June 2006
Summary: Peter, Phil, and Drew come for a Southern dinner; George Michael: A Different Story (Frameline 30) with Patrick; picnic in Dolores Park with Patrick; Cruel and Unusual, Letters to Dolly, and FTF: Female to Femme (Frameline 30) with Joel; mini family reunion at the Honmas home; Gay Pride Sunday with Phil and Drew
Dates on this page
Thu Jun 1, 2006
Home with a cold. Breakfast: brown sugar and cinnamon oatmeal with raisins. Lunch: sandwich. Chris today recommended the Paradise Cove luau over the Royal Hawaiian luau for when I visit with Patrick. Dinner: canned soup by myself.
Fri Jun 2, 2006
Breakfast: yogurt, an orange. Created a new account in Active Directory for our new admissions assistant. Installed Microsoft Updates. Genuine Advantage update failed to install the first time—restarting Windows fixed it. Installed Demoshield 8, which has been generously provided by Kirk at the library. Helped Polly with arranging Excel spreadsheet charts in a Word document. Helped Joel install Firefox 1.5.0.4 for his Mac laptop. Minor web page updates for James and Joel. Lunch with Joel at Burgermeister. Medicare Part D video work—gave up trying to get captions to work with QuickTime. I'm certain the problem was with the SMIL file, but Jeremy and I could not figure out what the problem was. Very frustrating. Minor VPN web page updates for Rick and John. Lunch with Joel at Burgermeister. We caught the train right when it arrived and right when it left, so round trip it was 40 minutes including eating time—the fastest Cole Valley lunch hop ever! We really enjoy the quality burgers and friendly service at Burgermeister. Today we got the lunch special, as we usually do: $6.50 gets you a Niman ranch cheeseburger with fries and a bottomless soda—an excellent lunch deal in San Francisco. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken soup. Patrick has caught the cold I had for the past week, lots of sniffling from him today. Lately I've been spending awful amounts of money trying to find clothes that fit me better. I have two stories to tell. I spent $11.95 before tax at Nordstrom's on a pair of Thorlo dress socks (thorlo.com) which say they fit shoe size 6.5 to 8.5. The front of the packaging has a white man in a business suit on it but you only see him from the waist up—apparently I'll look more like him if I wear Thurlos. Not for a single second did I believe these words on the back side of the packaging: "Thorlo's patented padding system transfers the shearing forces that normally occur within the foot's skin tissues to Thorlo's exclusive THOR*LON(R) yarns. This reduces blisters, calluses and foot fatigue." In reality, to me, this means: we added a bunch of yarn in certain spots to provide extra padding. However, the socks fit me perfectly, as my shoe size is exactly 8.5. This rather expensively solves my sizing problem for dress socks, but not for undress socks since I have never seen casual or athletic men's socks in sizes smaller than "9 to 11." My foot won't fit the largest of boy's sock sizes since I'm off the shoe scale for kids, and anyhow I haven't found boy's socks in black—only white—and I prefer wearing black socks with nearly all my outfits. The shoe and sock industries are also really screwed up in a couple of ways. First, kids shoe sizes go like this: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 1, 2, 3. I'll continue this tomorrow since Patrick is bugging me to start the movie. Briefly stopped in on the neighbors' house party. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick made homemade chicken orzo soup—yum! Watched X-Men 2 on DVD with Patrick.
