December 2017

Summary: Danny's birthday dinner at Slanted Door, New Orleans Holiday Gumbo Duet, Recharge Medical holiday party at Shotwell House, Christmas dim sum with Patrick, Sam, and Mom Ryan at Ton Kiang; Star Wars: The Last Jedi with Patrick at Alamo Drafthouse New Mission

Dates on this page

Fri Dec 1, 2017

Day 21 of a cold. Breakfast at home: three cuties, toasted english muffin with cheddar cheese, 8 ounces of milk. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day. Lunch at desk from The View Cafe: a small plate of fried rice fried noodles; one large, baked pork bun, water. Rode Muni to the Embarcadero. Dinner at Slanted Door with Phil, Danny, Drew, Romy, Quyen, Dave, Annita, Tina, Don Don, and Wayne. The restaurant was decorated with dog portaits, which I liked. We sat near the windows with a great view of the Bay Bridge and its light art installation. For a few minutes (10?) I was blinded by lights on a nearby docking boat, which degraded my dining experience a bit. The restaurant at dinner is very dimly lit, and it was impossible for me to see my menu even with my reading glasses and without bright light. I used my phone's flashlight feature, and tried to not annoy other diners by hiding my now-brightly-lit menu under the table. The menu was confusing to me until it was explained—when it says "select 3 items" or "select 1 item" it refers to a decision for the whole table, not individual diners. I learned later that this is their prix fixe menu. It would really have helped if the menu I was handed had said Prix Fixe at the top and maybe something like "select 3 items for your table". For wine we started with a riesling and midway switched to a rosé. Our meal: spring rolls, papaya salad, pork spare ribs, chicken, bok choy. Danny received for his birthday an order of spiced apple cotton candy with a lit candle on top. I was impressed by the cotton candy cone holder which was made of metal and seemed to be designed specifically to fit into a wooden platter for carrying and serving. Churros with chocolate dipping sauce completed the dessert round. Afterwards I rode with Quyen, Dave, and Annita in a 2017 Toyota Mirai to Shotwell House. We waited a long time for the others to arrive; they had unexpectedly dropped off Tina and Don Don at a hotel due to an early flight. We waited inside for Danny to arrive; he had returned to Slanted Door alone in an attempt to retrieve a birthday card he had received from Annita. (He did not find it.) We had a seasonal cake from Whole Foods which they called chantilly cake and was flavored with pear and rosemary. Rode UberX home.

Sat Dec 2, 2017

Day 22 of a cold. Breakfast at home: leftovers. Did nothing all day but occasionally help Patrick set up his new 13-inch MacBook Pro. Late lunch: chicken and rice soup from a can. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: Good Eggs curry chicken, side of beet salad with feta cheese, red wine, san pell. Watched Stranger Things s2:e5 on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Dessert: a coffee-flavored popsicle. Finished watching The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms on Netflix instant watch.

Sun Dec 3, 2017

The cold is pretty much all gone now. Slept in. Rode UberX with Patrick to Outer Mission. Brunch with Patrick, Romy, Phil, Drew, and Paul at Cuisine of Nepal. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: Good Eggs kuri squash soup, side salad, san pell. Watched Stranger Things s2:e6 on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Completed two password database migrations. Figured out how to manually add a ringtone (hawk call) to my iPhone 6 Plus. What a headache.

Mon Dec 4, 2017

Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Breakfast from The View Cafe: egg, cheese, and bacon on croissant, coffee with half and half. Identity retheme work all day. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Mount Zion. Lunch at My Father's Kitchen: beef noodle soup. UCSF shuttle from Mount Zion to Parnassus. Ran an errand. Worked from Kalmanovitz Library. Rode Uber Pool home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Good Eggs linguine with pork and beef ragu. Continued with confirming sanitization of the SSD on my old iMac in preparation for selling it. My last attempt to get my very old copy of DiskWarrior to mount from CD-ROM using a wired keyboard failed. Downloaded Disk Drill and Data Rescue to a USB drive from my MacBook Pro, then removed the USB drive. Started the iMac from that USB drive. Ran a latest trial version of Disk Drill on my old iMac. A search for recoverable files took about 45 minutes for a 1 TB drive. Began a second search using a demo version of Data Rescue 3 (old).

Tue Dec 5, 2017

Last night's Data Rescue 3 search found nothing of interest. Now ready to reinstall the operating system and prep the iMac for sale. Breakfast: three cuties, one pear, 8 ounces of milk. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day. Lunch: leftovers. Rode Uber Pool home. Dinner at home with Patrick: orange roasted chicken with farro, red wine, san pell.

