removed an old blanket and an old towel which were abandoned for months in the back yard by our upstairs neighbors because they were infested with bugs. Washed the compost bins. Cut my hair, showered. Folded laundry. Photo shoot with Patrick. Lunch: leftover seafood soup, two biscuits with Earth Balance spread. Photo shoot with Patrick. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: indian food delivery from Clay Oven West Portal, red wine. Watched about half of Cloud Atlas on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Completed some long-overdue ironing.
Sun Oct 6, 2013
Weight training: dumbbell curl. Breakfast: same as yesterday but as an omelette instead of a scramble, plus 8 ounces of orange juice. Released and uploaded photos to Flickr and Facebook. Castro Street Fair. I forgot to bring a hat. Ate vietnamese spring rolls with peanut sauce, drank a lemonade. Met or encountered: tony a ken peter p dale russ and gonzalo steven louie cesar brian miguel. Tacos at 2312 Market Street (I don't know what it's called now) with Cesar and Louie followed by Hi Tops where we met some of our party that had earlier split. I also looked in the windows at 2344 Market Street where a new bar called Beaux has replaced the space long-vacated by Trigger. Beaux was packed. Dinner with Phil, Drew, and Romy at their place: roasted herbed chicken with sides of quinoa and stir-fried collard greens. Dessert: snickerdoodle ice cream and flan. Rode Muni home.
Mon Oct 7, 2013
I dreamt last night that I had somehow inserted two contact lenses into each eye and was frustrated to discovered the problem. Troubleshot Apple Time Machine stuck on "Looking for backup disk" on my iMac. Restarted my iMac and Apple Time Capsule—did not work. Removed and reselected the backup disk—did not work. The problem then changed to "The Backup disk image ... sparsebundle ... is already in use." Discovered Pondini's C12 which said that a 7.6.4 firmware update for Apple Time Capsule resolves the problem. Discovered that I have 7.6.3. Attempted to apply the update. Encountered an error: "There was an error connecting to the update server. Check your network settings and try again." Tried bluecorner's solution of deleting the folder at ~/Library/Application Support/Apple/Airport but this did not work for me. I resolved this by using a different solution from bluecorner—creating a new admin account then applying the update using that admin account then deleting the admin account. Back to Time Machine, removed the backup drive, reselected the backup drive. Time Machine now says "Oldest backup: None" and a new backup began running but is now stuck with message "Backing up: 30.0 MB of 97.9 MB." I will let it run. Rode my bike to UCSF Parnassus. Calendar management. Deleted unneeded items from /sw and /hw on the network, resolving broken permissions with ITS in the process. Helped student DT resolve a problem with AD credentials. Don brought a quiche and bacon to share. Documented then announced Acrobat Pro site license for students. Computer maintenance. Helped student KK with crashes in Windows 8. Tried and failed resolving flattening plug-in install for Joel. Updated the associate deans page for Susie and Sharon Y. Chatted with Lisa S about names in telephone displays. Ordered a gigabit Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter for my MacBook Air. ICRD work for Rodney. Realized today that Courtyard Cafe is permanently closed and has been since June this year. Lunch from the cafeteria: vietnamese noodle salad with various sauces, ate in Saunders Court. Redirected a wiki issue from student JK to Zach S. Calendar management. Posted an updated P3 schedule for Lucia. Reset my Adobe ID password. Updated a link to the Phi Delta Chi website. Lisa stopped by my desk and asked me to send her something funny, so I sent her a link to Scarlett Johansson Falling Down. Staged new content for Cindy about graduation and placement info. Followup with Karl M about his request for a new website on our new platform. Pushed live the self-study website for Joe, Mitra, and Sue. Updated pages explaining how the spam firewall works to reveal that tagging is disabled. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Rode Muni home. Dinner: leftover indian food while finishing Cloud Atlas on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Weight training: wrist curl, bench dip.
