May 2003
Summary: Randy Williams' housewarming party, Cindy Williams School of Pharmacy Staff Appreciation Day, Don and Jenna's Wedding at Ralston Hall in Belmont
Dates on this page
Thu May 1, 2003
The 8:30 bus showed up at 8:35 AM. I was still at home, but I heard it go by. The 8:50 bus came and left at 8:45 AM, about a minute before I was about to leave home. I waited at the bus stop from 8:48 AM and got to work at 9:35 AM. Did stylesheet editing (added display:none for the caption tag). Made lots of small edits to Web pages, mostly calendars, made them live. Made changes to the Pharmacy Information Day page for Joel, made them live. Showed Kristina how to create PDF files in Microsoft Word 2002. Sent our Larry L. Sautter application in to Yvonne Tevis. Lunch at desk: leftover chow mein and Nan King Road Bistro black bean salmon and asparagus. Joel saw Annie Lennox last night. "Fab-u-lous!" He also said that he didn't know that her fan base was almost exclusively gay men. Uh, okay. "I must have missed that memo," he said. Started reading the working draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. Collected archived screen snapshots for frankfarm.com. Dinner at home with Patrick: gemelli with ground cow in red sauce. Slept immediately after dinner, got up around 10:00 PM to move the car to the other side of the street (street cleaning early tomorrow morning). Patrick met with Krandall Kraus today, having finished reading his 300-page novel in 4 days. Did moving and relocating research until 1:00 AM. Interesting: the last very major earthquake in southern California was in 1857 and major earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault occur about every 150 years, so will a big earthquake hit the southland sometime around 2007? Patrick doesn't want to move to anywhere near major earthquake zones, so I guess southern California is out. We were looking at San Diego, LA, and Riverside.
Fri May 2, 2003
Worked from home today. Started creating mockups of the student directory project that Cindy asked me to work on about a week ago. They want to provide student names, photos, and e-mail addresses on the Web in a secured location. Began with pencil drawings, then Photoshop mockups, then working prototypes on our staging server. Did a preliminary home page real estate analysis (a la Jakob Nielsen style). Watched X-Men and The Matrix on DVD since both are coming out with sequels soon. (X-Men opens today, actually.)
Sat May 3, 2003
Exercise. Breakfast. Did house chores. Nap. Lunch. Laundry. Nap. Patrick went to archaeology class today with Sam. Lunch at Osaka Sushi on Castro. Patrick and I went to Randy Williams' housewarming party, and we both had fun. We med Edina and her 5-year-old son, Max. Brian and Jack, whom we met at Jamie's last party. Tom and Sue were there—we knew them from many of Jamie's parties. Tina. Denise and Phil. Aaron and Jamie. We talked about parents and parenting and Edina's recent drama with her other son Nicky, The Jackass Movie and its amorality and irresponsibility, Randy's office work environment and who got new furniture recently, and the fact that Randy doesn't have a salad spinner. Jamie and Jack made mint juleps—some sort of tradition related to the Kentucky Derby, which was earlier today. As a housewarming gift, we gave Randy a card and a printout of what his phone number spells from phonespell.org. Other presents: Tom and Sue gave orange votive candle holders with a racy zebra (?) print. Brian and Jack gave an elegant glass pitcher and tumbler set (I think). Denise and Phil gave a large glass jar filled with different kinds of Hershey Kisses: creamy chocolate, toffee chocolate, dark chocolate, regular milk chocolate, and 1 or 2 other flavors I can't remember. We like his apartment—very spacious for just one person. There's even a large deck in the back. Patrick tells me today that southern California is not entirely ruled out for relocating.
Sun May 4, 2003
Saw X-Men 2 (or X-2 or X2) with Patrick and Sam at Century 20 Daly City. The movie was fun but full of problems, mostly characters not using their powers when they should have and too many characters knowing things they shouldn't've known. It was certainly not bad, and I would recommend it if you liked the first film. We had lunch at Quizno's afterwards—Patrick and Sam's first time at Quizno's. Patrick and I went home after. He did homework and mixed music, I napped and got caught up on e-mail and filing. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover Hong Kong noodles, steamed vegetable buns.
Mon May 5, 2003
Removed deprecated instances of several style sheet classes. Met with John Yu and Cindy about the possibility of using SF Micro's services for desktop support. Student directory mockups. Physical therapy with Pinder. Safeway. Dinner at home with Patrick: Hong Kong shrimp chow mein. Filled out 6 pages in the All About Us book. Caught up on e-mail.
