Saturday, June 11, 2005
Breakfast at home with Patrick: pancakes, fresh fruit bowl: nectarines, cherries, banana. Yesterday I fixed the journal entry for June 7 which had a misplaced tag so none of the data showed up. I only found out because Patrick told me. I write my journal entries in XML and very rarely double-check them in a browser, so if you regular readers see any missing entries like that feel free to throw a question mark my way. Backfilled the journal entry for June 9. So painful reliving my SFO experience. Lodestar work. Corinna's web site work: sent her logo type Set A. Repotted an orchid. Patrick and I took a break from Lodestar and other work to have lunch with Steve and Travis at San Tung. I had said never again in the past to this restaurant, but it had been a long time and at least I know what to expect. We had a delicious Chinese meal: shrimp dumplings, shredded pork with green onions, half of a roasted chicken, cold noodles in peanut sauce, steamed rice. There was a bit of a wait, as I expected, and the service was slow, inattentive, and not particularly friendly, again as I expected. All the food was delicious—the shredded pork was my favorite in this round. My fortune: You are ready to let your creative talents blossom. Patrick's fortune: You deserve to have a good time after a hard day's work. Afterwards we visited the exhibit called The Universe Within at the Nob Hill Masonic Center (415-292-9191, 1111 California Street). Tickets were $17 per adult. In this exhibit are displayed over 200 specimens of human whole bodies and organs preserved using a technique known as plastination. One body was preserved then sliced at half-inch intervals from head to toe. The slices were laid out with plastic supports—the body were lying on its back but stretched out so you could see the crosscut of the slices. Another body was preserved then sliced once vertically right down the middle. You can see into the chambers of the heart and lungs and stomach. It's scientific, educational, amazing, gross, and—as far as I know—unique. I have never seen an exhibit like this before. It's not a great idea to have a meal just before seeing this exhibit as we did, but fortunately no embarrassing retching occurred. Patrick and I were disappointed that they didn't show a healthy lung right next to the smoker's lung for comparison. All the bodies were presumably Chinese since we were told they came from the Museum of Life Sciences in Beijing, so we presumed all the lungs we saw today were smokers' lungs. (Maybe they couldn't show a side-by-side comparison because there are no healthy lungs in China?) Patrick and I very much enjoyed our break from work with Travis and Steve. They dropped us off at home to let us continue to work. More Corinna's website work and Lodestar work. Dinner at home by myself (Patrick was napping): I made a PANTONE dinner: leftover YCC, leftover saffron rice, orange juice. (I guess yesterday it was a PANTONE dinner as well.) More work on Lodestar.