July 2002
Summary: Rainbow Curve is interested in publishing "Love is the Rage"; Tina Luu comes to visit; vacation with Patrick to San Diego, Los Angeles, and Laguna Beach; Champagne and Anthony's wedding; Patrick sends his finished version of Second Island to his agent Mitchell Waters
Dates on this page
Mon Jul 1, 2002
Put in the order for Ena's new computer. Talked with Ken Lem for a few minutes giving him tips on implementing the continuing education Web site he wants to build. Changed the LISTSERVs so that former Year 1 students are now reached by the Year 2 LISTSERV (and so on for each of the class years). Sent out the MMU subsite draft for review to Matt Denny, Valerie Starling, and Susie Levings. Made some minor bullet changes to the Zyban article for Candy Tsourounis. Updated the Current Students page to point to a new news article on UCSF Today ("First Pharmacy Students Arrive for New Program in Fresno"). Met with Ashley, Jennifer, and Julie about Web pages for the student orientation in the fall. Grocery shopping at Albertson's, where Patrick and I picked up our usual grocery items along with dinner for tonight: lemon pepper roast chicken, potato salad, Hawaiian sweet rolls.
Tue Jul 2, 2002
Chris sent me this instant message at 1:24 AM: "christian_delay (Tue 07/02/02 01:24:35 AM): Hey - it's 10:22 pm. I know that's something like 1 am your time. Our house is being tented tomorrow so they can gas the hell out of it and kill termites. We have to double bag everything edible and spend the night at a friend's house. Eessh. I saw the biggest spider I've ever seen a few nights ago. It was seriously creepy. We gassed the shit out of it 'Spring Fresh Death' (otherwise known as 'Raid with new pleasant Spring Fresh scent'). It was a goner in 2 seconds. Effective stuff. I check my shoes now before I put them on. *shudder*. That's all for now - hope this IM finds you in good health and joy. -CD"—I woke up around 3:00 AM and couldn't sleep, so I got up to make backups of the computers. At work, I started drafting the new orientation Web pages for Cindy, Joel, Julie, and Ashley. It took most of the day; I also needed to create a paper form in InDesign and make a PDF of it to put in the new pages. On my way home from work, I waited at Milberry Union from 5:50 to 6:20 PM—no Bus 66. I took a 43 to 9th and Judah and waited there from 6:20 to 6:40 PM—no Bus 66. Another commute from hell courtesy of The City That Knows How to Put You in a Bad Mood When You Get Home From Work. Patrick made fried shrimp po-boys for dinner—delicious. I took a shower, but I couldn't shake that feeling of needing to leave San Francisco—one of the few ways to resolve having to deal with MUNI.
Wed Jul 3, 2002
Today when I woke up, one of our computers was shut off, which was disappointing because it had been in the middle of a backup. When I tried to turn it back on, I found it wouldn't come back on—no power. This could be the first time a power supply has died on one of my home computers. Further investigation is required, but I must go to work. Chatted with Susie about the MMU draft—she loves it, I'm glad. Looked at the graduation photos for the first time; I haven't had time until just now—too many things to do. I took 107 photos, and 76 of them came out worthy of sharing. I did image correction for all 76 photos but didn't have time to put them into Web pages before the day ended. Lunch at Hana by myself. Dinner at home with Patrick: red beans and rice, french bread. Watched Star Trek: TNG, Yesterday's Enterprise.
Thu Jul 4, 2002
Today we ate lunch at Taco Bell with a view of the Pacifica surfing action. We then drove to Half Moon Bay and sat on the beach and read, me from a book called River Town, Patrick from The Truth Machine. The weather was good—mostly partly cloudy but warm with some stretches of solid sun. Dinner at home with Patrick: red beans and rice, french bread. Patrick finishes Chapter 19 revisions and starts in on Chapter 20. Patrick learns today that Rainbow Curve accepted "A Undisturbed Dark Place". Hooray!
Fri Jul 5, 2002
Today was my first day of telecommuting. So far it's nice. I spent most of the day reading about how to secure Linux from SANS Institute documents. I also received and coded the new Medicine Question of the Month for Candy and Susie. It's out for review. Dinner at home with Patrick: roast chicken boobs, corn on the cob, skinny french fries. After dinner, I took a shower and installed James B. Bowlin's Linklint on frankfarm.com. It works well, and I'm impressed after trying to get Bastian Kleineidam's LinkChecker to work in Python—I couldn't figure out how to make it go because there were no installation or usage instructions that worked for me. Specifically, the INSTALL file said to run "python.exe setup.py --help" but there was no setup.py file in the folder that it pointed me to. It also said to double-click on "linkchecker.bat" on my desktop, but the installer didn't put any such batch file there. It also said that I could execute "python.exe linkchecker" in the Scripts directory, but that also didn't work, and I can't remember why now. I just want to forget the whole frustrating experience. I signed up for dshield.org and also installed VisualZone. Candy responded to the review—she liked everything, so I made the new page live shortly before midnight.
Sat Jul 6, 2002
Today I slept most of the day while Patrick wrote. He's got 5 pages left in his final revision. We had an early dinner at Eric's—yum! We hadn't been in a long time, so it was a treat. We had the appetizer platter, Eric's special salmon (with black beans, red bell peppers, and asparagus), mu shu pork, steamed rice, tea—all for under US$30! I love getting the bill at Eric's. We did the Find Your Spot again, this time choosing our answers together and choosing in between when we disagreed. Our top 5 cities were: 1. Little Rock, AR; 2. Baton Rouge, LA; 3. Alexandria, LA; 4. Portland, OR; 5. Salisbury, MD. Patrick said, "Baton Rouge sucks!" We looked at the rest of our results, and they were almost all cities in either Oregon, Louisiana, Maryland, and Arkansas. Because of this, we suspect that their quiz logic picks certain states based on the data, then picks certain cities within those states. If this is true, we feel it is a flawed methodology because we don't necessarily consider a state-wide rating more important than a city's rating. Indeed, there's no way to weight any one question or any of the 8 different sections in the quiz. I did more relocating research by looking at race data at the U.S. Census website and at sodomy laws and domestic partner protections at the Lamda Legal Defense Fund website. Patrick's writing has picked up since he's gotten over his flu—by midday today he had 3 pages left, and as we went to bed shortly before midnight, he had 2 pages left. He's now at the last scene of the novel.