Tue May 6, 2003
The 8:30 AM bus was about 5 or 10 minutes late. We got to Quintara and 25th and the driver, an extremely large black woman, stopped the bus in the middle of the street, unbuckled the suitcase strapped in next to the driver's seat, and got off the bus saying that she had to go to the bathroom. There's a small office building on the corner. She disappeared inside, and we waited. And waited. It was about 5 or 10 minutes before she returned. When she got back to the bus, I could hear that she was talking to someone trying to get on the bus. She wouldn't let the person on, saying that it wasn't a legal stop. The bus was already stopped for the past few minutes in the middle of the street—it would have been no effort for her to say, "Okay, come on in." I couldn't see the person trying to board because I was sitting too far away in the back of the bus, but I could hear her. The person asked the driver if the driver would wait for her at 24th—the next stop. The driver said that if she was there when she got to the stop, she'd let her on, but if she wasn't then she would have to wait for the next bus. She shut the door to the bus, started the engine, and took off. It was then as the bus passed that I saw that the woman trying to board the bus was an elderly woman with a cane, her hair white like cotton. As we approached 24th, a woman sitting near me on the bus called out to the driver, "Hey, would you just wait for her?" And the driver said to her, "Would you let me handle this?" and then muttered something about "you gotta teach 'em" and "otherwise they'll never learn." I watched with wrenched pain on my face as the elderly woman half-ran and half-strode as best as she could with her cane the full block of Quintara between 25th and 24th trying to catch the bus. The driver did indeed wait for her, but it seemed as though she did so only to teach her a lesson by delivering the moral after she boarded. After the elderly woman boarded, they exchanged a few more words, and then the issue was left alone. I rode the rest of the way to 9th and Judah feeling sick to my stomach about the utter lack of compassion I had just witnessed. This was the same driver who in the past I'd seen completely miss picking up an elderly Asian couple because the bus stop is at a location that allows parked cars and the couple probably did not want to wait standing in the street. (Every other driver has seen them every time.) This is the same driver who wouldn't let us out at 8th and Judah because it wasn't a legal stop, but then 10 seconds later make us all get off the bus at 9th and Judah—before the turn and at a location that wasn't a legal stop—because she had to turn right to go to the bathroom. This is the same driver that several times in the past I'd seen forget to make the bus kneel for elderly people and not pull close enough to the curb so that people would have to step in to the gutter then back up to the curb to get to the sidewalk. I've been mad before at the daily injustices that Muni delivers, but this event disturbed me. I've chatted with the woman on the bus who attempted to intervene. She has a cellphone, and she frequently calls Muni to complain about the service. From talking with her, I know that she has called many, many times to complain about our route—usually it's busses late or busses simply not showing up. She's called so many times that I feel it wouldn't do any good for me to call. After all, if they've heard all her complaints and service is still like it is now, would one more person really make a difference? Somehow I doubt it. What can I do? What can I do? I ran in to her on the way home. She had shown up at 9th and Judah at 6:15 PM. I got there right before 7:00 PM wondering if I missed the bus that usually comes at the top of the hour. She told me that the 6:30 bus had not shown up and that she called Muni and they told her they were planning to send a bus right over. At 7:15 PM it still had not shown up, so she called them back on her cellphone. After several minutes of them checking, they determined that the driver who had been told by a supervisor to change routes to Route 66 disobeyed the orders and was still on their route. We were told there would simply be no Bus 66 for the rest of the night. We had just missed a Route 43 which would have taken us to Forest Hill Station where we could catch the L train to our neighborhood. We waited and talked about the events which had transpired this morning. Another 10 minutes and we caught a Route 44 to Forest Hill Station. By the time we got home, it was 8:00 PM. I joked with her: "Hey, you got home within 2 hours—not bad for Muni, huh?" This trip is normally 15 or 16 minutes. Her trip today took 105 minutes. Me—my trip took about 400% longer than normal because if the 7:00 PM bus had shown up I would have been home by 7:15 PM.—At work I spent pretty much the whole day creating a statement of work for the PharmD student database on the web project. Slice of pizza by myself for lunch. Dinner at home by myself: leftover chow mein. Patrick went to a reading with Aaron Jason: Michael Lowenthal and Scott Heim read from Avoidance and Mysterious Skin.