Tue Oct 8, 2013
Weight training: door pull ups. Shower. Breakfast at home: ginger-pecan granola; fruit smoothie with banana, orange juice, soy milk, ice. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Unpacked and set up my new Plugable USB 3.0 7-port hub. Archived documents and photos of product packaging. Listserv management. Notified the mail team that my pages have been edited to say that tagging is disabled. Notified Frances how her staff can install Adobe Acrobat Pro. Comm team meeting; I had to leave early. I was unable to connect to UCSFwpa; Al and Claudia stopped by to troubleshoot. By the time they had arrived it was working fine. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Stopped in briefly at the OSACA. Encountered student TH in the elevator, chatted briefly about ChemDraw. Fast lunch to go from Subway, ate in front of the library: veggie foot-long sandwich on italian cheese and herbs something or other. Attended a meeting that I left 30 minutes in because it would have been more appropriate for Joel or Rick to have attended. Back to the OSACA. Laptop again would not connect to UCSFwpa. Troubleshot this for more than an hour. ITS recommended manually reinstalling 10.8.5 and this seemed to resolve the problem. Responded to Shirin's request to purchase an iPad 2. Responded to a student encountering error "No match was found" when attempting to send an email message in UCSF webmail. Solution: use semicolons instead of commas to separate names. Created an updated orgchart for BTS. Followup with Rick and Joel about today's meeting. Reminded comm team how to install Acrobat Pro. Web edits for Cindy: staged grad rate and grad performance (new page title). Linkchecking, kiosk work. Rode Muni to the Mission. Dinner at PDDR's with Danny, Romy, Drew, and Phil. Dessert: flan. Rode Muni home.
Wed Oct 9, 2013
Weight training: standing dumbbell curl. Breakfast: ginger-pecan granola mixed with pumpkin flax granola; fresh, diced gala apple; fresh raspberries; soy milk; 8 ounces of orange juice. Rode my bike to UCSF Parnassus. LSD webinar with Ben Jeavons and Cash Williams: common security risks found on websites. Made final edits and pushed live the new graduation rate and graduate performance page for Cindy. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Long chat with Eric about search, panels, panelizer, and Panopoly. Reviewed SPS video and documentation provided by Greg and Rodney. Installed Office 2011 14.3.8 update, which appeared to hang and just as I was about to kill it it completed successfully. Reviewed and commented on items in Bureaucracy Busters. Minor web edit: updated link to the ASSP calendar. Scheduled time with Rodney to train him on how to build a microsite. Followup with Eric and John about dev sites slow to load. Chatted with Richie about the template for centers, programs, and projects; he didn't get the link to The Archive because it ended up in cuda. Resolved and documented the problem with why the Flatten Page Content Tool did not seem to work for Joel and for me at Parnassus. Added a new contact to auth.net for La'Trece. Did prep and rally for BADCamp, forthcoming at UC Berkeley October 24 to 27. Lunch at Beautifull!: butter bean bowl with quinoa, heated; water. Lots of styling and styling cleanup: quicktabs. Set up local dev environment for pharmacy. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Dinner at Panda Express: orange chicken, mixed vegetables, chow mein, water. Rode my bike home. Bike maintenance: pumped the tires, lubed the chain. Edited and uploaded photos to Flickr. Dessert: fortune cookie: Good fortune lies ahead. Recharge Spa work for Drew: make intake patient forms more legible when printed black and white. Late snack: cookies and warm milk.