Sun Jul 7, 2002
Breakfast at home: Life cereal for Patrick, oatmeal for me. We picked up Kentucky Fried Chicken (aka KFC) for the Stern Grove Festival today—one of a series of free summer concerts. Conducted by Alasdair Neale, the San Francisco Symphony played Gershwin (Cuban Overture), Bernstein (Symphonic Dances from West Side Story), Liadov (The Enchanted Lake), and Musorgsky-Ravel (Pictures at an Exhibition). Sam's friend Janet McLain got there early and saved us a great spot on the first steep rise behind the picnic tables. The weather was cool and overcast, with a breeze bringing fog in on occasion. I met a friend of Patrick's and Sam's—Vanessa Polgar, who joined us with her friend Vlad. We listened to flawless music with the wind running through the trees and dragonflies buzzing amongst our heads and thin-legged spiders crawling through the grass. We shared our fried chicken and other assorted snacks. Sam shared his champagne and sodas. Janet shared her champagne and delicious strawberry shortcake. Vanessa and Vlad shared their ham and cheese sandwiches. Janet knew all the fun tricks—she brought bubbles to blow and a giant, red balloon to let the audience bounce into the air. The Symphony finished off their performance with an encore of Souza's "Stars and Stripes Forever," which was festive because everyone was still in a patriotic mood after the recent holiday. Afterwards, I worked on a Web site for Sam. Patrick and I had leftover KFC for dinner. At 8:58 PM, Patrick finished writing all of the final revision of his first novel—Second Island. I read it from where I had left off (the end of chapter 18), made some corrections, and then we were both tired—a long and fun and productive weekend. Patrick laments: "I can't believe there's nothing else to write." And: "I'm ready to make some money off this baby!" And then: "No! You can't put that in there! That makes me look like I'm all about money!"
Mon Jul 8, 2002
I spent most of the morning setting up Cindy's home computer, installing the modem, and (hopefully) making it easy for her to set up the modem configuration at home on her own. I had a sandwich from Subway for lunch. In the afternoon, I met with Matt Denny and we went over changes for the Material Management Unit subsite. After that, I removed working components from one of our older computers that we plan to surplus. I configured Kristina's computer for audio. I removed unneeded archive files from Debrah's computer. Today on the phone Brian Kusler said to me, "If life hands you lemons, eat a pot brownie."
Tue Jul 9, 2002
Today at work I spent most of the morning building a new form for James to accept registrations over the Web for our application workshops for prospective students. I updated two mailing lists for Joyce August. In the afternoon I went through tedious procedures hardening Red Hat 7.3 and wishing that OpenBSD were further along in its project enough for me to trust that I could install it without compatibility problems. Dinner at home with Patrick: me having leftover rice pilaf and pork chop and new corn on the cob, him having a roast beef sandwich from Subway and corn on the cob. I meant to call my sister because it's her birthday, but I forgot! We'd been cleaning and preparing for Tina Luu's arrival. She's staying with us until Friday, and we can't wait to see her again! Tina is a friend of mine from college at UC Santa Cruz, and we are very close. She is one of my best friends. We picked her up at the airport, but not until after a great deal of trouble locating her. Her airline switched her flight and assured her the crew in SFO airport would know to reroute us to her new gate, but they did not. We spent about 90 minutes wandering the airport and dealing with the incompetent paging system which seems to restrict pages to the terminal from which you call rather than paging the entire airport. (We weren't told this was how it works, but that's what our experience was.) We eventually found each other and had a late snack at Bagdad Cafe. Our surprise for Tina was a box of assorted Godiva truffles as well as a print ad from the recent Pride celebration with a gay porn star who resembles both Daniel and Jason (!). We presumed that Tina would share her box of truffles with us, but NO!-- she kept them ALL to herself! Just so you know. Now we know better.
Wed Jul 10, 2002
I woke up this morning and found a box of macadamia nut clusters and a set of pear candles on our kitchen countertop—a very nice surprise for us from Tina, who had set it out during the night while we slept. She awoke and said she had a dream about tea cups. She said I was getting ready for work and that I wanted to make a pot of Earl Gray tea. I offered her a cup of tea, which she accepted, but after I handed it to her, she misplaced it. So then I poured her another cup of tea, but she misplaced that one as well. This repeated until the room was full of cups of tea, and that's when she woke up. I had dreamt that I was using the new Microsoft Office keyboard, but that I wasn't really impressed with it. I had breakfast (oatmeal) and they had pre-breakfast (great white nectarines and strong Lavazza coffee from the French press). I went to work; they went to meet Nicki Tumbaga somewhere up Polk Street. I finished changes for James's application workshop form and made them live. I updated placement interviews and pharmacy information day Web pages for Joel. Late lunch at Nan King Road Bistro: Hong Kong noodles, which had a sauce that was too sweet and too watery for my taste but was otherwise quite delicious. Spent the rest of the day researching alternatives to sendmail. Dinner at Saul's restaurant and deli in Berkeley. Patrick had a roast beef sandwich and a side order of potato latkes. I had a Niman burger. We had taken BART over to Berkeley, and while walking to Saul's, we passed a bar that had a sign on the window: "EROTIC DRINKS"—or so we thought. A second glance, and we realized it said instead "EXOTIC DRINKS" but the font they used made it easy to mistake. Dessert with Tina, Nicki, Brandon, and Patrick at Chez Panisse! All of us except Tina were Chez Panisse virgins, and we were very pleased to be seated for dessert only, which is usually not allowed but Tina got her friend Marsha to pull some strings for us. This restaurant is know worldwide for Alice Waters' extraordinary talents as a chef. Earlier in the day, Marsha gave Tina copies of Chez Panisse cookbooks autographed by Alice Waters and they had a nice snacking chat catching up on the many years gone by since they worked together at Stars Singapore. We started with a pizzetta with onions, sorrel, and anchovies ($12.00). Later came the desserts: Almond cake with Middleton Gardens strawberries and cream ($8.50). White nectarine and peach tart with noyau ice cream ($8.50). Honey-orange creme caramel with almond cookies ($6.00). Santa Rosa plum sherbet with candied Valencia peel and almond bread ($6.00). Ceylon cinnamon ice cream with chocolate sauce and Mexican wedding cakes ($6.00). Frog Hollow Farm Golden Sweet apricots with biscotti ($6.50). The apricots were surprisingly disappointing: mealy and poor flavor. Everything else was between good and very good.