Wed May 7, 2003
Last night I dreamt that Patrick and I were in France eating in a restaurant and we waited a very long time for the waiter to bring the bill. It felt so real! Woke up early today and worked on the frankfarm.com redesign. Helped Cindy with Excel page breaks. Helped Mike with virus analysis. Helped James with Eudora mailbox corruption. Worked on admissions changes. Worked on the statement of work. MUNI screws up again: Got to 9th and Judah at 5:55 PM. The 6:00 PM bus didn't show up until 6:15 or 6:20 PM. As we turned the corner at 9th and Lawton, we saw another 66 bus coming toward us in the opposite direction—a sure sign that someone was being irresponsible (again). Dinner at home with Patrick: chow mein and corn on the cob and steamed vegetable buns. We talked about spirituality and direction and finances and personal goals and growth—a very healthy conversation.
Thu May 8, 2003
Woke up at 4:30 AM, couldn't sleep. Got up and worked on frankfarm.com. In the process, I found some blogs which I actually found interesting because they're about how to properly design Web sites: diveintomark.org (which I'd seen a few times before but had never really read), ashbykuhlman.net, bdhamilton.com. Also found a great site about linking at ericward.com. Within a few minutes, a bunch of links from those sites got referenced in my redesign and in the info for web developers section on the School of Pharmacy site. Oatmeal for breakfast (as usual). Joel sent me the e-mail addresses of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and some important person at MUNI, so I sent all of them my journal entry for Tuesday. We'll see if anyone cares. Last time Joel sent an issue to all the supes, the only one who responded was Tom Ammiano. The 8:50 AM bus left 3 minutes early, so I stayed home and worked on frankfarm.com. Lunch at desk: leftover chow mein. Windows updates for 2 laptops. Installed newest versions of Windows Media Player and RealOne Player and Quicktime for 1 laptop. Pharmacy Info Day updates for Joel out for review and approved and live within an hour—he's so fast. The 6:30 PM bus arrived early and left right on time—I was stunned by MUNI's performance this evening. Dinner at home by myself: spaghettini with leftover ground cow in tomato sauce. Washed dishes. Folded laundry. Patrick met with Quang Bao, director of the Asian-American Writer's Workshop and got home very late.
Fri May 9, 2003
Exercise. Cleaned up deprecated instances of the class called pfollowslist and listfollowsp. Worked on the statement of work. Lunch at home: leftovers. Dinner at Jitra with Patrick: beef satay, BBQ chicken, yellow curry chicken. Picked up drug store items at Walgreens. Worked on frankfarm.com.
Sat May 10, 2003
Exercise. Worked on frankfarm.com. Napped. Lunch at home by myself: ramen noodles with baby bok choy. Napped. Grocery shopping at 99 Market with Patrick. Dinner at KFC with Patrick—it was mediocre (again). Went to bed early.
Sun May 11, 2003
Eggs and sausage at home for breakfast. Read a lot of web designers' blogs. Lunch at home: macaroni and cheese. Errands in the Castro. Hair cut with Bao at Nice Cuts. Walgreens. Listed books for sale on Amazon. Dinner at home with Patrick: shrimp chow mein.
Mon May 12, 2003
Finished the statement of work, sent the first draft to Cindy and Susie for review. Lunch at Pasta Pomodoro by myself. Started a sample new templates implementation on a staging server. Patrick and I had been looking yesterday and today for the Camus book Jason had bought him for his birthday last month—we couldn't find it anywhere. Turns out it was in the bookshelf but it had fallen behind some other books. Dinner at home with Patrick: Hong Kong chicken chow mein, steamed green onion buns. Slept early, woke up at 1:00 AM, researched places to live, went back to bed at 5.
Tue May 13, 2003
Reworked the computer requirements so that it is under the entering students section rather than the admissions section at James's request. Lunch at desk: leftover chow mein. Updated current students news to provide info on the fizzer computer worm. Made updates to the Law Review page, sent it out to Chris and Cindy for review. Made a bunch of other small updates everywhere in the Web site: admissions section (added computer requirements info to the alternates page), updated the About section to include the proper year for our budget numbers, updated Go To navigation in the computer requirements section because it had broken during the restructuring of those pages, updated the events page to use non-breaking spaces before occurrences of AM and PM for times. Listserv updates for Michael Gonzales. Created a strategy chart for Chris regarding how to handle computer literacy problems discovered after classes have begun. Scheduled 2 meetings in Meeting Maker. Early dinner at desk: leftover chow mein. Late dinner at Riverside Seafood Restaurant: potstickers, walnut prawns, shrimp chow fun. My fortune: You and your wife will be happy in your life together. (Patrick's reaction: "What if a woman got that?") His fortune: You will be unusually successful in business. Called Domenica, no answer, left a message. Same with Tina. Worked on Patrick's writer web site. Worked on frankfarm.com redesign til 1:00 AM.