Wed Dec 6, 2017

Breakfast at home: greek yogurt with a teaspoonful of cherry preserves, one english muffin (half with cheddar and half with butter), 8 ounces of orange juice. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day, working with Eric on hero and spotlight and other task followup. Lunch: leftovers. Rode Uber Pool home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Whole Foods pizza, side cabbage and almond salad. Watched Superstore s3:e7 on Hulu Base Plan with Patrick.

Thu Dec 7, 2017

Pre-breakfast: an apple. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day: IE11/Win10. Lunch at Picnix: vietnamese egg rolls with salad greens, rice noodles, and sauce; lemon sparkling water. Rode Uber Pool home. Dinner at home with Patrick: we ordered delivery from King of Thai Noodle but canceled it after learning that the delivery time was going to be 90 minutes. We wasted 15 minutes trying to cancel the order with EAT24, then reordered essentially the same meal from Chaiya which arrived about 25 minutes faster. Reinstalled macOS Sierra on my old iMac in preparation for sale. Patrick prepared the first of two gumbos today for a forthcoming holiday party we are throwing for a small group of friends. I used InDesign CC to prepare food cards to accompany his dishes using a previous project from 2006. It took a long time to figure out how to install and use old Type 1 fonts for Mac; Font Book would not install them (although I thought it did in the past). Answer: manually move or copy them to "/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Fonts" then quit and restart InDesign.

Fri Dec 8, 2017

Breakfast: greek yogurt and dried berry granola with diced apple. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day. Lunch at Rigolo: La Louisiane crepe, side of ratatouille, latte, water. Errand: Bryan's. More identity retheme work. Played two rounds of a fun game called Codenames Duet with Eric, Paula, and Levi. Tried to ride Uber Pool home but had to cancel because the driver marked me as on trip before ever picking me up. Instead I rode the UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus, then Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers. Arranged garland. Changed a light bulb in the oven. Recently a GE oven light bulb failed within about a week. The 4Home 40-watt ES/E27 bulbs I bought on Amazon fit and work. Trimmed a bouquet of roses to fit a vase.

Sat Dec 9, 2017

Breakfast at home: an apple. Prepared for a house party. Nap. New Orleans Holiday Gumbo Duet. Over the past three days Patrick prepared two gumbos: one seafood and not too spicy and one with meat and spicy. He served it with steamed white rice and sliced french baguette. Snacks: pretzel rods and mustard, spicy peanuts, green and red M&Ms. Wine, beer, and sparkling waters. In attendance: Scott, Andy, Peter, Vic, Ray F, Richard L, Michael B, Alan E, Danny, Romy, Drew, Phil, Wayne. Mitchell couldn't make it; he was at a volunteer event. Everyone seemed to enjoy the event as well as Patrick's gumbos. I had decorated with an eight-foot garland (the store told me it was cedar), white christmas lights, our battery-operated candles, a few scented candles (mint and pine), and a few snowman ornaments. I also displayed a bouquet of proliferating tequila sunrise hybrid tea garden roses. I had never seen proliferating roses before and had thought them unusual. Garland and roses were from Bryan's.

Sun Dec 10, 2017

Rested all day. Shower. Rode Uber Pool to Upper Market. Crab feed dinner at Paul and Irene's; Patrick stayed home. Met Yuko and Big Paul, Taylor and David. Also in attendance: Sara and Paddington, Wayne, Peter, Phil, Drew, Danny, Romy. Rode Uber Pool home.

Mon Dec 11, 2017

Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day in Browserstack. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Mount Zion. Lunch at Pete's Deli: 7-inch lemon chicken sandwich, sun chips, pom-orange san pell. Doctor appointment. Walked back to work. More work. Rode Uber Pool Express home. This ride was free due to a promo I received last week: take three Express rides before a certain date and your fourth Express ride is free.

Tue Dec 12, 2017

Breakfast: leftover seafood gumbo and sliced baguette. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. 1-on-1 with Eric. Identity retheme Browserstack testing all day. Lunch at Eliza's: cashew and broccoli chicken, hot tea, orange slices, half of a fortune cookie. My fortune: You will receive some prestigious prize or award within the month. Rode Uber Pool Express home. Dinner at home with Patrick: carnitas tacos with greens and avocado salsa; san pell with lime. Dessert: one B Patisserie orange blossom macaron each. Watched Stranger Things s2:e7 on Netflix instant watch with Patrick.