Thu Jul 11, 2002
Patrick and Tina and Nicki ate at Cafe de la Presse: cafe au laits all around, 3 madeleines, 1 croque madame, 1 vegetable crepe, 1 order of crab cakes—total $49.86 (before tip). I went to the CSC meeting. Made a minor change to curriculum for Cindy. On rebus, I uninstalled sendmail. I installed qmail. Patrick went to Jumpin Java to write. Tina and Nicki met with Teresa Di Falco to Citizen Cake where they met Elizabeth Faulkner, the pastry chef. Nicki and Tina strolled through the Fillmore. Tina, Nicki, Patrick, Brandon, and I met for dinner at One Market. Nicki works at One Market in pastry, so we got half off our meal's entrees! Yeah! DRINKS: Tina had a chocolate martini ($5.50) but couldn't finish it, so Patrick did. Brandon had a Manhattan ($7.75). Nicki had a Lemon Drop ($6.75). I had a Smith & Wesson ($6.00). WINE: Brickhouse pinot noir ($82.00). PRE-STARTERS: Everyone had the chilled cucumber-mint soup with house-cured sturgeon and American sturgeon caviar cream ($10.75). No one had ordered soup, so this was a nice surprise from the kitchen. STARTERS: Tina had steamed Delta asparagus and sweet Maine crabmeat hollandaise with lemon and crispy spring onion "blossom" ($13.50). Brandon had Bradley's caesar salad of whole leaf romaine and parmesan croutons ($8.75). Nicki had shaved fois gras and hazelnut salad on a duck liver brioche with frisee, red oak and cherry-port syrup ($14.50). I had crispy John Dory fish "fingers" and kennebec fries tossed in malt vinegar with braised peas and tartar sauce ($11.50). Patrick had Petrale sole souffle with a lemon-caper butter and organic mache ($12.25). WINE: Phelps syrah ($75.00). ENTREES: Tina had Atlantic skate wing crisped in brown butter and thyme over a creamy lobster risotto with English peas and lobster-tarragon sauce ($26.75). Brandon had oven-roasted Liberty duck breast on a ragout of sweet peas, pearl onions, and duck confit "hash" with English bread sauce and shallot-cherry marmalade ($26.50). Nicki had saffron braised spring leek and new potato "tian" with a lightly smoked sheep's milk cheese, almonds, and piperade ($19.75). I had grilled Nebraska prime strip steak on a watercress coulis with potato-gruyere croquettes and glazed pearl onions ($33.75). Patrick had morel-crusted Copper River salmon with sweet onion-mascarpone soubise and marble potatoes ($28.25). Shannie K and her boyfriend David joined us just as we began dessert. DESSERTS: Cherry Cheesecake Napoleon (sauteed spring cherries, port-red wine sauce, frozen tart cherry spoom) $9.00. Market Fruit Sorbets with Almond Tuile $8.00. Strawberry Profiteroles (strawberry lavender honey sauce, strawberry mascarpone ice cream) $9.00. Chocolate Toffee Almond Crunch Cake (sour cream fudge icing, caramel ice cream) $9.00. Creme Brulee Tasting (trio of vanilla bean, grand marnier, and pistachio with petite cookies) $8.75. Chocolate Dessert Tasting (Scharffen Berger baked chocolate mousse with milk chocolate sabayon, white chocolate semifreddo with honey lemon cream and pistachios, chocolate truffle tart with carmelized bananas and vanilla ice cream) $11.00. CHEFS: Adrian Hoffman, Bradley Ogden. PASTRY CHEF: Patti Dellamonica-Bauler. Everyone shared everything. It was an orgy of feasting, with forks and plates and small perfect bites being passed back and forth. My favorites: the fish fingers, the crabmeat hollandaise, the Copper River salmon (whose light and crunchy crust enticed blissful eye-rolling) and the crunch cake. Patrick's favorites: the fois gras, the fish fingers, the Copper River salmon, the crunch cake. After dinner, we had drinks at The Cosmopolitan Club. The place was plush, but unexciting—it seemed everyone was at the Giants game which we saw finishing on the overhead television sets. We had originally intended to also go to Farallon for another round of desserts, but no one could muster the will, as our stomachs were already quite satisfied and would be for at least the next several hours. Tina and Patrick and I eventually got home an hour later on MUNI and laughed at the message Daniel had left on my answering machine.
Fri Jul 12, 2002
Read more about procmail and Linux hardening—fun! Updated vacation messages for Cindy and James. Patrick went to Jumpin Java to write. He's working on corrections starting from chapter 1. He also went to Harvest market for groceries. Started on my performance evaluation self-appraisal. Read documentation for linklint. Patrick today reported that an 18-year-old Asian guy hit on him on the MUNI on the way back. I set up linkchecking for pharmacy.ucsf.edu as well as our internal development site using linklint. It's really great to have this software as it automatically checks our site for broken or missing links and generates reports in HTML that I can refer to easily to make corrections. Dinner at home with Patrick: squiggly pasta with marinara sauce with port wine, pine nuts, garlic, zucchini, and mushrooms. Hung out at Brian and Kelly's. It was an impromptu house party. Jesse and his co-worker friend Cole stopped in and out and back in again. Other friends of B and K's dropped in as well: Nico, Brian, and Adrian. Eric and Brian also stopped by. We all talked about silly things and smalltalk while playing with Play-Doh. Adrian and Nico made roses. Patrick made Mr. Bill. Powerpuff Girls, The Movie. Iron Chef (Kelly read the Iron Chef Drinking Game). Brian and Kelly gave the Homeless Weather Report—an overview of the dynamics of the homeless people around their home. Different ones come and go or make more noise than the others and so there's more to talk about them then, so it's like the weather in that way. It's not easy to be both ridiculing and compassionate at the same time, but Brian does it indescribably well. Tourette's lady. The lady who sings Madonna and Nelly Furtado loudly at night while listening to a Walkman. Brian opened the Bubbles Powerpuff Girls activity kit that he got last Christmas. It was a plastic mold in the shape of Bubbles with small (rainbow flag) crayons and puzzles and games stuffed inside. We looked at old baby photos of Brian that his mom brought this past week during his family's visit. We passed around Orville Redenbacher's Natural Unsalted Popcorn, which I bought from the corner liquor store and popped in their secret microwave. Brian told of their trip to Guerneville last weekend and of his painful striped sunburn from a visit to the beach earlier in the week.