Thu Oct 10, 2013
Weight training: wrist curl. Breakfast: pumpkin flax granola with diced, fresh bartlett pear and fresh raspberries with soy milk. Rode my bike to UCSF Parnassus. Followup with Tim C and John A about licensing restrictions with Adobe Creative Cloud and the inability to license 4 computers to be used by one person. White Coat Ceremony prep. Listserv management. SPS meeting with Cindy, Rodney, and Greg. Calendar management. Helped Rick install the Flatten Page Content Tool. Printed and distributed updated phone number cheat sheets for OSACA and OEIS. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Mt. Zion. Lunch at Yum Yum Hunan: sweet and sour rock cod with brown rice, ate half, took the rest to go with an extra order of brown rice. My fortune: You shouldn't overspend at the moment. Frugality is important. 10 19 23 29 30 39. About $10. UCSF shuttle from Mt. Zion to Laurel Heights. Resolved a fatal error with the dev site for pharmacy with Eric. Lots of styling: people list page, people person page, resolved problems with homepage list items. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Dropped off the camera. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: broccoli di rabe mozzarella ravioli with artichoke pesto and mushroom sauce. Watched 40 minutes of Oblivion on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Fri Oct 11, 2013
Rode Muni L and 24 to the dermatologist for an appointment. Late breakfast at Sugar Bowl Bakery and Cafe: regular coffee with half and half, mixed vegetables wrap with side salad with by-default italian dressing. Walked to UCSF Mt. Zion. UCSF shuttle from Mt. Zion to Parnassus. Printed a phone number cheat sheet for Lucia. Calendar management. Staged web edits for Tina B: international experiences. Submitted a same-or-similar-name problem resolution to ITS for student JL. Followup with Karl about his new website request (Ahituv). Asked Rick to retake two student photos today. White Coat Ceremony lights prep. Quick lunch at the cafeteria: jasmine rice, white fish in black bean sauce, green beans, water. White Coat Ceremony followed by reception in Millberry Union followed by cleanup with the staff. Ate vegetables, hummus, baba ganoush, and other assorted appetizers at the reception. Chatted with student DT. Met Marc. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover vegetables, hummus, and baba ganoush from the reception. Stayed up very late researching a new camera purchase. I think I finally found the camera I had been seeking in the Panasonic Lumix G6 (aka DMC-G6). For a long time I had a hard time determining if I wanted a high-end or top-of-the-line compact or an entry- or mid-level mirrorless or dslr to replace the Canon PowerShot A650IS that Tina had purchased for me on March 20, 2008. I decided recently that it's time for me to stop using compacts and not be afraid of the weight and bulk of a larger camera in order to get better image quality. I read many reviews and could find nothing bad said about it that I cared about. (For example, it's not great at tracking moving objects.) It has a nice balance of automatic and manual features for my level of photography. It's slightly larger than my Canon PowerShot A650IS, which I was willing to accept. It has panorama, HDR, and time-lapse built-in—these are all features I would like to try but have never used before because they were unavailable in my hardware. (fyi: the time-lapse feature is referred to incorrectly in some reviews as stop-motion.) The requirements I have been working from lately are: must have a fully articulated screen (sometimes also known as swivel or vari-angle), a little larger than the A650IS (112 x 68 x 56 mm) but not too much, must have been released or announced within the past 12 months. I could find only two other cameras that fit these criteria: The Canon EOS 700D (EOS Rebel T5i) (133 x 100 x 79), released or announced on 2013.0430. And the Nikon Coolpix P7800 (119 x 78 x 50), released or announced on 2013.0930. The 700D is significantly more expensive and bulkier than the G6. The P7800 is perhaps too much like my existing camera in size and image quality than I'd like.
Sat Oct 12, 2013
I dreamt last night I had awoken to find my backpack on my bed and my bed was wet with something watery. I discovered the floor had recently been wiped dry, as though the water substance leaked from the backpack and bed to the floor. I found an empty, opened Sprite can in my backpack and didn't know how it got there. End of dream. Laundry. More camera purchase research and camera accessories purchase research. Late lunch: leftover vegetables, hummus, and baba ganoush from yesterday's reception. Dinner at home: tuscan kale veggie burger on pretzel roll bun, shoestring fries, onion rings, hot water. Finished watching Oblivion on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Neither of us liked this film very much. The music in it feels frequently out of place, some scenes are overly saccharine, some scenes don't make sense, and it reminds me too much of concepts from other science fiction and fantasy films (e.g., 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars: Episode IV, Moon, Independence Day, WALL*E, The Dark Knight Rises, The Adventures of Tintin). I don't frequently see films that I recommend people stay away from, but this is one of them. Underworld dance party at 550 Barneveld. Met or encountered guy marc vincent emery brad and ric keith h glen c tony h dale a joseph c blake glen matt b russ m. DJ was Guy Ruben. The main dance floor is brand new—perhaps-faux wood. The lighting system is also new. Instead of lights using motorized mirrors, the entire units are motorized, and this seems to create stronger, more vibrant light patterns on the floor. I suspect the fog system was upgraded as well. The room seemed lightly foggy evenly throughout the night.