Wed Dec 13, 2017

Breakfast at home: greek yogurt with milk and granola. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme Browserstack testing all day. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Mount Zion. Lunch at b on the go: ham and cheese sandwich, water. Walked to work. Snack: watermelon-berry-flavored coconut water, a banana. Rode Uber Pool Express home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Good Eggs green garlic chicken with pita and hummus, san pell. Dessert: one slice each of leftover pecan pie. Watched Will & Grace (2017) "A Gay Olde Christmas" on Hulu Base Plan with Patrick. The Hulu account is Patrick's, and he has been subscribing to Base Plan for a long time now. My journal entries haven't mentioned this in the past because I didn't set it up and so I didn't know about it.

Thu Dec 14, 2017

Breakfast at home with Patrick: Patrick prepared scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toasted blueberry muffins with an 8-ounce glass of orange juice each. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme Browserstack testing all day. For lunch today I met with Ryan who drove up from the peninsula to run a camera store errand in San Francisco. We walked to Burma Superstar, didn't have to wait for a table, ate lunch, then walked back. I can't recall what Ryan ate. I had pumpkin stew lunch special and yunnan black tea. We talked about homes and places we lived, Star Trek, technology, Arsicault, seismic actuated gas valves, earthquakes, food culture in Boston, the Hamptons, the LIRR, transit, Facebook, Google, and more. Along the way I saw a BMW sedan with an incredible custom hood venting and snapped a photo for John W. On the way back to work I stopped at Arsicault Bakery and bought two croissants: one ham and cheese, the other valrhona chocolate with almond. Also no line. Continued identity retheme Browserstack testing all day. Rode Uber Pool Express home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Good Eggs pumpkin risotto with sage salsa and goat's cheese. Patrick substituted parmesan instead of the goat's cheese since I don't eat goat's cheese. Watched Stranger Things s2:e8 on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. A fine day.

Fri Dec 15, 2017

Breakfast at home with Patrick: the Arsicault croissants I bought yesterday, 8 ounces of orange juice each. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme Browserstack testing all day. Lunch at Beautifull!: moroccan chicken bowl, water from my water bottle. Rode Uber Pool Express to the Castro. Dinner at Eureka with Patrick: drinks: glass of amarone for Patrick, pom marg for me; for an appetizer we split a winter salad which included slices of apple and persimmon; entrees: jambalaya for Patrick, fried chicken and french fries and cole slaw for me. No dessert; too full. We somehow forgot to take our leftovers and didn't realize it until we arrived at home—so embarrassing. Service by David was excellent. $81.56 after a $16 tip.

Sat Dec 16, 2017

Breakfast at home with Patrick: I prepared scrambled eggs (two each) mixed with leftover pork carnitas, hash browns, and baguette slice with cheddar, coffee for Patrick, orange juice for me. Resolved a recent wax spill from a week ago by scraping then ironing with paper towels. It worked better than I expected. Shower. Patrick napped while I washed dishes, posted things for free online, and rearranged some furniture, moving the desk from the large bedroom to the small bedroom to create an office space with a new HP monitor (Smart Buy Z27n 27" Narrow Bezel IPS Display 2560x1440 DP/mDP/DVI/HDMI/DP out). Weeded Twitter follows. Listed an item to give away and prepped for doing the same with others. Shower. Dinner and festivities and Recharge Medical holiday party at Shotwell House. Attendees: Danny, Romy, Drew, Phil, Kamal, Jonny, Tim, Alyssa, Ling, Amanda, Brianna.

Sun Dec 17, 2017

Slept in. Brunch with Patrick: taquitos from frozen with beans and cheese. Organized in preparation for getting rid of unneeded and unwanted stuff, labeled boxes in the garage with new labels I made in InDesign. Dinner at home with Patrick: a meal Patrick prepared with Good Eggs ingredients: roasted chicken thighs with green garlic yogurt orzo and marinated golden beets, san pell. Watched Stranger Things s2:e9 on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Dessert: a handful of candy cane Joe's Ohs. Posted more things to sell or give away. Password management.

Mon Dec 18, 2017

Breakfast at home: yogurt with granola and diced pear, three quarters of a pear. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day. Lunch at desk: leftover green garlic yogurt orzo, two cuties. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Walked to the dentist's office for an appointment. Rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Good Eggs classic burger bundle, root beer. Watched part of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales on Netflix DVD with Patrick and parmesan microwave popcorn.

Tue Dec 19, 2017

Breakfast at home: leftovers. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day. For lunch, the office bought lunch from Eliza's for the team since the cafe was closed for vacation. I had sweet and sour shrimp with brown rice. Rode Uber Pool Express home. Dinner at home with Patrick: fettuccine with meat sauce, san pell. Finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales on Netflix DVD with Patrick.