Sat Jun 3, 2006
I dreamt last night that I had just gotten home from work after a long day. It was still daylight outside. I went to my bedroom, which was very large, but let's just say 30 feet square and it felt much larger. The entire room was a bed and as I pulled open the crimson red velvet draperies, I realized that the only wall was the one which held the door through which I had entered the bedroom, and I could look—or fall—hundred of stories down to the city street below beyond the edge of the bedding, which was puffy and white. The curtains gathered at posts at each of two corners, and the posts held up the rest of the building above me. Except for the posts, I had a panoramic over-180-degree view of the surrounding buildings. The wind was blowing now gently then briskly, and I felt an intense vertigo, so I backed away from the edges to the center of the room/bed. I was wearing some kind of long shirt but nothing else, and I felt just a little self-conscious and embarrassed of that. I sat in the center of the room for a while, just relaxing. After some time, I left the bedroom and went to the bathroom, which was miniscule in comparison. The sink had two very worn hair brushes, each of which had many bristles missing and long hairs stuck in the remaining ones. I used one briefly but stopped but it was filthy and ineffective. A black comb lay on the sink as well, but it had some small objects stuck in the teeth, so I didn't use it. (I can't recall from the dream what the objects were.) Tina had left some of her hair clips behind, and I didn't know when she was going to pick them up again. I returned to the bedroom and again sat in the center of the room/bed. I looked out to one of the other buildings I could see. It was a General Electric building with the famous 1950s style script G and E letters gracing the face along with some smaller lettering that I couldn't read in the dream. The building had giant windows in those rounded corner shapes which were popular in 1950s America, and through the windows I could see the insides. One entire floor was an empty, richly decorated, high-ceilinged meeting hall or ballroom which glowed and glittered with gold accents. Another floor had a party going on and though I couldn't see what kind of room it was, I could see smiling women who were dressed in glitzy costumes carrying banners or posters of some kind which were too far away to read. Another floor was empty of people but prepared for a banquet with hundreds of round tables. I looked over to another building around me, and through another window I could see a piano bar. Music and singing started unexpectedly, and I couldn't tell if it was from the piano bar or not, but I noticed at one point the singing included a "Hello Mister!" and I looked over and realized it was the woman at the piano looking over to me enthusiastically. The music was festive, and others crowded around her were obviously having a good time. I returned her smile and nodded an acknowledgment in her direction. For some reason, a glass window started to rise from the piano. It was placed in the same place where sheet music already stood, and I couldn't determine why one would have or need a glass window there. It was the kind of glass window you might have in a limousine between the driver and the rest of the car. I sat enjoying the music and singing and the breeze and the sunset for some time, and then the dream ended. After waking, in recalling the dream, I realized that everything except for the brushes and comb was perfectly clean.—Continuing from yesterday, the shoe and sock industries... Another reason is that sock size charts are entirely different than shoe size charts—why? If you search the web, you'll find many elaborate conversion tables showing shoe sizes which are different depending on the country of origin where the shoe was manufactured. Sock sizes are entirely different than shoe sizes. Even when you have what you think is the correct information, you might still have to convert between English and metric units for the physical measurement of the foot. In the United States, shoes for kids use a different scale than shoes for adults even though they have some of the same numbers. For example, a size 8 for kids is not the same size as a size 8 for adults. For a few minutes, I thought: if only someone could take all the data that's available and put it into a single chart! Then I looked up the wikipedia entry for shoe sizes and found that extremely enlightening. The article says there are 4 length units people use for measuring shoe sizes: millimetre, centimetre, Paris point (equal to 2/3 cm), and barleycorn (equal to 1/3 inch). The article also linked to Tex Texin's website; he has already created the data chart I had envisioned (shoesizeguy.com), and his entire page is fascinating to read. The Bata PDF foot measuring chart he links to is also excellent. Yesterday I said I had 2 stories to tell about spending a lot of money to find clothes that fit me properly but I never got to the second story, which is that I spent about $100 to buy a "custom" tailored shirt from Land's End. The shirt that arrived was notably of fine quality fabric, and the sleeve and neck were exactly correct, but the general size otherwise was completely wrong—too big. For example, I specified a shoulder seam to shoulder seam of 16 inches, but the shirt I got was 19 inches. Armpit to armpit I wanted 18 inches but they gave me 23 inches. Arm at bicep laid flat I specified 6.25 inches and they sent me 8 inches. I called Land's End customer service this morning and a woman answered immediately—no waiting. We talked about how the shirt turned out very differently than I had expected. When I had placed my order, I included additional measurement specifications in a box called "order instructions" but the woman I spoke with said that although the box is labeled as order instructions, it's for shipping information only. They had tried calling me at my work number, but since I was on vacation and since my voicemail doesn't permit one to leave a message while on vacation, I did not know. She said she would have Sheila—one of their experts in the custom fit process—call me. She also said I could return the shirt (at my expense, it seems) and adjust my choices online as many times as I wanted (specify "reorder, please waive shipping fees" when ordering), but I preferred to speak with a human and get it done hopefully just once. I'll continue the story when I have more news. Did a lot of house chores this morning: dishes and bathroom cleaning. Fixed Patrick's computer, which had been giving an error message every time it woke from hibernation. (Found and removed My Way Search Assistant by removing registry entries searching on "my way" and "myway".) Fixed Patrick's mouse which was occasionally erratic due to a stray hair stuck on the bottom side near the laser orifice. The mouse behaved properly after I plucked the hair out. Plank exercises. Late lunch with Patrick: turkey burgers, ritz crackers, fig bars. Car wash on Divisadero, shopping for gifts at Under One Roof in the Castro, stopped at Starbuck's for an iced latte. Dinner at Phil and Drew's. Antoine and Kartek also came over. We ate salad, rice, and boneless, herbed chicken boobs. We drank riesling and muscat. We talked about where Antoine and Kartek might move to (out of California), Beard Papa cream puffs, wine, custom shirts, the recent underwear party at 550 Barneveld Avenue (space550.com), what paso robles means in English (I think it might mean "oak steps").