Wed May 14, 2003
Missed the 8:50 AM bus by a few minutes, took the L train to Forest Hill then a 43 to work, got in at 9:32. I realized it's better to stay at home for 20 minutes then catch the next bus—at least I can be productive for 20 minutes rather than spending it at bus stops and in transit. Updated pages for the White Coat Ceremony and Orientation and the entering students calendar for Cindy. Updated the law review pages after getting feedback from Chris and Cindy. Prepared documents for the meeting next week about the computer literacy requirement. Wrote a UNIX shell script to make it easy to create symlinks to templates. Dinner at home with Patrick: stir fry with shrimp, snow peas, Chinese cabbage over rice. Worked on my resume.
Thu May 15, 2003
Exercise. Eggs and sausage for breakfast. Met with Susie and Cindy about the style guide. They both think it's great and Susie wants to share it with the larger University committee she's on because they're attempting to work out exactly the same issues at the campus level. Sounded fine to me and Cindy. We also started talking about the PharmD Student Directory on the Web project but ran out of time. Microsoft Campus Agreement meeting at Toland Hall. Joel and Ena helped me hoard leftover snacks from the meeting at 2:00 PM. No one else was around to take them, so Taylor and Wayne said I could take them back to the office. Ena needed some convincing that it was okay to do. She said, "Would you please bring me back a cookie?" And I told her she should get off her lazy ass and help us bring back trays. We snagged two huge trays full of cookies—chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal raisin, and chocolate with walnuts—and grapes and coconut bars and fruit bars. Then we went back and got the 3 cases of assorted beverages—Lemon Perrier, Snapple assortment, Crystal Geyser, and the standard soda cans. We felt so guilty walking off with so much stuff, but it wasn't like we were stealing. Indeed, we were doing someone a favor by taking it all away. I told everyone about how Adobe had (has?) Adobe Vultures—a nifty e-mail notification system to let people know where to go to eat leftover food from catered meetings. Started writing the push script—a shell script to mirror directories from our staging server to our live server. It's been a while since I did shell scripting—fun to get back into it again. Dinner at Chow on Church with Patrick to celebrate his last day of Mandarin class. We started with pork and shrimp wontons in an oil-based sauce which the deliverator said wasn't very hot at all but he lied. Patrick had roast chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus, hot chocolate to drink. I had veggie lasagna with watercress, tropical green tea to drink. No dessert since I brought a bunch of the snagged cookies home with me. Patrick is getting the works for Issue 6 ready to hand off to me soon. Worked on frankfarm.com again tonight.
Fri May 16, 2003
Cheerios for breakfast. Edits for James to the admission section. Worked on the push script. Lunch at home: chow mein. Researched web hosting options for the School. Dinner at home with Patrick: hong kong chow mein.
Sat May 17, 2003
Oatmeal for breakfast. A productive day at home: Put dishes away. Did research on patellofemoral pain. Mended some jeans. Took out the trash. Scanned in the pattern on the box that held some Mirro aluminum food molds that Tina and Daniel gave us for Christmas in 2001. The box has a really cool pattern from the mid-20th century so I decided to scan the pattern and throw the box away. The box had gotten damaged—some laundry detergent leaked onto it. The Lexmark 5700 I've had for years and years just would not work anymore—had something to do with the ink getting clogged up and though I spent an hour cleaning it I couldn't get it to work, so out it goes. I was tired of Lexmark anyhow after the fiasco I had with the Optra Color 45 that I bought at work. (Their web site claimed the printer could handle borderless printing which their tech support later told me was a mistake.) Lunch at home with Patrick: leftover chow mein. Bought USB 2.0 cables online (one 10-foot and one 15-foot) in anticipation for getting a new printer. Added some padding to my dress shoes which had been digging into my heel. Tested them out—seem to be fine. Made Patrick's mellow mix cd so he could take it with him to the Jamie's party tonight. (I'm sitting out this one.) Repotted my plant from work because it had been growing too big so I split it up into 4 separate plants. Repotted 2 orchids which hadn't been growing well since their last repottings. Potted a new baby orchid from one of the adult plants. Shopped for a new printer. Dinner at home by myself: mac and cheese. Shopped online for a wedding gift for Don and Jenna. Worked on frankfarm.com.