Wed Dec 20, 2017

Breakfast at home: leftover fettuccine, a pear. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day. Lunch at Vixi: polpette panini lunch special with minestrone soup, hot green tea: $20.90 after a $3 tip. Scheduled and delivered another issue of education news that Marisa and Alexa had prepared. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Rode Muni home, stopping at Arizmendi Bakery along the way. Dinner at home with Patrick: Good Eggs margherita pizza to which Patrick added salami and arugula, root beer.

Thu Dec 21, 2017

Breakfast at home with Patrick: scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, blueberry english muffin, hot tea. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day. Lunch to go from Beautifull!: petit filet, golden beets, roasted brussels sprouts. Returned to the office, reheated it, and ate. Video training meeting with Eric, Paula, James H, and Grant. Rode Uber Pool to the Castro. Dinner at Nomica with Patrick. It's my second time to this restaurant and Patrick's first time. We arrived early for a 6:00 pm reservation. Hamachi, pork belly, miso black cod, dashi mashed potatoes. I had a fountain of youth cocktail then later a glogg-nog. Patrick had a wabi-sabi. For dessert we shared an order of saikyo miso cremeux. $146.97 before a $24 tip (total = $170.97). Rode UberX home.

Fri Dec 22, 2017

Breakfast at home with Patrick: oatmeal with fixins, chai. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Identity retheme work all day: Browserstack, mostly Internet Explorer 11 and Edge 16 in Windows 10. Today the office closed early—a half day. I forgot to eat lunch, so after riding Uber Pool Express home I snacked on pistachios and pretzel rods before dinner at home with Patrick: linguine in leftover ragu to which Patrick added sliced salami. Began watching Big Business via Amazon Prime Video rental with Patrick.

Sat Dec 23, 2017

Slept in. Walked to brunch by myself at New Taraval Cafe: california scramble, orange juice. Nap. Finished watching Big Business via Amazon Prime Video rental with Patrick. Dinner at home with Patrick: three-mushroom ravioli (portabello, shiitake, and button) with sauteed asparagus in a porcini sauce with garlic-rosemary bread. Watched Will and Grace (1998) s4:e12 "Jingle Balls" on Hulu Base Plan with Patrick.

Sun Dec 24, 2017

Slept in. Lunch at home with Patrick: chicken enchiladas with salsa verde. Rode Lyft to dinner at Shotwell House with Danny, Romy, Drew, Phil, Quyen, Dave, Annita, Dongyi, Richard, Michael, Cricket, Sean, Paul. The time of the event was optionally changed from 6 pm to 5 pm. Danny (and Romy?) prepared beef stew, baked salmon with cabbage rolls, spaghetti with meat sauce, vietnamese egg rolls, french bread. Desserts: pear-rosemary cake, Quyen's chocolate and raspberry cake, Richard and Michael's croquembouche, Dongyi's rum bundt. Rode Lyft home.

Mon Dec 25, 2017

Sam picked us up and we bought gasoline with him. Brunch at Ton Kiang with Sam, Mom Ryan, and Patrick. We returned home with them, and they opened presents. Nap. Rode UberX to Alamo Drafthouse New Mission to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi with Patrick. We ate fennel sausage pizza, little gems salad (but substituted a different dressing), regular popcorn, and drinks. Rode Lyft home.

Tue Dec 26, 2017

Slept in. Made new signs for the garage to remind ourselves to close an inner garage door quietly because if noisy it can wake one of our neighbors. Lunch: enchiladas. House chores and furniture rearranging: rotated and remade the bed. Dinner at home with Patrick: icelandic cod with herbed butter and chopped pepitas, baked broccolini and multicolor fingerling potatoes, san pell. Before, during, and after dinner we watched and enjoyed David Lynch's Duran Duran Unstaged (2011) on Netflix instant watch.

Wed Dec 27, 2017

Removed some mysterious red stains from the rug in the small bedroom using dish soap and water. More furniture rearranging: moved the mica shade table lamps from the small bedroom to the large bedroom. Breakfast: one honeycrisp apple, one mandarin, one english muffin with sharp cheddar. Recharge Medical work: new news, prep for minor web edits. Rode Muni to the Castro. Met Patrick at Cliff's Variety. We lunched at Thai House Express. Patrick had ga prow, I had homemade grilled pork egg noodle soup. Hot tea for both. $30.04 after a $4 tip. Errands and clothes shopping for Patrick: Walgreens, Cliff's Variety, By Rolo on Market. Stopped at Whole Foods to use the restroom. Rode Muni home. Patrick took a nap. I continued organizing things to sell, donate, or recycle, and prepping the two bedrooms for some painting. Dinner at home with Patrick: tacos with fixins. Dessert for me: one TJ's candy cane jo-jo, eggnog with bourbon.