Sun Jun 4, 2006
I take back what I said about the Bata shoe chart yesterday. Patrick looked at it and said it didn't make sense, and after looking at it I agree. I printed it making sure the page did not scale (print at 100%) and it does not reflect my shoe size correctly for the scale called American Scale. Helped Patrick make a cdrom of photos for his mom. The Toshiba television/dvd/vcr combo we bought her last year also accepts cdroms with mp3 files and jpeg files, so we created a cdrom for her which includes a lot of photos we think she'll enjoy. Lunch at home with Patrick: deluxe vegetarian quesadillas (asparagus, broccoli, onions, mushrooms). Patrick took a nap while I uploaded and organized photos. He thinks he'll be over his cold in another day. Backfilled data for yesterday. Dinner with Phil and Drew at Loi's Vietnamese restaurant. Afterwards, we got ice cream at Double Rainbow and walked in Golden Gate Park for a while. Brought back an order of food from Loi's for Patrick. We watched movie trailers and junk on YouTube. Sam and Dianne went to Madame Butterfly tonight.
Mon Jun 5, 2006
Set up the computer workstation for our new admissions assistant Julia who starts tomorrow. Updated software on the laptop, prepared it for Polly for the HPM retreat tomorrow. Bought toothbrushes and toothpaste. Joel didn't know the UCSF bookstore had new toothbrushes for 69 cents until today. Doctor appointment. Very late lunch at a Chinese restaurant: house special chow mein. Updated a VPN web page for Rick. Backfilled data for June 2. Patrick and reviewed our voting information and cast our absentee ballots. Patrick will deliver them to our polling place tomorrow morning.
Tue Jun 6, 2006
Lots of backing up data to CD-ROM. Updated our phone number cheat sheet. Chatted with Lucia about a scanning project. Welcomed Julia, set her up with her own password. Helped her understand our printers and how to get to network folders. Chatted with Dell about ImageBuilder. Licensing paperwork for QuickTime. Lunch with Joel at You See Sushi. I ordered a replacement shirt from Land's End today. I didn't get to speak with Sheila, but someone else helped me. I'm not certain the reordered shirt will fit, either, but I'm willing to give it a try. Bonus: they are sending me a prepaid shipping label to return the first shirt. ImageBuilder work—lots of trying to find silent install switches, working with msi and zip and building self-extracting exe files, started uploading installers. Helped Joel with a calendar view problem in Outlook. Dinner at Fuddrucker's Daly City with Patrick, Sam, and Dianne. We were short on time, so after our food arrived, we ate in about 20 minutes flat. Afterwards we saw X-Men 3: The Last Stand at Daly City Century 20. I enjoyed the movie very much—so many surprises! Be sure to stay past the end credits for about 20 seconds of wonderment.