Sun May 18, 2003
Brunch with Patrick at Bagdad Cafe. Got a gift at Pottery Barn for Don and Jenna. Divisadero car wash.
Mon May 19, 2003
Updated a mailing list for Cindy. Web steering committee meeting: talked about the last meeting (I thought all the presentations went well), my style guide, UCSF Web sites that need improvement, what to plan for the summer Web developers meeting: get an Adobe rep to talk about the new versions of Acrobat and Photoshop. Started to look at some changes James gave back to me. Worked on student data specifications requested by Kevin Souza. Dinner at Four Season with Patrick: we got the special dinner: fried shrimp, sizzling rice soup, garlic chicken, mongolian beef, steamed rice, hot tea. My fortune: The time is right to reach your goals. His: You have an optimistic faith and confidence in life. Patrick has his final exam tomorrow, so we went home so he could study. Shopped for medical tape supplies. Shopped for a retreat location for Patrick.
Tue May 20, 2003
Our landlord is fixing the main sewage line from the house to the street today. Ten days ago they asked us to go easy on the laundry and not take a shower when they do (gotta listen for it, I guess) because a plumber checked out the situation and they have to tear up the main sewage line and fix it from there. So far, we've been lucky—they came in to our unit only once and determined the problem was outside. Staff meeting today. Cindy talked about a 15-year-old policy regarding sick time newly enforced—we'll be audited if there are more than 6 "instances" of taking sick time within any one-year period. They define an "instance" as the consecutive number of days for one illness. Seemed very bureaucratic and thoughtless to me, so I suggested well pay and PTO plans instead. Joel didn't seem to like their audit plan either, saying that it creates an adversarial relationship because of the audit (or even the possibility of an audit). I also pointed out that their system could be easily fooled. They look for patterns when they audit: "He was always sick on a Friday" or "She always called in sick on rainy Mondays". However, if one keeps track of his or her own sick time, all that needs to be done is to avoid creating a pattern. Were you sick on Fridays the last 2 times? Better call in sick Friday *and* Monday. Or, call in sick on Thursday instead. Doesn't make any difference. It also encourages people to come in to work sick: "I'm really sick, but I don't wanna risk get audited—that sounds like a lot of trouble—so I'll just come in and get through the day." Stupidity! Today was Staff Appreciation Day. They decorated Cole Hall in 1950s decorations with balloons and set props like giant Marshall speakers and giant guitars. As we walked in we saw a large sign saying "Where were you in '62?" along with someone's prom photo, which turned out to be Lorie's. We had a buffet of gardenburgers, hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, milk shakes, fresh fruit, cookies, brownies, sodas, and water. Mary Anne distributed service awards and a costume contest was held for best 1950s clothes. Lorie Rice then introduced our special guest for the afternoon: Cindy Williams. For the first few minutes, I didn't believe what they said—that Lorie and Cindy were best friends in high school—because on a previous Staff Appreciation Day they hired a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, so I thought this was another one of those. However, after a few minutes of her talking and people asking her questions, I realized she was the real Cindy Williams. Joel said, "This is so surreal!" I think because it was half cool but half cheesy because no one was really prepared to have a Q&A with such a well-known Hollywood star. I mean, wouldn't Cindy Williams have better things to do than fly to San Francisco for a day to do a favor for a good friend by essentially selling out her celebrity? You would think. I wonder if we would have gotten a larger turnout if Lorie had publicized the fact that she would be there. But in any case, she seemed genuinely happy to be with us, and she took photos with all the service award winners. Then we got to watch American Graffiti (1973), which I don't recall having seen the whole thing so I stayed to watch. Cindy, Kristina, Ena, and Joel ditched me and Debrah by leaving in the middle of the film. It was fun to see so many actors so young again—Ron Howard, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Mackenzie Phillips. I didn't find out until I got home that "Where were you in '62?" was the tagline for the film. Dinner at home with Patrick: I made a stir fry with leftover noodles and leftover Mongolian Beef from Four Season. Worked on frankfarm.com. Reviewed retreat possibilities with Patrick.