Sat Jul 13, 2002
Slept in til 2 PM. Late lunch at KFC. Grocery shopping at Safeway. Dinner at home with Patrick: boneless ribs with mashed potatoes and broccoli. Watched South Park: "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Special" and "The Making of South Park" on DVD which we borrowed from Brian and Kelly. It's genius. We loved it. Patrick went to bed while I did late night shopping at gap.com. I hate their Web site because you can't shop by size, which is important for me because they often don't have XS for a lot of items. I have to click on every single item to determine if there's my size or not. However, it's still easier than driving to the mall only to have a probably worse selection in a physical store.
Sun Jul 14, 2002
Slept in til 1 PM. Late lunch with Brian and Kelly at The Ramp. Patrick and I had never been, but it's a marina-side bar and restaurant in Mission Bay. It's more straight than gay, but there were enough gay people around to make it comfortable. We shopped for shoes for me in the Castro: Rolo, Citizen, and Body Body. I tried on maybe 4 pairs, but none of them were just right enough. Coffee at Starbucks. We stayed long enough for Patrick to order a regular coffee and go to the restroom, and then they started playing "Little Bird" by Annie Lennox, and I decided we had to leave. (It's a great song, but like many gay bar instant classics, it wore out its welcome after you heard it more than 3 times a night for weeks on end.) Dinner at Fuzio: angel hair pasta with tomatoes and basil for me, bacon rigatoni (rigatoni al fuzio) for Patrick. When we got home, Patrick made Chocolate Cherry Walnut bread pudding while I shopped online for shoes and searched the web for software that would catalog all the bpms of our mp3 files while we slept. I found a few links but none that explicitly stated that that would work for hundreds of mp3 files without intervention. (We know ways of doing this already, but they are memory- and time-intensive and also require human intervention.)
Mon Jul 15, 2002
This morning the 8:30 AM route 66 bus never showed up. I thought this was unusual, but a woman who was waiting with me was on her cellphone at 8:35 AM calling MUNI to complain that the bus didn't show up *again*. This eased my mind considerably, as I had been wondering whether calling MUNI to complain about problems in service would be effective in any way, and this was my proof. Just last night Patrick had reiterated his desire for us to map out where we want to live instead of San Francisco, and I agreed and gave him my gameplan outline. I had a meeting at 9:00 AM with Susie, and when I got to the office at 9:15 AM by way of the L-Taraval and the 44 bus and walking from 9th and Judah, Melissa informed me that Susie had just left. It made me wonder how many thousands of dollars of wasted UCSF personpower could be attributed to MUNI and how could they be held accountable? I didn't spend much time on it. Hopefully soon, Patrick and I will be living in some other city, and this will all be Someone Else's Problem.—On rebus, I uninstalled sendmail-cf and sendmail-devel. I also uninstalled the openssl package that came with Red Hat 7.3 because its installation location conflicts with where the Washington imap package wants it. Reinstalled openssl-0.9.6d to /usr/local/ssl/ using ./config and ./make. Installed Washington imap-2002.RC1 using make lrh and SSLTYPE=nopwdk, but couldn't figure out how to tell xinetd to use it (argh!). I'm beginning to think this Red Hat 7.3 installation will never properly function as an e-mail server like I want. Uninstalled a bunch of other rpms that I won't need (like audio and sound packages and XFree86 stuff). Had a devil of a time trying to figure out how to disable kdm from listening on port 1024. Patrick helped Sam move today. Patrick found out today that he got a jury summons for August 5—the day after we get back from our vacation. From the court's FAQ on their website: "Question: Why are jurors required to sit, sometimes for hours, in the jury assembly room? Answer: What might appear to be a waste of time to you is actually time being used by the judge and attorneys working on matters that must be done outside the presence of the jury. These events often arise unexpectedly and cannot be planned for in advance. Please be aware of these issues and bear with us as we all work to accomplish our goal of achieving justice for all." Patrick finished corrections for section 1.
Tue Jul 16, 2002
sshd wouldn't start upon reboot. It's missing libcrypto.so.2. O, I'm so tired of reading Linux "help" documents and installation notes because the writing is so awful no matter what software I'm reading about. One can take only so much of the geek-who-can't-write-well mentality: "if you don't know what it is, then you don't need it" and "that's not a bug in my code, that's a problem with someone else's code and it *won't* be fixed" and using "of course" when the statement is not obvious to everyone. Programmers. Particularly aggravating was the README file from Mark Crispin's IMAP Toolkit Environment (20 December 2001) which is titled "UNIX QUICK BUILD NOTES" and says essentially to follow the 5 poorly described steps and "That's all!". His "quick build" is my 12 hours of hunting for answers on google. I reinstalled openssl and openssh from the Red Hat 7.3 RPMs and that fixed the problem of sshd not starting upon reboot. Found the imap configuration I needed in some newsgroup called GLLUG: create a new file called /etc/xinetd.d/imap and put in this configuration: service imap { socket_type = stream (newline) wait = no (newline) user = root (newline) server = /usr/sbin/imapd (newline) log_on_success += DURATION USERID (newline) log_on_failure += USERID (newline) disable = no (newline) } (where "(newline)" is a newline character). I then restarted xinetd with '/sbin/service xinetd restart', exactly as Mike Rambo directed. Check that imap is now running with 'chkconfig --list | more' and now imap should show up as "imap: on". All is well (for me, anyway). Whew! Shared Patrick's bread pudding with Melissa, Debrah, and Kristina. I noticed that Ena's computer had arrived and she's out of the office today, so I set it up for her backing up her old computer and restoring files after the new one was set up. Dinner at home with Patrick: roast Chinese chicken, new potatoes and carrots. Spent an hour installing Riven, which we borrowed from Brian and Kelly. I didn't want to install a version of Quicktime from 3 years ago, so I tried skipping it but got an invalid page fault while it was searching for old versions of Quicktime. We played for about an hour and a half. It was fun but not seamless—we had to switch discs and the screen interruptions were unpleasant. The roller coaster ride parts were especially fun. One-year anniversary at UCSF.