Wed Jun 7, 2006
ImageBuilder teleconference and livemeeting and component uploading (which seemed to be broken today). Demoshield CD-ROM building. Set up e-mail for Julia. Gathered items for surplus. Helped Chris ensure that his Treo was synching properly. Scanned old class photos for Maricar. The oldest photos were from the 1950s and it was fun to see people in the old hairstyles and clothes of the era. Set up a new keyboard for Julia. Lunch: Panda Express. My fortune: Speak less of your plans—you will get more of them done. Dinner at home by myself: leftovers. Patrick, Sam, and Dianne had dinner in North Beach at the garlic restaurant. Uploaded photos. Weight training: plank, front raise, shoulder press. Late meal: two turkey burgers with cheese.
Thu Jun 8, 2006
Got a replacement hood badge for my car from Aaron at Stan Carlsen Auto Body, $14. I could have done it myself after watching them do it. Drove to Laurel Heights for a class called Supporting OS X given by Dane Riley—it was mostly review for me, but it's always good to hear Dane speak—he's an expert in all things Apple. I briefly met Tommy from CVRI—we both had to move our cars at the same time out of the 2-hour zone nearby. Gave a ride back to Parnassus to Julie, Alex, and Beth. We met Julia, David H, and John in front of the library and walked to Nan King Road Bistro for lunch. These people are other web developers at UCSF, and I proposed meeting for lunch since we hadn't had regular meetings in a long time (over a year?). It was fun and I think everyone enjoyed it. There was a lot of talk about what CMS people are using or trying out or thinking about. Same thing for image management software (Beth recommends Extensis Portfolio if your people are conscientious about process related to file naming, metadata, etc.). Julie took a lot of photos with her new camera. Computer support coordinator meeting—the shortest one ever—it ended at 3:00 PM. Chatted briefly with Tiki. Sean demoed clientless VPN—it looks pretty slick. Helped Lucia work with a fall schedule in InDesign. Helped Pollyanna check to see if we had any old e-mail from Charles's account (we didn't). Microsoft updates for all office computers—some computers failed to install WGA. On the web, I found a description with a solution involving permissions on certain keys in the registry, but this solution did not work for me. I'll just wait this one out a few days and I believe it will resolve itself with the next WGA update. Scanned in a receipt for archiving. Drove to the Castro, had dinner with Phil and Drew at the Thai restaurant at 19th and Castro. They had been doing laundry at Sit and Spin and had run into Patrick Mendoza ("Colma"). Home. Weight training: bench dips, side plank. Late meal: yogurt, leftover pad thai. Did purchase research online: tires, fire safes. Patrick and Sam went to Madame Butterfly tonight.
Fri Jun 9, 2006
Breakfast: usual oatmeal meal (cinnamon raisin oatmeal with brown sugar), yogurt, orange juice. Spent most of today prepping a Flickr account called UCSF School of Pharmacy, adding a profile description, links to groups and interests. Went to the post office to mail some packages. Lunch at Posh Bagel: roast cow with cheddar on sweet roll, a banana, large Sprite no ice (about $8). Doctor appointment. Dinner with Patrick, Phil, and Drew at Phil and Drew's place. Apple and cashew sesame salad, lasagna, dinner rolls and butter, rose.
Sat Jun 10, 2006
Breakfast: essentially same as yesterday. Patrick and I changed the battery in the fire alarm. Patrick did laundry. Ordered new tires over the phone, will have them installed next week. I wanted to put some touch-up paint on my car in a few spots but a light drizzle was falling, so I'll wait until later. Adjusted the positions of the front windshield sprayers. Patrick cut his hair and took a shower. He's been starting to cut his own hair with our hair clippers lately. I think this is the second time. Patrick and I ate lunch at Pasta Pomodoro Japantown/Kabuki (415-674-1826, 1865 Post Street). I had chicken parmigiana with soup, Patrick had casereccie with salad, extra dressing. We both had iced tea to drink. We both enjoyed our meals. Afterwards, we tried a new dessert they call delizia—sort of a strawberry version of tiramisu. It consists of ladyfingers soaked in grand marnier layered with marinated strawberries and mascarpone zabaion. (I don't know what zabaion is—do you?) We both liked it, and Patrick liked it slightly more than I did. (Sorry, no photos—I forgot!) Alexandra was our server; she was attentive for the first half of our meal, neglectful for the second. Our meal was $23.54 before a $4 tip. Our dessert was free because of an offer in the Pasta Pomodoro club, of which I'm a member. Then did some shopping at Office Depot on Geary (415-831-1080, 3700 Geary Blvd). I took a nap. Patrick did more laundry and worked on Lodestar. I woke up. Patrick had left for Wei's. I did weight training: bridge, crunch, push-up, bench dip. Late dinner: blueberry yogurt, turkey burgers.