Wed May 21, 2003
Fixed some broken links on the live site caused by the reworking of the admissions section which hasn't gone live yet but because I moved things around it broke some links. Nightly backups have been failing for the past 3 days due to "unexpected end of media"—strange because it had been working fine in the past and we don't have any huge change in our data storage needs that I know of. Possible hardware failure of the tape drive. Not the tapes since it's happened with 3 different tapes. In looking through the backup log, I discovered trickler_4010.exe on Cindy's computer. A quick search determined this is spyware from Gator. I used Ad-Aware to remove it and over 50 other spyware objects. Took a long time for it to do all the deep scans and then when I rebooted it still found 2 more objects. Tested setting Ad-Aware to start automatically but it wouldn't start minimized. Couldn't figure out how to turn off the automatic start feature so I ended up uninstalling the whole thing. Yeesh! Did some filing. Almost finished writing the push script. Dinner at home with Patrick: baked chicken, corn on the cob, mac and cheese. Patrick and Sam went to Sam's recital tonight. Patrick sang a song called "Bero." Sam wrote the music, Patrick wrote the lyrics. I stayed home, finished researching all-in-one devices, decided on the Epson CX5200, made my purchase at PC Connection. When Patrick got back, we had pastries from Sunset Bakery at 9th and Judah which I'd brought home with me on the bus: a chocolate cupcake with a Powerpuff Girls plastic ring stuck in the top, an oval angel food cake with a mandarin orange embedded in the top, and a tubular pastry filled with whipped cream. My favorite was the orange cake—the others were delicious, but too rich for me. I received a reply from MUNI about the incident on May 6. They sent me a template correspondence, which would normally have been just fine except they forgot to fill in the fields! For example, the salutation said, "Dear [[Title]] [[LastName]]:" The first line read, "Thank you for informing us about the matter which occurred on [[OCCURDATE]]." It was sent by "Loubie, Bilal" Bilal_Loubie@ci.sf.ca.us, but it was signed by "Maria Williams, Manager Customer Relations". The last line said "Enc." but there was no attachment. This morning BK sent us an e-mail from his friend Makiko about friends of hers renting out their Paris apartment for $600 a month for 2 months this summer. Patrick's been looking for a getaway recently, but after much deliberation we decided it was more money than we were able to spend just now. $600 a month in the 11th arrondisement of Paris is a steal, but even air fare for one of us would be about $500 and then we'd still have to eat.
Thu May 22, 2003
Kristina reported "Error 1933 The Windows installer service cannot update one or more protected Windows Files." when installing Microsoft Office 2000 Select on her home computer. Only one document in Google from someone else with the same problem—no resolution. There was an error list on MSDN which listed the exact error as "The Windows Installer service cannot update one or more protected Windows files. SFP Error: [2]. List of protected files:[3]" but again, no resolution. Asked her to try again making sure she's logged in to Win XP as admin. Also can try windowsupdate.microsoft.com—possibly an outdated or damaged Windows Installer. Did HPM updates for Kristina, made them live. Helped Elissa Cruz find a computer to work on—she was unable to log in at the computer lab, Rodney is away, and Kim wasn't in the office up there. Set her up at the workspace for our open position. Lunch at desk: leftovers of leftover chow mein, leftover mac and cheese. Joel made a cake for Ena's birthday on Saturday. Met with James and Chris about what to do regarding presentation of the computer requirements in our Web site. We decided to split up computer literacy from the computer hardware, software, and Internet requirements. Dinner at home with Patrick: spaghetti with shrimp marinara. Patrick researched getaways. I replied to Bilal/Maria with this: "Hi Maria or Bilal, Thanks for responding to my complaint about the incident on Route 66 on Tuesday, May 6. For some reason, the template letter you sent (below) didn't have any fields filled in. Why is that? And I didn't receive any attachments even though the letter indicated there should be an attachment. (What does "Enc." mean at the bottom of an e-mail?) I am reluctant to give any more of my valuable time to this issue since MUNI already steals time away from me in the form of frequently late busses and busses that simply don't show up. I feel like I've already done my part by alerting you to the problem. If your processes are so bureaucratic that you require me to take what would likely be over 90 minutes out of my day (after adding travel time via MUNI) to "validate my complaint" then so be it—justice will go unserved, and the guilt will be on your shoulders, not mine. Every day as I ride the 66 elder people living in this city are constantly being treated with blatant disrespect. It encourages me to leave San Francisco to take my talents elsewhere before I grow old and must beg to have the driver make the bus kneel or even pull close to the curb for me, too. I love San Francisco, but not enough to put up with the injustices that MUNI delivers every day. Thanks for trying, though. Frank Farm / UCSF School of Pharmacy / Web Developer / Parkside resident"