Sun Oct 13, 2013
Slept in. Woke. Slept more. Mid-afternoon meal: side of hash browns, brown basmati rice and tofu stir-fry with red bell pepper, celery, baby kale, garlic, fresh parsley, fresh oregano, shiitake mushrooms in a dark soy chinese five spice sauce; hot water. Finished camera and camera accessory purchase research and completed my purchases. Dinner at home with Patrick: black beans and rice, hot water. Recharge Spa work for Drew: updated photo for John, added photo for Zu.
Mon Oct 14, 2013
Weight training: door pull-ups. Breakfast at home: oatmeal with fresh, diced gala apple; cinnamon; soy milk. Rode my bike to UCSF Parnassus. 1-on-1 with Rodney including starting the build of the IRC microsite. Web edits for Joe C: leadership group. Met with Tina B about web edits for international experiences. Late lunch at the cafeteria: veggie patty melt, curly fries, water from my klean kanteen. Said hello to Dean. Small web edit for Joel, Rick, and Lisa: linked to Joel's blog on the requirements page. Attended the Social Media team meeting via WebEx. Edited white coat ceremony photos, delivered one to student PJ to publish in Synapse, delivered two to Paula for social media. Staged edits for the grad fairs page for Shirin. Watched the recorded video stream for last week's IT Forum meeting. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover rice and beans, hot water. Dessert for me: 10 ounces of warm milk, one stroopwafel. Edited and uploaded photos. Reset my Adobe account password for home.
Tue Oct 15, 2013
Breakfast at home: pumpkin-flax granola with fresh raspberries, soy milk. Rode my bike to UCSF Parnassus. Dropped off my bike, picked up the camera. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. While walking through the office lobby today I noticed a box of Aldus Persuasion behind the security desk. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Failed logging in to drupal.ucsf.edu as admin, and I used the forgot-your-password feature but never received the password reset email message, asked Richie to reset my account. Comm team meeting. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. 10-minute lunch: there were some Subway lunches left over from an OSACA event. The one I randomly picked had meat on it but I didn't mind. Water from my klean kanteen. Jazzee followup meeting. Redirected a LexiComp request from student JH to Rodney. Calendar management. Reported slow performance on one of our staging sites to John K and Eric D. Answered a question about images for David J. Calendar management. Followup with Nadav about lab websites questions. Snack: pita chips. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home: leftover veggie Subway sandwich and small bag of Lay's potato chips. Late meal #1: leftover patty melt half sandwich. Late meal #2: ramen with mixed greens, celery, tofu, green onion, tamariterm.
Wed Oct 16, 2013
Weight training: dumbbell curl. Breakfast at home: pumpkin-flax granola with fresh, sliced banana, soy milk; water. Rode my bike to UCSF Laurel Heights. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Followup with lots of web work: Drupal styling, CP chair's council with Greg, grad fairs page for Shirin. Updates with Susie. Snack: free leftover fruit from someone's meeting. Met with Greg about people pages, did some styling. Fast lunch from The View Cafe: half order of tofu with brown rice, one egg roll; ate in the sunny and hot courtyard. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Mt. Zion. Foot doctor appointment. UCSF shuttle from Mt. Zion to Laurel Heights. Regged a new website owner for Desai Lab. Reported one unresolved and one new problem to CPFM. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: small veggie thin-crust deli pizza, leftover black beans and rice. Watched some music videos on YouTube. Packed for the forthcoming weekend trip to Calistoga with PDDRQDRP. Rested. Late snack: popcorn from a saucepan with fresh, minced rosemary and sea salt; 16 ounces of carrot juice.
Thu Oct 17, 2013
Breakfast at home: oatmeal with fresh, sliced banana, pumpkin pie spice, soy milk; hot water. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Notified Susie and Eric that we have had only one new news story on our QBC and grad programs websites since handing that responsibility to others about a year ago. Sent Danielle feedback about how the white coat ceremony went. Followup with Sierra about gathering data on email traffic to students. Lots of styling work in Drupal for new sites. Redirected a student request to the Education team. Late lunch at the JCC. I had shakshouka for the first time. I didn't realize it contained chili peppers and cumin, so it was a bit spicy for me, but I ate half of it. After a few bites I thought it would be great with some bread, and about two minutes later one of the kitchen chefs dropped off a package of sliced bread at my table. I don't know if they forgot to set it out next to my plate when I picked it up or if I missed seeing it and didn't understand it was an accompaniment I was supposed to take. Shakshouka is poached eggs in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions, and cumin. It was introduced to Israel by Tunisian Jews. Lots of small web edits for Susie in preparation for next week's accreditation visit. Helped Eric set up print drivers for the Canon imageRUNNER C5185 copier on a Mac—successful. Redirected an E*Value request to Rodney. Set up a meeting for OSACA to discuss presenting from iPad. Followup with John K about slow response time on staging servers. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Skit Night at Cole Hall. I did not expect pizza at the event—nice. Dinner solved! Rode Muni home.