Sun Jun 11, 2006
Woke up and put in my contact lenses but then fell asleep again until noon. Woke, removed my contact lenses. Called Cliff who is taking my old Onstream drive and tapes which I'm giving away because I don't think it's worth any money on eBay. Lunch at home by myself: canned soup. Errands at Walgreen's. Was going to go grocery shopping but didn't have the energy—still tired! Chatted with the neighbors. Prepared the first Land's End custom shirt for return. Set up our new fire safe. Vacuumed. Performed monthly backups. Archived documents. Uploaded photos. On Flickr, the slideshow of the pool called The Infinite Flickr is freaky and fun to watch.
Mon Jun 12, 2006
Got an echocardiogram done today—the docs say all is well. Put together a shopping list for Susie—new digicam equipment totaling about $600. ImageBuilder work. CD-ROM work. Ordered a mouse pad with wrist rest for Julia. Lunch at Park Chow by myself: wild fish sandwich daily special (today was mahi mahi) with fries, lemonade. About $15 after a $2 tip. Web updates, link checking, posted new schedules for Lucia, updated current students news. Met with Susie—caught up on many weeks of no meetings. Refreshed long-term server backup. Dinner at home with Patrick: tomato and mozzarella sandwiches, side bowls of chili. Uploaded photos.
Tue Jun 13, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast at home. Took the car in to the garage. The engine light had been on for days and then recently it no longer stayed lit after the car was started. Estimate to run full computer diagnostics: $50. Student computing committee meeting, Mark B guest stars, I chatted with Kirk afterwards. Reposted a schedule for Lucia. Checked in with our friends Alison and Lynn at UCTV about another program starring one of our faculty. Updated the file transfer options web page. Redirected a request from one of our faculty to the right person. Checked in with Rick about getting Sean to do a demo of clientless VPN for the committee. Followed up with our Apple contact regarding licensing for QuickTime only (not iTunes—no faculty are requiring it yet). Updated web pages regarding ExactChoice. Worked out a way for Jason to deliver GALEN toolbar installers to me. Telephone meeting with Tiki: security awareness topics. Started coding new pages for a new continuing education event coming in September. Met with Rodney and Chris to discuss software needs in the IRC. On the way to the garage, I chatted with Garrett S, manager of the UCSF Technology Store, and we talked about how he might be able to help us meet the needs of our students better. He was hired about a year ago, and since then the store has seen many changes for the better. It feels more efficient, more actively participating in the UCSF community. Picked up the car from the garage. Turns out the gas cap somehow was loose. $45. Weight training: front raise, plank, push-ups. Lunch: fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed vegetables, dinner roll. Dinner at home with Patrick: lemon-garlic roast chicken, steamed broccoli, bread and butter. Mike of Mike's Adblocking Hosts file updated his hosts file today—he's a super guy.
Wed Jun 14, 2006
My favorite breakfast at home with Patrick. Telecommute day. Set up linkchecking for Jeff to point to his new site (still not yet launched). Security awareness poster work. Lunch with Patrick: leftovers. Patrick took a nap. ImageBuilder training. Clientless VPN testing. Early dinner: frozen pizza. Dealt with health care paperwork for the emergency room visit in Hawaii. Found 2 different microphones for Patrick to use for a project he's working on. Archived car repair info. Uploaded photos. Weight training: bridge, bench dips, shoulder shrugs. Late meal: canned soup. Patrick is with Wei tonight.