Fri May 23, 2003
Yesterday Chris De Lay sent me a link to a Wired News article about an electroshock jacket (www.no-contact.com). I fired him back a response saying it was almost like out of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash except that the outfit that YT wore was voice activated: "Do you have any relatives in Afghanistan?" I don't know who Adam Whiton and Yolita Nugent are, but their names are on the no-contact home page. I considered sending them my thoughts about the jacket but then decided it wasn't really worth it. The jacket is encouraging, but with a key flaw. It really should be voice activated—or in any case easier to activate than using a key. And their pitch Patrick and I found rather offensive: "The goal of the No-Contact Jacket is too call attention to violence against women and to offer an alternative response to the body's vulnerable space and boundaries that society, culture and fashion have created." and also "The embodiment of the No-Contact Jacket is created intentionally for being worn by a woman since women typically have more pronounced security concerns than men." Well, what about the violence against gay men? Focusing "the embodiment" of such a jacket on violence concerns against women only is insultingly short-sighted. And Patrick said, "So women aren't capable of violence?" What about violent women who buy this jacket? Are our good friends the police capable of restraining a woman so empowered? Probably not without shooting her—more violence against women. Where's the logic in that? Too bad they didn't make the jacket bulletproof as well. Telecommuted today. Spent the first half of the day reading about Web accessibility—Joe Clark and various other sites. Lunch at home by myself. Spent the second half of the day working on admissions changes and researching Web hosting. Patrick and I went to Don and Jenna's wedding this evening at Ralston Hall in Belmont, California (ralstonhall.com). The hall was built in 1840 and is part of the Notre Dame de Namur University campus. The parking lot and roads are a bit bumpy but otherwise the grounds seemed very well kept. We were instantly charmed with the building's many pleasing qualities: intricate hardwood floors, interior garage doors with frosted glass to separate many of the hall's ground-floor rooms, spacious yet cozy and comfortable. I saw plenty of old friends and acquaintances: David and Heather Howell, Aaron and Lisa Labowitz, Doug and Gloria Steckman, Matt Stave, Jeff Peters, Mike Sela, Steve Williams. We also met some new people for the first time: Dan and Shannon, who shared our dinner table with us; Dave and Heather (on the bride's side) whom we didn't get to talk with as long as we liked; Mary Blaser, the vocalist who performed with the evening's band, Mark Russo and the Classy Cats (www.classicsounds.net); Doug and Gloria's daughter, Sabrina. We didn't get to meet everyone that we wanted to. The ceremony was not too short, not too long. The minister, Reverend Edwin Holt, was perfect; he had a fine style of balancing the stress of the ceremony with humor, and I also liked the resonance of his voice. Dinner: pear, goat cheese, and walnut salad followed by buffet items (here's everything I can remember): tri-tip cow, three kinds of tortellini, spicy Asian rice noodles, potstickers, shau mai, ha gow, roasted boneless chicken breasts (perhaps teriyaki sauce?). Following dinner was dancing with the live band, the bouquet toss (which I missed), and the cake cutting. During the cake cutting Patrick chatted with Mary the vocalist and was offered a chance to sing a song with the band, so he did: It Had To Be You. He missed his cue midway through the song because Mary pulled me on to the dance floor, but nonetheless everyone was pleased, especially me. It was his first time singing with a live band, he later said. I'm so happy for Don—he seemed happier tonight than I've ever seen him. And Jenna was just as thrilled. Around 10:30 PM we had been getting sleepy from all the fun and started saying our goodbyes. By 11:30 PM we were on the wet road home. A light drizzle had come in with the evening's fog.
Sat May 24, 2003
Missed going to Bill Kirby's birthday lunch at Ideal Bar and Grill in Santa Cruz because we stayed up too late last night and had to sleep in some.
Sun May 25, 2003
Worked on frankfarm.com: Got upset when I saw that the CSS floats I had coded displayed differently each in IE6, Opera 7.1, and Mozilla 1.1. And I only tested in Windows! Did I choose the right career? Oatmeal with Patrick for breakfast. Saw The Matrix Reloaded with Sam and Patrick, lunch afterwards at Pho 99. Napped. Dinner at home with Patrick: egg drop soup, beef and shrimp vermicelli leftovers from Pho 99, steamed egg custard buns, rare jasmine tea.
Mon May 26, 2003
Memorial Day holiday. Napped. Picnic at Duboce Park with Patrick: sandwiches from Castro Tarts. Napped.
