Friday, September 10, 2004
I forgot to add that 3 or 4 days ago I made a cinnamon banana fruit smoothie after work—very yummy. Bagel and cream cheese. Spent most of the morning wrangling with mail merge and printers trying to get them to do what I wanted. Also finding and selecting proper paper of color for the message I had to distribute. Ena's printer is losing its network connection intermittently, Debrah's printer needed the imaging unit replaced (which I did) and also needs a new transfer roller (which is now on order), and Melissa's printer jammed when I tried to send a few sheets of cardstock through it. Debrah's printer also ghost printed some of my jobs even though the display says it can print 500 sheets at 5% with the current transfer roller. Asked Ena to contact SF Micro to resolve her printer problem and the grinding noise in Melissa's printer. I also asked her to place an order for a new transfer roller. Chatted with Mike W and later Kirk H and later Joan M about the ps number mixup. Notified my staff about the ps number mixup. Contacted 3 students who reported problems with their ps numbers. Helped Melissa with the laptop a little. Lunch from the cafeteria: sandwich, banana, nectarine: about $5. Finished with my mail merge task which took much longer than it needed to, stuffed envelopes. Chatted with Chris about final details for our Tuesday presentation, updated our slides to add info about the class mailing list. Distributed final list of entering students and e-mail addresses to staff. Created the Year 1 mailing list, notified the mailing list announcement list and my staff. Converted schedules to PDF and uploaded them to the website and updated the corresponding web pages. Updated current students news and calendar. Other minor website updates. Remembered that the student lounge needs a new door code so asked Ena to set that up with facilities management. Discovered today that the UCSF Bookstore is the best place to buy toothbrushes. Oral-B Advantage toothbrushes normally cost $2.50 or more at the grocery or drug store. At UCSF Bookstore, they're 69 cents! I got 6 of them, 2 travel toothbrushes, and a dental floss I haven't tried yet: Oral-B Ultrafloss. On second thought, I think I've tried this before but I can't remember exactly if I liked it or not. I tried getting a gift for a friend (secret for now), but due to some unanswered questions I postponed my purchase. Mason from the bookstore said he'd call me back when he had more details. Travis and Steve treated Patrick and me to dinner at Park Chow. Appetizers: spinach salad with apple slices and gorgonzola for Travis, Prawn salad without cheese for Steve, Prawn salad with cheese for Patrick, bowl of minestrone soup for me. Entrees: roasted half chicken with mashed potatoes for Travis, Smiling Thai noodles for Steve, Grilled mahi mahi with mashed potatoes and red endive for Patrick, mozzarella and basil pizza for me. Dessert: one order of warm chocolate cake, a la mode on the side, and one order of ginger cake and pumpkin ice cream with caramel sauce. Patrick talked a lot about China. We talked about Chinese, 9/11, writing, school, teaching. After dinner, Steve drove us all back to our place (we talked about Hao, dogs, fish and Lodestar). We chatted awhile longer sipping ginger tea. We talked about clothes and where to buy clothes that fit us; beds, pillows, and sleeping; Travis' forthcoming car purchase. A very pleasant evening.