Thu Jun 15, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast at home. Dropped off the car at the tire shop to get 4 new tires installed (Falken Ziex ZE512). The shop had one of their men give me a lift in to work—that was very helpful. Security awareness poster work for Tiki. The tire shop calls and says my car needs new struts—another $1,000. I say yes. Where is Chris Radu when I need him to help me make decisions like these? James and I figured out some historical fact about when he posted a certain file to the web using data from my journal and some sleuthing of last modified date stamps on files we uploaded. He needed the information to report to someone else who was asking about it. It was somewhat surprising to me we were able to find what he needed since I know I don't write about every little detail of my life, but when we both saw the evidence he needed staring back at us I felt as though my journal had a little life of its own. Chatted briefly with Rick about clientless VPN testing and spysweeper. Lunch with Joel at Pomelo (415-731-6175, 92 Judah Street). He had manila (rice noodles) and I had avignon (beef stew). Delicious! Dell ImageBuilder work—problems with component upload. BITS says it uploads but they don't appear when I go to look in my component manager. Left work. Hailed a cab and after I got in I realized I didn't have much cash on me. The cabbie didn't seem to care—the fare was off by only about $5 and I was very grateful. Picked up the car at the tire shop. I had to wait for them to finish the alignment (even though they told me the car was done around 11:00 AM?). Carlos gave me a free coupon for a free car wash across the street. The car was dirty, so I took it over and it was an automated deal—I didn't have to get out of the car. An attendant took my coupon, and I was through the wash in about 10 minutes—fast. Drove home. Patrick and I had Peter, Phil, and Drew over for dinner. Patrick made jambalaya, salad, cornbread, Southern iced tea.
Fri Jun 16, 2006
I forgot to mention yesterday after Rick and I chatted I remembered how to uninstall Webroot SpySweeper Enterprise: Search for ssecleanup.exe (mine is located in C:\WINDOWS\Temp\webroot), then execute it. I recommend restarting afterwards. (how to uninstall Webroot Spy Sweeper Enterprise.) After I sent Rick the solution, I found that he had sent me the same solution a few hours earlier and I had missed seeing it. Proposed an explanatory message about vacation messages not getting distributed properly to Mark and Ian. Checked in with Rick regarding clientless VPN testing—Chris found problems when running Outlook through SSL. Ian sent around a link to Meedu—it's either a podcasting service or Greedo's brother, I can't tell for certain. I forwarded it to some others who might be interested. Checked in with Garrett about his schedule and when can he come to one of our committee meetings. Scanned in 28 pages for Cindy to PDF. Confirmed pharmacy.ucsf.edu was down as reported by Julie due to some DNS problem following the server's move last night from Parnassus to Mission Bay. Met with Cindy. Forwarded Cindy links to our Flickr project currently still in development. Forwarded Cindy info on Sublit—she was needing a suggestion for a large-scale provider of html e-mail messaging. Handled legal name changes from the Registrar. Provided feedback to Alex regarding his Google Maps mashup. Student computing committee work: getting Sygate on the next agenda. ImageBuilder work, chatted with Mike D—they're having problems with the login process—I can't do any good with ImageBuilder until that's fixed. Announced 2-week warning for listserv rotation. Discovered in the process of doing that that our secure e-mail system doesn't work with listserv messages, chatted with Danica briefly about it. Security awareness edits/refresh of PDFs for Tiki. Late lunch: leftovers, salad, fresh fruit. Refreshed graduating students calendar and related web pages. Updated graduation ceremony page with the date announced by Joel. Reported a problem with the secure e-mail server certificate which had expired on September 21, 2005. Confirmed pharmacy.ucsf.edu is back up after admins reported the problem was fixed, announced it. Checked in with Lucia, got her to say I didn't have to repost two new schedules since it's still very early. Dinner with Phil and Drew: chicken, salad. Patrick and I brought dessert from Tartine: four chocolate eclairs. I took a nap while Phil, Drew, and Patrick talked in the living room. Patrick and I left for a film at frameline 30 (aka San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival) at the Castro Theatre. Tickets were $10 each. George Michael: A Different Story gave a close look at the pop superstar of the 1980s and 1990s. I remember having Fantastic! on vinyl and enjoyed much of Wham! and George Michael's early solo career but never followed his much very much after that. The video of him in interviews was enlightening to me. Patrick and I both enjoyed the film. While in line we happened to see BriKel, and in the theatre I also saw Joel and Michele.