Fri Oct 18, 2013
Breakfast: leftover black beans and rice. Cut my hair, showered. Took today off work for a weekend in Calistoga with Danny, Drew, Romy, Phil, Quyen, Dave, and Richard. I rode UberX for the first time. UberX to PDDR's. Drew showed me his brand new Lenovo laptop with Windows 8.1, which is also brand new. Drew asked me to fix something on it (I can't remember what that was now) and I tried but failed. The fonts were blurry but only in certain applications. I got really confused between desktop apps and windowed apps because, for example, it seemed impossible to open a new tab in the desktop version of a web browser we were using (I think it was Chrome) using either the keyboard or gestures. The screen was touchscreen, which caused unintended things to happen when we were pointing to items of interest on the screen. I had a really hard time finding things like the start menu and how to restart Windows. I met Richard's friend Richard. (We began calling them Little Richard (Richard L) and Big Richard (Richard A).) Lil Paul arrived. I used some touch-up paint on their stove to repair a chip. We packed the car, and Phil drove us (Phil, Danny, Romy, Drew, and Paul) to Calistoga. Along the way we stopped at Jacuzzi Winery where Romy and Drew tasted and purchased two cases while the rest of us ate vietnamese sandwiches that PDDR had purchased and brought with us. Arrived at Villa Palma and unpacked. Spent some time in the pool and the sun. I can't remember what we did for dinner. Watched Soul Plane streamed from someone's online service. At some point today Lil Paul told us about Harold Stevenson paintings.
Sat Oct 19, 2013
Lounged, and spent time in the pool and the sun. Anh and Greta arrived to spend just the day. Dave took a bunch of us to Larkmead Vineyards for a tasting; a very nice time. Back to the house. Drinks and appetizers with PDDR's friends Carlo and Tony at Ca' Toga, and we received a tour of the grounds and house. I was impressed with the artistry evident everywhere you looked. Dinner poolside at Villa Palma with Carlo, Tony, Danny, Anh, Greta, Drew, Romy, Phil, Quyen, Dave, Richard, Richard. We ate various grilled meats, salad, brussels sprouts with bacon, bread, pumpkin tortilla chips, and more that I cannot remember. For dessert we had a very large, long, two-layer yellow cake with white frosting and strawberries. We also had three kinds of Fiorello's gelato: Old Kentucky Bourbon Butter Pecan, Espresso, and Caramel Balsamic. I did not like the caramel balsamic very much. The butter pecan was fantastic. The espresso was very good.
Sun Oct 20, 2013
Internet speed test on Villa Palma's wifi: 2.80 Mbps down and 0.47 Mbps up. Awoke to see a hot air balloon floating across the sky—beautiful. Many house flies were inside the house probably attracted by the cooking of bacon and other foods from yesterday, so a number of us went on a fly killing spree with rolled-up newspapers and anything else we had at hand. Ate french toast, eggs, and leftovers throughout the morning. Morning dip in the hot spring pool. I DJed for a bit. Owner Al stopped by to say hello. Yoga instruction by Danny. Showered, dressed, and packed. Phil drove us home. This was my first time crossing the new Bay Bridge (uneventful). We dropped off Paul at his place. Internet speed test at PDDR's: 5.7 Mbps down, 1.23 Mbps up. Dinner at PDDR's with PDDR: cold vietnamese noodles with shrimp, beef, spices, and fish sauce. Rode UberX home. The driver used Waze, said it has been working really well for her. It took us on a strange route, and several times I said something to the effect of "This is kind of a weird way that I've never taken," but she said that Waze sometimes routed you along unusual paths in order to get around traffic you can't see. When we ended up in the Richmond, I told her she was going the wrong direction and eventually convinced her to pull over and recalculate the route. She said then that she would not charge me for the ride, and in total it took about 30 minutes to get home (as compared with 20 minutes with a different UberX driver for the same route in the opposite direction last Friday mid-morning). She apologized again at the end of the ride, and I was nice to her about it. Not a great experience with either UberX or Waze today, but at least I wasn't in a hurry to catch a flight, and so I did not stress over it. Did some work for the Recharge Spa website. I realized later that she must have mistakenly missed a digit in my street address while typing it in to Waze. Fixed some XML files in my journal that had errors due to unescaped html entities for ampersands.