Wed Jul 17, 2002
Finished setting up Ena's computer. She called in sick again today, so there was no trouble getting in to work on it. Web meeting with Susie: the School's forthcoming web workers meetings, PSPG, images for the units. Another productive meeting, as usual with Susie. James had some of Patrick's bread pudding. Showed Melissa how to shop for a laptop. Lunch with Patrick at Park Chow: he had pepperoni pizza which was surprisingly very good. I had the special: a salmon sandwich with minestrone soup, also delicious. We shared the ginger cake and pumpkin ice cream—divine! UCSF Web workers meeting today. Ren Bucholz from EFF came and talked about deep linking, Microsoft Palladium, privacy, copyright, trademark, patent, and other privacy- and security-related topics. Paul Norris demonstrated Dreamweaver MX. Julie Bernstein announced web workers survey results. Made Web changes for James. Today late in the afternoon I was returning from the bathroom and I heard a bomb or a gunshot sound explode very loudly as though it were right next to me. It was so loud that I literally jumped in surprise and automatically put my fingers in my ears. It turned out to be the giant nitrogen tanks that normally sit in our hallway outside some laboratory. There's a sign that warns that these tanks sometimes vent gas and that's normal behavior. But what happened today has never occurred before in the year I've worked at UCSF. Indeed, when it happened, someone from the laboratory stuck her head outside the door to find out what had happened. I thought the thing was going to blow up, so instead of talking to her I decided to hurry away from it. I decided I'd complain to my manager Cindy about it, as I no longer feel safe going to the bathroom or even being inside the same building as these tanks. They look large enough that, if exploded, everything in a radius of at least several hundred feet would be decimated. Dinner with Patrick: a meal of leftovers, which we called "The 3-2-1"—three starches (cooked potatoes, mashed potatoes, various pastas with cheese), two meats (Chinese roast chicken and boneless pork ribs), and one vegetable (cooked carrots). It was really more food than either of us could eat, so we took what we liked and left the rest. We played Riven for about 2 hours. Our Riven total hours is now about 5 hours—I'm keeping track of how long it takes for us to figure out this game. It's not encouraging that I never figured out Myst on my own. I got stuck on one of the islands and couldn't figure out how to get off the damned island so I just gave up, cursing Atrus for putting me there.
Thu Jul 18, 2002
It's been so cold the past few days that I've pulled out my ski jacket that I got in the kids department at REI in Seattle as well as my Inuit cap from The Gap. Once again I've been wondering how I was misled into thinking the weather in San Francisco would be better than in Seattle, which is currently enjoying 73-to-80-degree partly cloudy days. Patrick met with Aaron today. I attended an event at UCSF that described how our Center for Instructional Technology is helping instructors make their curriculum more accessible to students using the Web. It went very well except for a few small glitches here and there. They served a tasty lunch in the Lange Room in the Library. I make changes to the application for fall 2003 for James. Dinner at home with Patrick: lima beans and corn, boneless pork chops, macaroni and cheese. Played Riven for 3.75 hours (total now 8.75 hours).
Fri Jul 19, 2002
At 8:25 AM, I arrived at the bus stop near our home for the 8:30 AM bus for Route 66. A bus arrived at 8:42, which waited another 8 minutes before leaving. Cindy brought the work computer she uses at home in yesterday because she was having trouble installing Prodigy on it—something about installation errors with ATL.DLL. She said she called Prodigy and they didn't know why it was having problems—they said to call Dell. She called Dell and they needed her express service code, which she didn't know, so she brought the whole computer in for me to fix. I updated the PharmD current students page to include links to e-mail etiquette, mailing list etiquette, how to deal with spam, and how to find free web-based e-mail. Met with Martha and Susie at Martha's new office at 1545 Divisadero. Public Affairs moved to that location about 3 months ago. It's the former site of a funeral home, and Susie has been telling me that some of the new Public Affairs tenants are a little spooked by the situation. They moved because it was financially prudent for them to do so, from what I had heard. However, Martha's office was quite pleasant with a brightly lit window looking out onto an alley that one would call surprisingly clean for San Francisco. Black and white photographs of art/fashion poses, with one wall painted a muted sky blue, framed photos and a fresh plant on her desk. I spent about 30 minutes dealing with the paperwork required to resolve a billing error with The Source. I spent about 20 minutes preparing and sending an e-mail regarding the ineffectiveness of communicating our e-mail policies. I spent 2 hours fixing Cindy's work computer for home. Eudora Pro Paid Mode 5.1.1 wouldn't launch properly. It gave me this error: "Event Type: Information, Event Source: Application Popup, Event Category: None, Event ID: 26, Date: 7/19/2002, Time: 4:57:13 PM, User: N/A, Computer: COM31, Description:, Application popup: yreghost.exe - Unable To Locate DLL : The dynamic link library yieinst.dll could not be found in the specified path D:\reg; .; C:\WINNT\System32; C:\WINNT\system; C:\WINNT; C:\WINNT\system32; C:\WINNT; C:\WINNT\System32\Wbem." I fixed the problem by giving her login administrator rights because I couldn't figure out any other way to make it work. I tried changing permissions on the folder and the child items in the folder. I tried installing it logged in as Cindy but that gave an error as well (and was documented in the README file, which I hadn't read). The README file pointed out that Windows 2000 was a problem, but it didn't clearly state what results one could expect. I probably could have given her "power user" rights, but I didn't want her to have to haul the computer back in to the office just because of a rights issue.