Sat Jun 17, 2006
I read in sneeper's blog that Scott got a blister pack injury recently. I hate blister packs! I would love to create and sell special blister pack scissors and extra long, extra heavy blister pack protection gloves and sell them in blister packs just for the horrible irony. (Kind of like how Lysol should always be sold in pairs.) Of course, the real solution would be for everyone to simply not purchase items packaged in blister pack or, if you bought the item online, return it specifically for that reason. Patrick says he has finished all the music for his new album, but at the same time he says he's not happy with track 4, Grinding Pepper. I think he's not done yet. Slept in today til 11 or 12. Snack: yogurt, fruit smoothie (banana, nectarine, oj). Lunch with Patrick at home: lemon chicken, fries, mint iced tea. Patrick left for Wei's. It's a really beautiful warm, clear, sunny day today, but I'm feeling unmotivated to do anything. Repaired my entry for June 10—had a tag in the wrong place in the code. Oops! Uploaded photos. Cut my hair. Dinner: leftovers. Continued reading from Kavalier and Clay. I learned about the November 28, 2005 Seattle monorail crash from the group called Top 20 Seattle on Flickr which included a great photo by thedavematthews. I hadn't heard this news and it was shocking to me.
Sun Jun 18, 2006
I slept in. Patrick and I bought KFC and had a picnic in Dolores Park. I sat in the sun, he sat in the shade. The park was crowded, and we watched people barbecue, dogs play. We read, me from Kavalier and Clay, Patrick from (fill in later). Afterwards, we bought groceries at Safeway. Dinner: Leftovers. Weight training: plank, bridge, bench dips, push-ups.
Mon Jun 19, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Responded to student questions about wireless and VPN, server security, and archiving e-mail. Learned today from ImageBuilder support that Dell ImageBuilder is not compatible with Firefox. More specifically, they said, "Firefox has problems" with ImageBuilder rather than the other way around. Minor web updates scripted to go live on July 1 regarding position changes in Clinical Pharmacy. Arranged with one of our web hosts to have payment for web hosting, domain reg, and SSL cert all at the same time to simplify billing. Created another SATE poster—easy, took only a few minutes (back up your data). Minor web edits for James. Lunch: Panda bowl with fried rice, veggies, and mandarin chicken. (I lost my fortune!) CD-ROM work. Lots of workstation maintenance: Microsoft updates, Winamp update, hosts file update, reinstalled SpySweeper, Firefox updates, Firefox plug-in updates. Patrick had a really bad headache when he got home this evening, so he took some ibuprofen followed by a bath and went directly to bed. For dinner I had a salad and leftover corn on the cob. Chris sent me a cd of the rest of my photo originals as well as the original print of the luau photo. Archived data. Weight training: plank. Tried getting the scroller on my Microsoft Wheel Mouse optical to work in OS X—currently it does nothing. I found and installed IntelliPoint 6 for OS X and restarted the Mac but the scroller still doesn't work. The vertical scroll option is selected in the new Microsoft Mouse control panel. Found a bunch of web pages on OS X keyboard shortcuts.
Tue Jun 20, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Made live web edits for James. Listserv work. ImageBuilder work: I realize I needed a new unattended installer from Rick for Sophos. Helped Cindy with a problem with the Out of Office Assistant; fixed it tho now I can't remember if the fix was the Resiliency fix or reenabling the DLL in Help About. Responded to various student inquiries. Graduation e-mail work. Helped Betty-ann with a PowerPoint poster template and troubleshooting why the FedEx Kinko's software won't install on her brand new Toshiba Protege due to error 1722. Computer requirements work updating web pages. Called a mail order catalog company, asked for no more catalogs and "do not rent" please. I ate lunch on the steps outside of the library partly in the sun, partly in the shade. Panda bowl with chow mein, veggies, chicken and mushrooms. I read from Kavalier and Clay. My fortune: YOU WILL HAVE FULL CONTENTMENT BY SUMMER'S END, which made me wonder who Summer was and when was I going to meet him? More workstation updates. Home. Snack: yogurt. Dinner at home with Patrick: frozen pizza. Weight training: dumbbell fly, standing dumbbell curl, bridge, plank. Snack: yogurt. Updated from TextWrangler 2.1.1 to 2.1.3. Archived a photo.