Mon Oct 21, 2013
Breakfast: pumpkin-flax granola with soy milk. Rode my bike to UCSF Parnassus. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Listserv management. Chatted for a long time with Chris B about private distribution lists and information security. Resolved one issue for Joseph, sent another on to Eric. Listserv management. Forwarded an announcement from Dave R. Followup with Johnny P at UCLA trying to set up a CASHnet account. Answered a question for Lucia about missing home page thumbnails in Firefox. Supp app work for Rick: missing picklist. Lunch: free sausage-pepperoni pizza courtesy of OEIS. Found and purchased a new scanner after chatting with Cindy. Listserv management. Checked in with Rodney about BADcamp. Spent some time figuring an alternate transit route since I have no expectation that BART will be running on Friday. Calendar management: declined meetings that occur on holidays through the end of the year. Sent Lisa our license key for Office 2010. Prep work for names and photos meeting. Room reservation work. Snack: the last slice of pizza. I realized today that my klean kanteen water bottle is missing. The last time I remember using it was at Skit Night. I checked with ETS and the Medical Center front desk, but neither said it was turned in. New camera arrived, so I did not ride my bike home. Rode Muni home instead. Dinner at home with Patrick: deep-fried vegan ravioli, apple juice with club soda. Watched 1 hour and 24 minutes of Cars (2006) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Recharge Spa work for Phil and Drew: trying to get Phil's Patient Fusion site ranked higher when searching on his name. Bluehost control panel very slow to respond. I gave up trying to get work done because of it. Internet speed test at home at 10:34 PM: 5.8 Mbps down, .92 Mbps up (sonic.net). Drink: orange juice with club soda. Edited photos.
Tue Oct 22, 2013
Breakfast from Carmelina's: breakfast burrito: $3.95. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Today's team meeting was canceled. InDesign work: school org chart, PharmD academic and block calendars. Web work: PharmD academic and block calendars. Linkchecking, kiosk work. Calendar management. Helped Rebecca with a problem with the bioi site. Web edits for Millo: job postings. Created a new project in asana called support queue. BADcamp prep. Recorded hours spent on Jazzee work for Cindy. Late lunch at the JCC: veggie spinach-nut burger, shoestring fries, cucumber-infused water from my contigo water bottle. Chose my sessions for BADcamp. Did some clearing of items in my inbox, now down to 36 items. I rode with John K and Eric in John's car. He dropped Eric at a nearby bike shop, then dropped me off at Church and Market. Rode Muni L train home. Dinner at home with Patrick: indian food delivery. Finished watching Cars (2006) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Edited photos.
Wed Oct 23, 2013
Breakfast: 2 eggs over leftover black beans and rice. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Did some checking of work email from home because I just missed my Muni bus. Email followup. Jazzee documentation in the SOP IT wiki. Lots of linkchecking and minor web edits and calendar management. Updated the communicators group website with some info that Sarah had sent me in January. More linkchecking. Dinner at Tadich Grill with Danny, Romy, Drew, Phil. While waiting in line, I chatted briefly with brian (client) and joe (architect). Drew and I each had rainbow trout stuffed with crab, Phil had fried oysters, and I can't recall what Romy and Danny had. To start, Phil had New England clam chowder, and the table shared crab claws served in a tall glass with cocktail sauce.