Thu Dec 28, 2017

Slept in. Breakfast at home: two eggs scrambled with spices, leftover potatoes, fresh asparagus, english muffin with butter. Reviewed books in our library for selling or donating. Snack: cashews, pistachios, pretzel rods. Troubleshot a problem with our internet connection, seemed to have resolved it by reinserting a half-uninserted minidisplayport connector (for the ethernet adapter) and by uninserting and reinserting the ethernet cable to the wall jack. Recharge Medical work: made new news adjustments then made it live, posted a new before and after image for Vanquish to the website. Dinner at home with Patrick: spaghetti and pork meatballs in marinara with grilled zucchini, red wine, san pell. Dessert for me: 3 ounces of eggnog, two TJ's candy cane jo-jos. Installed Plex Media Server on the old MacBook Air which is serving media from an external hard drive. Watched Will & Grace (1998) s2:e7 on Hulu Base Plan with Patrick.

Fri Dec 29, 2017

Breakfast: an apple, hot water. Spent the day painting two walls in the larger bedroom. Light lunch: leftover spaghetti and meatballs. Afternoon snack: leftovers from taco night with arugula. Checked in on the sanitization process of Patrick's iMac: it's still not done and it might take a few days. Adjusted CrashPlan settings on the MacBook Air so that it ignored all the recently installed Plex stuff so that the processor doesn't continue running high and causing the fan to spin all the time. Recently decided what to do after my CrashPlan Home subscription expires in March: use Backblaze on the MacBook Air and use Carbon Copy Cloner on Patrick's MacBook Pro (which is also still using Time Capsule). Dinner at Ninki with Patrick: green tea, seaweed salad, winter wonderland roll, nigiri: ebi, inari, hamachi, maguro, unagi. $40.72 after a $6 tip. Sam picked up Patrick to retrieve Patrick's brother Kerry from SFO. Kerry is moving to San Francisco to live with and help his mom. While he was gone I restored the larger bedroom to normalcy after having removed lots of its contents for the paint job. Late meal by myself: sloppy joe from leftover taco chicken and leftover spaghetti sauce with arugula, red wine. Dessert: two TJ's candy cane jo-jos, 8 ounces of milk.

Sat Dec 30, 2017

Breakfast at home with Patrick: scrambled eggs with parsley, grilled multicolor fingerling potatoes, biscuit from frozen, sausage. Spent the day giving away or posting things for sale on Nextdoor or Craigslist. Dinner at SRBC: fried chicken with mashed potatoes and cole slaw, fried chicken sandwich, Belleruche cotes du rhone for Patrick, mandarin mule for me. The fried chicken sandwich was a bit spicy; I ate only half of my half. Patrick liked the copper mug that came with my mandarin mule. Service by Alora was abnormally, unpleasantly slow at the start and only okay for the rest of the meal. Food was delivered very quickly after ordering and we enjoyed tasting everything. No dessert. $59.07 before a $7.00 tip—less than normal due to the very long wait at the start. Watched Will & Grace (1998) s2:e8 on Hulu Base Plan with Patrick.

Sun Dec 31, 2017

Slept in. Brunch at home: chicken orzo soup from a can, three pretzel rods, green tea. Spent the day relaxing and awaiting the arrival of a Good Eggs delivery while Patrick briefly napped. Dinner at home with Patrick: grilled chicken with couscous, side salad, red wine, san pell. Dessert: tiramisu. Dessert #2 for me: two TJ's candy cane jo-jo's. Watched part of When Harry Met Sally via iTunes rental ($3.99) with Patrick. We encountered a few problems at the start of the watching. One was that the window in which the film displayed was slightly off from full screen. The solution to this was to explicitly select full screen from a menu in iTunes. Another problem was that the sound was not properly synched to what we saw on the screen. e.g., when people spoke the timing of the audio was slightly off from when we saw their mouths move. The solution to this I think was to fully download the film instead of stream it. A comment on a website said to check that QuickTime preferences matched preferences elsewhere (Audio MIDI Setup?) but when I opened QuickTime I could find no preferences dialog available. I also happened to restart the computer but I'm not sure this was needed. A third problem was that sound disappeared after I restarted the computer. I think the solution to this was to change inputs on the Logitech Z906, but I'm not sure. In any case I got it to work maybe 15 or 20 minutes after we had started. Patrick was too tired an hour in and we decided to watch the remainder later. I performed password management, paid a bill, and set up a Movies Anywhere account before going to bed shortly after midnight.