Sat Jul 20, 2002
Late lunch at La Mediterranee. Divisadero car wash. Patrick's first driving lessons. He was nervous, but he did very well. The car stalled only once and he didn't grind the gears at all. We practiced in a large empty parking lot near the lake. It was a popular spot for driving lessons. There were 2 other drivers getting driving practice as well. An order from gap.com arrived, so I tried on clothes. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers. Played Riven for 2.5 hours (total 11.25 hours). Patrick is almost done with corrections to Chapter 13.
Sun Jul 21, 2002
Stern Grove Festival with Vanessa, Vlad, Celeste, Gary, Frank, Sam, and Patrick. Today was the San Francisco Ballet, which was breathtaking especially because if all 7 of us went to see them in a real stage performance we probably would have spent over US$300. The grove was packed much more so than the San Francisco Symphony, which we saw 2 weeks ago. The weather was cool and shady at first, but the sun moved in the hour before the performance and Patrick and I went home to change into cooler clothes. We got back just at the performance started, and we stayed for the whole thing despite having many other things we wanted to do. The Ballet performed "A Garden" by Richard Strauss after Francois Couperin. "Pas de Deux from Swan Lake, Act II" by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. "Two Bits" by Aaron Jay Kernis. "Pas de Deux from Paquita" by Ludwig Minkus. "Rubies excerpt from the full-length ballet Jewels" by Igor Stravinsky. The San Francisco Ballet Orchestra was conducted by Neal Stulberg. All the performances were excellent, except the xylophonist, who very obviously missed more than a few notes. Afterwards, we went home and showered and napped. Dinner at Paradise Pizza in West Portal since neither of us had the energy to cook. Grocery shopping at Albertson's. Patrick wrote some more. I scanned in photos.
Mon Jul 22, 2002
The 9:10 AM bus didn't show up this morning, so I got to work around 10:00 AM instead of 9:30. Plugged in the new Linux server to the network. No firewall, but I'm using tcpwrappers and I've already turned off all services except sshd. When it's on the network, I'll finish installing qmail, procmail, and double-check all security points. Removed a hard drive from one of the computers we're going to surplus. The computer is a Pentium II Compaq EN Series 6350. The hard drive is only 6 GB, so if we can't use it then I plan to have it somehow physically destroyed so that data cannot be retrieved from it. People have suggested dipping it in acid, but I haven't seen such services offered commercially, so I guess it's a "do at home in the garage" sort of thing. It sounds dangerous, and since we don't have a garage, I'll just keep it locked in my desk drawer for now. Cleared out some space in my office which had a bunch of old computers and an extra monitor. Four more days of work and then I'm on vacation. Found a security problem with the beta student database project that the SAA team was working on. Their Web database would let people in if they left the login and password empty, exposing social security numbers, addresses, and fee data to anyone who figured this out. I reported it, and they promptly took the database down to recode. Requested from ITS a listserv to be set up for the School of Pharmacy web developers. Completed my self-appraisal document for Cindy. Lunch at Nan King Road Bistro: vegetarian black bean chow fun. Patrick has finished corrections for chapter 14 and is now on chapter 15. He says section 3 should go the quickest. Restored Chris's e-mail from the old rebus box. He now has the ability to view and print his old e-mail, but since qmail isn't yet set up on the new machine he doesn't have full e-mail functionality. I also showed him how to handle attachments. MUNI hell on the way home: I left work at 7:15 PM. I walked 6 blocks to 9th and Judah, got there at 7:25 PM. At this point, I could have waited 5 minutes for a bus which might or might not have shown up. (See July 2.) Since I've been burned once already by having to wait for an hour on the corner of 9th and Judah, I hopped the 43 bus to Forest Hill where I discovered the next L-Taraval train was in 22 minutes. I waited. And I waited. And I waited. The train came, and I got on and got off at 30th Avenue. I walked home and just as I got to the gate, the 66 bus passed by, which means that I took the long way home and beat the 7:30 PM bus. MUNI is so miserable now, that if I get a decent raise I'm gonna plunk down money for a rented garage near work and just drive. Screw the environment and screw this city for having a practically worthless transit system. Dinner at home with Patrick: bowties with shrimp and lima beans. We were planning to go to The Gap after dinner, but since MUNI was way late, the mall would have just about closed by the time we got there and so we didn't want to chance the trip so we didn't go. Patrick writes while I answer e-mail and write in my journal. Patrick makes a cold pasta salad for me to take to the potluck at work tomorrow while I fold laundry.