Thu Oct 24, 2013
Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. Teaching and Learning Commons Day. Kirk H told me the name of the artist of the wallpaper on my phone: Damien Hirst. Speedtest at Kalmanovitz Library: 149 Mbps down, 134 Mbps up. Submitted a request to ITFS to set up a Brother ADS-2000 document scanner in the spare workspace next to Rick. Followup with Sara and Susie about Kidney Project branding. Helped Joel reinstall and configure PharmADMit 2012. UberX to House of Air. We got delayed enroute because of construction road closures near Doyle Drive which none of our GPS applications knew about. Visited House of Air for the first time, invited Sean, used free tickets given away at the kite festival a few months ago. House of Air is really fun. Dodgeball seemed to have been reserved for a private event, so it wasn't available. We were happy enough to open jump in the Matrix and 2x Bowl. We arrived a little after 7:00 PM, and it took us about 30 minutes to get oriented to the space, change into appropriate clothing, decide if we wanted grip socks ($2) or go barefoot (we both did barefoot), and figure out how the free lockers worked (pretty simple). Jumping sessions (aka flights) are timed, so you normally enter only on the hour or half hour, but there were very few other people participating at this hour, so we were let in to the space a little early at 7:20 PM. An employee (aka flight instructor) keeps track of when your time is done by a color-coded wristband given to you at signup. Jumping on trampolines seems as though it doesn't require a lot of effort, but it's really quite a workout. We jumped for about 10 minutes and then needed a break. It's probably not possible or easy to jump continuously for a full hour, especially your first time there. You're not supposed to rest in the jump space. There are a whole bunch of rules to follow to keep yourself and the other flyers safe. Video monitors provide these safety instructions in the style of Star Tours (kewchamma-kewchamma), showing animated stick figures with limbs breaking when the figures do something wrong—a bit shocking and a bit hilarious. I believe that it is probably very easy to injure yourself. Sean left with a few scrapes, but nothing serious. I did not have any injuries, but I felt like I came close to a few scrapes. It's probably a good idea to jump/fly at a low traffic hour the first time you go. They have a small cafe but we did not make use of it. The restroom area has a drinking fountain and showers and a few more lockers with which you can use your own lock. Sean and I took UberX to Church and 15th. Dinner at Warakubune with Sean. Nightcap at Sean's place. UberX to home. A really great evening.
Fri Oct 25, 2013
Got a late start this morning. Leftovers for breakfast. Rode Muni then BART to North Berkeley Station. Bay Area Drupal Camp (BADCamp) Higher Education Summit at International House with rodney john k richie eric. Greg was also here but I didn't see him. Dinner and drinks with many from camp at Free House. I ate a veggie burger with fries and pickle slices, drank hot water and a pint of Racer 5. Service was mostly very good except the server somehow forgot to put my order in with everyone else's. Met or encountered carl, john c and jeannie (acquia), derek josh (uc merced), irina, ann, carol (stanford). Rode BART then Muni home, partly with Eric and Carl.
Sat Oct 26, 2013
Printed my BADCamp schedule. Waited 20 minutes for a Muni L train, rode it to Civic Center Station. Switched to BART. Didn't realize I needed to catch a Pittsburg/Bay Point train until after it left, had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Transferred at 19th Street Oakland. Alighted at North Berkeley, realized my mistake before I left the station. Waited about 10 minutes for a train in the opposite direction. Correctly exited at Downtown Berkeley. Walked 6 blocks uphill along Bancroft Way. Didn't know where registration was, found it at Dwinelle Hall, encountering Conrad along the way and briefly saying hello. The registration table was not marked as such, so it was a little confusing upon arrival. By the time I arrived at the registration desk it had taken me 2 hours to get here. I missed the first session and was late for the second session. Ate a free bagel with cream cheese. Chatted briefly with Anne, formerly with Chapter Three, and one of the organizers. Attended sessions. Chatted briefly with Alex K whom I had not seen in a long time. Lunch at Smart Alec's with Carl, Eric, Stefan, Jason, Christoph (sp?), Chuck, and others. Attended sessions. Chatted with Linnea W and Caryl from Stanford. Was too tired to go to tonight's party. Rode BART then Muni home. Began reading Beyond Religion by The Dalai Lama on iPhone via Kindle purchase. Late dinner at home: Patrick had ordered thai food delivery.
