Monday, April 28, 2003
I got a lot done at work today. Oh, before I start on that I have to tell you about the bus ride this morning. We were on Quintara and at—I think—26th. The bus driver picked up 2 people, then closed the door. Before she started off, however, someone ran up from behind the bus. It was obvious the driver saw the woman at the door, but she honked her horn and just drove off. Not like regular, mind you—she took off fast, as though the woman trying to get on the bus had SARS. I knew this bus driver was mean because she's the same one who doesn't let us off at 8th and Judah because technically there's no stop there but she'll make everyone get out where there's no stop at 9th and Judah because she has to turn right to pee. I'd seen her totally miss seeing the elderly Chinese couple that gets on a few stops before Abraham Lincoln high school. That time I was sitting in the back of the bus and I looked out the back window to see them staring at the bus. I watched them get smaller and smaller until I couldn't see them anymore. Today the bus driver had crazy sneezing fits that I'd never seen her have before, so I guess she must have been ill with a cold, but that's no excuse for the raw meanness she exhibited today. When I leave San Francisco and someone tells me this is a great city, I'll have this bus driver story like an ace in my hand to pull out—this city turns people mean for no discernable reason, of that I'm certain. At work I uploaded the new PDF of the academic calendar for 2003-2004. I followed up on inactive e-mail account holders. I bought and installed Acrobat for Kristina. Got cash and bought Muni passes. Drafted an e-mail to some other Web developers at UCSF asking for a peer review of the style guide I had written. Uninstalled spyware from Cindy's computer. Reinstalled Acrobat 5.0.5 on my computer. (I had been trying to get rid of the Acrobat toolbar which wastefully takes up a whole bar for just 2 icons, but when I removed the toolbar all the Acrobat features inside Word disappeared.) Showed Cindy how to use her new 64 MB USB keychain drive—a Sony Micro Drive. Finished the first draft of the Larry L. Sautter award application, sent it to Cindy and Susie for review. Dinner at home with Patrick: his first time making chow mein—it's very tasty: Chinese chicken, shrimp, garlic, ginger, green onions, sauce, vinegar, Chinese cabbage, enoki mushrooms. Patrick has been playing the newest Madonna album a lot—American Life. Clearly he likes it. On every Madonna album there's 1 song he doesn't like. On this one, it's the song called "I'm So Stupid." He's also been growing the medicinal herbs using the kit that Amy and David bought him. The faintest traces of sprouts are coming up now and he's excited about it, watching them every day, breathing on them to make them come up faster ("so they get more carbon dioxide").