Tue Jul 23, 2002
Ordered 3 new computer workstations for the office. Chris is considering not migrating to the Windows 2000 Server plan that ITS advocates. He's unhappy that we'll need 2 servers instead of 1 based on their requirement—one server to act as a primary domain controller and another to act as secondary. This almost doubles our cost of purchase and takes up workspace and the maintenance costs are also doubled, so it was not something to which I was looking forward. However, our other option would be to stick with Windows NT 4.0 SP6a for any server applications we want to run. The decision to not migrate is feasible to a point, so I gave him our other options: set up separate Linux servers using the old Optiplex GX110s we have recently freed up in our workstation upgrades to Optiplex GX240s.—I updated the PSPG contact information page. I also updated the application workshop page for James—the August 30 workshop is closed. Notified Ena that 3 computers were ready to be sent to surplus or donation. Redid the Fall 2003 schedule for first-year students in InDesign using Debrah's version in Microsoft Word—we want these to be a little prettier than they have been in the past, and Word doesn't give us the control we need over tables. I designed a new Microsoft Word template several months ago, but when Debrah tried to use it we found that Word's handling of tables was very inconsistent—we couldn't get it to behave exactly how we wanted. InDesign is better, but some things still aren't perfect. For example, in InDesign 2.0 when I attempt to change only 3 of the 4 borders of a single cell in a table, InDesign does the opposite of what I expect! It took me about 15 minutes playing with it to figure out how it worked—there's something seriously screwy with how its "Strokes and Fills" user interface was designed.—Dinner at home by myself because Patrick is meeting with Daphne and Aaron about Lodestar and whether to change the tagline, which currently reads: "an online journal of the finest gay and lesbian literature." Spent 3 hours changing a network card in one of my computers. The old card was a Netgear FA310TX. The new card was a Netgear FA311TX. I needed to do it because the RJ-45 connector on the old one didn't hold the cable properly, so it provided only an intermittent connection based on the weight of the cable—if we nudged the cable into the card it'd work for about another day. It took a long time because this computer has no floppy drive, and I didn't remember to copy the FA311 drivers onto it over the network before putting the new card in. I ended up getting the drivers over to it using SmartMedia and a USB reader. However, I then made the mistake of updating to the latest network card drivers on Netgear's Web site. For the FA311TX, the version 1.6 drivers that come on floppy with the network card worked better for me than the version 1.8 drivers that are on Netgear's Web site. All was working fine with the 1.6 drivers, but after installing the 1.8 drivers, my computer would hang upon boot with a blue-screened Windows Protection Error complaining about VSDATA95 and VxD something blah blah blah. (This is Windows 98 SE.) Rebooting in Safe Mode and uninstalling ZoneAlarm got past the Windows Protection Error, but the Windows "feature" of always using the most recent driver found in the driver library kept reinstalling the 1.8 drivers and crashing my system. I deleted all the 1.8 driver files and verified that all references to "311/312" were gone from the registry (since the 1.6 drivers specify the network adapter's name as just "FA311" whereas the 1.8 drivers specify the network adapter's name as "FA311/312"). I rebooted and removed all network adapters listed. I reinstalled the network adapter using only the 1.6 driver files, rebooted and installed the network components I needed, then configured my static IP, DNS, and gateway. This is a gross oversimplification of the process, and it feels like I had to reboot about 50 times, but I fixed it and now all is well with that machine. Patrick finished all his major corrections to Second Island today, so this is is a significant milestone for the novel. He wants to add a few more details, but then it's ready to print and send to Mitchell and our volunteer editors.
Wed Jul 24, 2002
Laura Myers sent me the revised PDF of our 2003 application, so I uploaded it and sent the final completed mockup to James for review. Cindy decided to make this page and application live a few days earlier than August 1 since I'll be gone on vacation until August 5. Figured out how to use SGET to automate the downloading of Sophos IDE files to protect all our computers from computer viruses. However, the process is still not completely automated because I need to specify which IDE file to use based on the version of Sophos we're running, e.g., 359_ides.zip. Each time I upgrade all the clients to a new version, I need to modify the DOS batch file I made accordingly, changing all the occurrences of "359" to "360". Chris De Lay sent me e-mail today saying he quit his job because his supervisor yelled obscenities at him over the phone. Put the new Update for the Dean newsletter up for review for Susie. Played Riven with Patrick for about an hour (total now = 12.5 hours).
Thu Jul 25, 2002
Dermatology appointment today. Breakfast with Patrick at Lori's Diner. Today is the reopening of the remodeled Union Square. The square sits in downtown San Francisco. It's a park and courtyard space with a Corinthian column in the center. It takes up an entire city block, and it's surrounded by major department stores and smaller boutique shops. The redesigned square provides greater comfort to San Francisco's homeless: new lawns, new giant palm trees, new park benches, new marble and granite flooring and steps. It didn't look a whole lot different than the old one except for some ticket booth offices. We got bored within a few minutes and left after taking two photos. Made a few corrections to Update for the Dean. Lunch by myself at Nan King Road Bistro: double happiness. Bought MUNI passes at Bear Snacks.
Fri Jul 26, 2002
Drove to San Diego. We took the 92 bridge to 101 north to 580 east to 5 south to 210 east to 2 south to 5 south. We stopped for lunch at some Carl's Jr. along the way where a stranger gave us the tip to take 210 to avoid a bunch of traffic. We took his advice and the 210 was all clear just as he said. Traffic was heavy when we hit Los Angeles around 4:00 PM—two hours later than we had hoped so that we could avoid traffic. Still, we got to San Diego at 7:30 PM—about 10 hours total, and within our expectations, given that I don't do well on long drives and need to rest often. Along the way we saw a fire right next to the freeway—a long stretch of dried grass was burning and emitting a mushroom cloud hundreds of feet into the air, visible from maybe 20 miles away. Police officers waved slow-moving cars single-file through the smoke while firefighters seemed to have the fire under control. For a few seconds we were completely engulfed by the smoke and could see whole pieces of ash floating dreamily across our view. We felt like we were in an apocalyptic film of some sort. Later, near San Diego, we saw 5 hot air balloons in the air—there must have been a festival or special event of some kind. They were mystic and beautiful hovering over the landscape, and we'd see occasional bursts of flame from their gas tank spigots, encouraging physics to keep them aloft awhile longer. We got to Corinna's without incident, and we met her boyfriend, who is also named Patrick. He seemed friendly, smart, attractive, self-assured. We approve. We dined at Kemo Sabe (3958 5th Av), an Asian fusion and Californian and Southwestern restaurant. The place was packed. We had a bottle of Russian River Valley pinot noir and started the meal with roasted fried brie. My Patrick had the barbeque range chicken. Corinna had the chicken stack. Her Patrick had the sirloin special. I had the Alaskan halibut. The thing we remember most about this place is that the servings are huge, then made to seem even huger by piling lots of curly shavings of beets and carrots on top. HUGE! Four coffees, one creme brulee, and one chocolate hazelnut napoleon later and our bill for 4 people came to US$154.62 before tip. The portion sizes were unbearably large, and correspondingly the plates were so stuffed with food that it was unmanageable, for example, when trying to disassemble a range chicken because there was no free space available. My advice to Deborah Scott: trim your entrees to one half of the current portion sizes, then charge half as much. If she did that, I'd return and probably have a much more pleasant dining experience. A single entree here could easily feed 3 people! The dining room was quite probably the noisiest we experienced on our trip, and service by our waitron Angela was not memorable. However, we had great company and enjoyed ourselves despite the racket.