Sun Oct 27, 2013
Decided to not go to BADCamp today because I had such a terrible time yesterday. Laundry. Breakfast: leftover thai food. Laundry. Edited and uploaded photos to Flickr. Lunch: leftover thai soup, one cheese tamale. Edited and uploaded photos to Flickr. Opened my new camera, recorded serial numbers, processed and archived photos of the packaging, began the battery charging, attached the shoulder strap, began reading the user manual. Shopped online for a camera case. Folded laundry. Patrick and I chatted on Facetime with Tina; she is planning a surprise visit in a few weeks. Dinner at home with Patrick: chinese food delivery from Tsing's. Delivery took a little over an hour, and we were not very happy with the food. The brown rice was a little too mushy. Patrick thought the sweet and sour fish could have been crisper, but I didn't care or notice a problem. His fortune: An unexpected relationship will become permanent. My fortune: Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Began using the new camera and learning how it works.
Mon Oct 28, 2013
Breakfast at home: Hemp Plus granola with milk. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. A student was taking an exam in my office, so I worked on my laptop at the workroom table then later at the empty workspace next to Rick. Answered a question for Rick about Adobe Reader. Lots of linkcheck resolution and styling work in Drupal all day today. Rode Muni N to Church and Market. Lunch at Chow on Church with Eric S: lamb burger with fries for him, tuna melt with minestrone for me. Rode Muni N to UCSF Parnassus. Rode Muni home. Photos review with Patrick. Dinner at home with Patrick: tuna mac. Shopped online for camera accessories. Late meal: leftover chinese food.
Tue Oct 29, 2013
Breakfast at home: Hemp Plus granola with milk. Rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Resolved git issues on the laptop. Discovered today that my wireless connection at Laurel Heights is faster than my wired connection. Spent much of the day downloading and installing modern.ie VMs in VMware Fusion 6 for testing websites in various versions of IE. Called Uber driver Beryl to resolve a refund issue from October 20. Lots of asana ticket followup. Checked in with Greg about the SPS project. Filed pcard paperwork. Small web updates to comm resources pages for Liane W. 1-on-1 with Susie. Lunch from The View Cafe: veggie california sandwich with pickle, water from my contigo water bottle. Followup with Chris B about his recent request for a private dist list in Outlook. Checked in with Rodney about the new IRC website. Followup with student JL about same name issues. Chatted with Eric. Among other things, we converted our website project in progress from XHTML+RDF to HTML5 in about 15 minutes. How exciting! Followup with Michelle A about new lab website status. Rode Muni 1, 28, and 66 home. Dinner at home with Patrick: mushroom and sundried-tomato cornmeal-crust pizza, split pea soup. Started developing some back pain which I suspect was due to my recent visit to House of Air.
Wed Oct 30, 2013
Breakfast at home: Hemp Plus granola with fresh, sliced banana and milk; hot water. Rode Muni 66 and 43 to UCSF Laurel Heights. Did some cleaning up and organizing of notes. Answered a question about announcements for student NA. Set up personal email addresses for testing various presentations-in-the-cloud solutions. Turned off the self study website for Joe C. Asana task review. Updated Jazzee with a prereqs page 2 note for Joel. Small, temporary CSS fix for the Desai lab site people page for Kevin. Added html5shiv to our Drupal project. Late lunch at the JCC: veggie burrito with cheese and sour cream, water from my Contigo water bottle. Answered a question about announcements for student TL. Calendar management. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick had a veggie omelette, I had chinese food leftovers. Installed iOS 7 on my iPad (4th-gen)—successful. Troubleshot asana issues for Phil.
Thu Oct 31, 2013
Breakfast at home: Hemp Plus granola with fresh, sliced banana and milk; hot water. Was planning to ride my bike to work today, but changed my mind at the last minute—not enough energy. Rode transit to work. Calendar management. Lots of linkchecking in current and new sites. Resolved a question about the Biophysics website for Rebecca over WebEx. Notified OSACA iPad holders that they can upgrade to iOS 7 if they haven't already done so. Lunch from The View Cafe: wonton noodle soup with vegetables: about $8. Chatted with Rodney about light issues in the IRC. Attempted to associate pharm.ucsf.edu with Google Webmaster Tools, encountered a question for Eric. Installed Colour Contrast Analyzer and Total Validator, began accessibility review. Rode transit home. Watched Treehouse of Horror XXIV on Patrick's Hulu Plus account with Patrick. Recharge Spa work for Drew: price updates.