Tue May 27, 2003
Took my car to the dealer for service. Spent nearly the whole day looking at resumes for our Admissions Assistant position that's open. Lunch at desk by myself: leftovers from last night. Dinner at home with Patrick: hong kong chow mein with basil, baby corn, red bell peppers, enoki mushrooms. Tried setting up the new Epson CX5200 that arrived today in Windows 98 SE. After installing the ink cartridges, it started its ink cartridge charging routine by making grinding noises from within. After a few seconds, however, the display said, "Scanner error ---& See your documentation and call service if necessary." The "Start Here" guide did not mention this problem in its "Solving Problems" section. The only other documentation was a Macintosh Software Installation guide. Couldn't find any answers in the Epson Support Web site either under Documentation or Troubleshooting. Turned the printer off, then on again. Same error. Turned the printer off, then on again, pressed the right arrow menu key several times to get to the Change Cartridges menu, pressed the green Color/Enter button. I opened the scanner lid as the display instructed. The cartridges moved to where I could reach them. I unseated then reseated each cartridge. I closed the lid. While the display said "Cartridges charging" I inserted paper into the paper store at the back of the printer. Went to the bathroom to pee. When I came back, the display seemed normal ("Plain paper-Norm, Letter 100% 1") and the red error was no longer lit. All seemed well. I tested a color copy of an Adobe PressReady box I had lying around. In less than 45 seconds, a color copy came out, but there was no blue in it. Did the Change Cartridges again—sure enough, the cyan cartridge had come unseated somehow. These cartridges don't make any click when you push them in—a design flaw, in my opinion. You can push as much as you like, but you'll never know if it's in or not until you print or copy.
Wed May 28, 2003
Finished my review of the resumes. Lunch at my desk by myself: leftovers from last night. Made changes to PDFs for Joel. Listened to James's description of PharmAdMIT problems on Ena's computer. Defragged Cindy's computer. Dinner at Fuzio with Patrick: He got gemelli, I got Chinese BBQ pork with noodles. Dessert at Ben and Jerry's: I got Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz. Patrick got something chocolate with nuts. Went to The Edge because Randy Williams had told us earlier in the day that our friend/acquaintance Tucker whom we met at Jamie's parties was performing in Pride Idol, a local competition similar to American Idol, and he was going to show up. The thing was supposed to start at 8:00 PM, and we had arrived at 7:55. But it didn't really get started until 9:15 or so—we got to see 2 or 3 acts before we had to leave. Tucker was 7th out of 11 contestants. Oh, well. Brian and Jack were there, too, and we got to meet Che and someone else whose name I forgot—friends of Randy's. The new printer is still acting a little weird—still shows "Scanner error" and a red light sometimes which goes away if we reboot the thing (off then on again). Also, it seems to print successfully even when the scanner error message appears. However, when there's no error message things are great—much faster than our old Lexmark 5700 and ScanJet 5pse. The Epson CX5200 is indeed a tad noisy when the paper first gets fed into it, but aside from that it's very quiet to me.
Thu May 29, 2003
Cindy gave me and Kristina 4 more resumes to review. Listserv updates for Michael Gonzales. Diamond from BMW said my car won't be ready today. They thought they had the part they needed but they really didn't. Finished data requirements based on feedback from Cindy, then sent it to Kevin Souza. Lunch with Patrick: homemade deli-sliced chicken boob sandwiches and potato chips in Courtyard Cafe. Afterwards on our way out, we helped a woman professor with 2 canes through the building and across the street. Met with Susie about Homecoming and Class Reunions changes. Met with Susie and Cindy about the style guide. Dinner at home with Patrick: Vietnamese Hong Kong chow mein with basil. Randy had sent me links for fun Web sites he had discovered: moviequote.net and filmwise.com, had fun with the quizzes—we did just okay on the ones we tried. Wrote in the All About Us book with Patrick.
Fri May 30, 2003
Worked on 15 pages of changes from James for the admissions section. We got a letter today from Raymond J. Smith at the Ontario Review. He would like to publish Patrick's story called "Where It Takes Us"! Hooray! Picked up the car from the service department at BMW San Francisco. Dinner at Mel's Diner: fried chicken with cole slaw and fries for me, broiled chicken with mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Iced tea for each. About $30 after a $4 tip.
Sat May 31, 2003
Breakfast at home with Patrick: Life cereal. Took a free walking tour of Chinatown, ditched it after about an hour. Dim sum at Golden Dragon. Napped. Dinner at home with Patrick: yellow curry chicken. Rented a DVD from Home Video: Under One Roof. We chose this film because yesterday while we were downtown Patrick saw someone from his Queer Lit class at SFSU walking down the street and we realized that he stars as one of the lead characters in this film.