Sat Jul 27, 2002
Pre-breakfast with Patrick at Bruegger's Bagels. Watched Tina and Champagne and other women in the bridal party get their hair done by Basil. We see the Pride Parade from Corinna's place. Domenica picks us up at Rite Aid. champagne and Anthony's wedding at the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception (2540 San Diego Av). The wedding is short and simple—my favorite kind. Afterwards, everyone took photos in the courtyard to the side of the church. Then we drove to the reception at Tina's aunt's house on Overlake Drive. The aunt is a successful businesswoman, and her "house" is huge—a mansion. A black grand piano sits in a comfortable and tastefully decorated living room with panoramic views of the city. Another room with similar views has a karaoke setup with a dance floor and a large kitchen. Another two rooms are for their son—he has his own mini pool table and video game station and big screen TV. The ostentation ended with the richness of the objects, however—her aunt's family were very gracious, welcoming, and humble, and that impressed me more than the house itself. Guests snacked on appetizers and drinks by the pool and strolled the hillside gardens while awaiting the sit-down tennis court buffet dinner for perhaps 300 or 400. Patrick and I sat with Tina Luu, Domenica Genovese, Tammy Haughey, Marilyn Golden, Dwayne Grishcow and two others I can't remember now. The catering staff we noticed was small but extremely dedicated—we were taken with their desire to accommodate every small request. As far as we could tell, they performed impeccably. Patrick had the hots for one of the catering staff—a young man with blond curls who looked like a 1970's porn star. After the dinner, we danced on the deck to DJ Ratty, who spins at a San Diego nightclub called Bar Dynamite. The champagne toast and cake cutting was held in the small hillside garden. Tina made the three-tiered cake. The bottom layer was an opera style cake called Chocolate Millennium—sponge cake layered with a chocolate mousse and chocolate ganache. The second layer was strawberry chiffon cake with whipped cream. Both cakes were covered with white chocolate and shavings. The top tier was the croquembouche, a tower of profiteroles dipped in caramel and arranged together in a cone shape. Profiteroles also surrounded the bottom tier. She decorated the cake with flowers from the bouquets. Later we retired to the son's game room to sing along with karaoke discs.
Sun Jul 28, 2002
Brunch at The Cottage in La Jolla (7702 Fay Av, La Jolla, 858-454-8409) with Patrick, Tina, and Domenica. (I didn't write down what we all ate, but brunch was delicious.) Stopped at Hotel Parisi to look around in the lobby and take a few photos of the marble ball fountain in front. Walked around Hillcrest looking at shops and eateries. Domenica bought slides at Long's because her shoes didn't fit well and caused her feet to hurt. Babette's. Dinner at Old Town Casa de Bandini. Shower. Nap. Bars. [add details]
Mon Jul 29, 2002
Big City Bagel. San Diego Wild Animal Park. Extraordinary Desserts. [add details]
Tue Jul 30, 2002
City Delicatessen (535 University Av, 415-295-2747) with Patrick for breakfast. I think this place was a Jewish-American deli. Tasteful decor, efficient wait staff. Drive to Los Angeles. Met Tina and Domenica at the Ramada Inn (also known as The Gay Hotel)—they drove up about 5 minutes after we did! Tried to check in, but our room wasn't ready yet. Lunch at Barney's Beanery: Tina had a California chopped salad. Domenica had a Philly cheese steak sandwich. Patrick had the British Reuben. I had the cold roast beef sandwich with cheese. Two lemonades, 1 iced tea, 1 vodka drink. Our bill for 4 people came to $49.93 before tip, and overall Patrick and I felt this meal was not one of the best. Patrick: "Blah!" Checked in. Toured Santa Monica Boulevard on foot. Snacked at The Abbey (692 North Robertson Blvd, West Hollywood, 310-289-8410), which Patrick decided was his favorite place we saw in Los Angeles. Good food. Sexy people. It's a restaurant, cafe, and bar all rolled into a church-themed, elegantly decorated space. In the front, wrought iron gates open onto an outdoor bar facing a fountained courtyard with round patio tables and umbrellas. In the back, another bar indoors lets out onto generously sized cubbyholes with giant pillows and fine curtains lit by skylights and ventilated by rotating southeast Asian bamboo fans overhead. Such a unique space for congregation we have probably never seen before, and we basked from simply being there. Stopped in at a soap goods store called Splash. Back in our room, we watched Tina dye Domenica's hair. She also gave me and Patrick nail treatments while we all watched The Simpsons and American Idol. Dinner at Thailand Plaza (5311 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, 323-993-9000): chicken satay with peanut sauce, cucumber chili salad, pad thai with prawns and pork, "morning glory" vegetables, mussaman chicken curry, crying tiger beef. Our waiter was very friendly, engaging us in idle chatter in which he learned where we all were from and we learned he was from Thailand. Turns out he was also the live music act for the evening, singing solos and duets with a small live band. His first song was Fly Me to the Moon—one of our favorite songs, and one which Tina asked Patrick to sing karaoke 3 days ago. After that, he and a woman sang Endless Love, again another of our karaoke songs. A Thai love song we didn't know followed. And he continued throughout the evening with old favorites: Memories, Close To You, Love Is In The Air, Mystery Thai Song #2, Masquerade, I Will Survive, I Will Always Love You, My Girl. Thailand Plaza was a highlight of our L.A. trip. Free parking, great food, live music—a fun time, highly recommended.—Toured Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard by car.
Wed Jul 31, 2002
Breakfast at The Abbey. Tina had ordered a slice of cherry pie but wanted to have a cigarette beforehand. I told her, "I'll eat your pie while you smoke," and she replied, "That's the best offer I've had all month!" Patrick tried to use the Internet terminal in the lobby of the Ramada Inn, but it didn't work properly and we still ended up getting charged $3.00 on the credit card. The Getty Center and Museum. Dinner with Felice Picano and Trebor Healey. Felice had invited us to his home, which is a split-level house high in the hills. He has a bountiful garden, from which he cooked us a delicious gourmet meal.