Wed Jun 21, 2006
Converted a document to PDF for Cindy. Reminded grads that their e-mail accounts were closing at the end of September. Sent a second Flickr project announcement draft to Susie and Cindy. Chatted with student SS about how to resolve a virus-infected laptop with no original Win XP cdrom. (Talk to Best Buy.) Checked in with Rick who says he's not able to furnish an unattended installer for Sophos. Tested a survey for Joel. Met with Susie. We talked a lot about the Flickr project we're (I'm) planning. Student status meeting with Doug C and lots of other systems owners and users. Updated the school's org chart for Susie. 30th International LGBT Film Festival with Joel, who had invited me to accompany him to two of the many shows to which he bought tickets. I'd had a meeting at 3 and Joel left without me at 4:30, leaving the tickets on my desk. I returned to my desk at 4:40 and tried reaching him, but (I found out later) he had forgotten his cellphone. I got to the Castro Theatre about 20 minutes before the show only to discover that my ticket said the Victoria Theatre instead. I took a cab to the Victoria and met Joel—first in line—just as the line was let in. The first film we saw was Cruel and Unusual. No, that's the name of the film. It was about transsexuals in prison and how they get there, how they are discriminated against and denied health care, how some of them end up mutilating themselves in the absence of a more compassionate justice and incarceration system. Parts of the film are very difficult to watch, and the film certainly made me realize how much these people suffer and how little effort it would take for society to reduce that suffering. We had a 45-minute break, but Joel didn't want to lose our front-row seats, so we stayed in the theatre (they allowed it) instead of leaving to get dinner. The second film we saw was Letters to Dolly, a short, self-analytical love poem to and about Dolly Parton, or rather, the image of Dolly Parton. Joel is an avid fan of Dolly, and he loved the film, as did many in the audience, judging by the applause. Our third film of the evening was FTF: Female to Femme, a documention of the recent emergence of a feminist backlash against the feminist backlash against the male definition of female beauty. I knew not of the invisibility of femme lesbians, so this film was yet another educational experience for me. So odd to see women accusing feminist women of oppression, but there it is. It sounded to me as though the point of the film was that men in the 1950s were wrong, but so were women—and lesbians—in the 1980s and now what we (the filmmakers) think is that femininity should be recognized as being many different things along the spectrum of butch to femme—there is no single ideal—and that each woman has the opportunity and right to define that femininity for herself. Makes sense to me. The film included several people whom Patrick and I have published in Lodestar Quarterly: Elizabeth Stark, Meliza Bañales, Jewelle Gomez. The second screening was frustrating because the projector lamp burned out twice, causing significant delays. We got out of the theatre around 10:30 PM and had a very late dinner at Pancho Villa, which Joel calls "The Panch." Joel had dos tacos dinner and I had dos enchiladas dinner. The enchilada sauce here is too spicy for me. James had asked me to the symphony tonight—he had an extra ticket—but I was already going to the filmfest with Joel. Home very late—around midnight. Lunch today was from the cafeteria: salisbury steak with brown rice, veggies, and a dinner roll with butter.
Thu Jun 22, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Updated schedules for Lucia. Built a new installer stub for QuickTime. Apple won't let us preinstall it on our Dell laptop so I have to build a special installer to just copy it to My Documents and put an Install QuickTime 7 shortcut on the desktop and in the All Programs menu. Created a desktop background for the Dell laptop. Lunch at desk: fish and chips. OS X meeting. During the meeting, the projector lamp burned out, which was weird for me considering yesterday's happenings. QuickTime license work. Computer requirements web edits. ImageBuilder work. Workstation maintenance. Dinner at home with Patrick: pot roast over steamed rice, salad, crescent rolls. I noticed for the first time today that Google Advanced Search now includes usage rights, so you can (theoretically), for example, search for works in the public domain. Haven't tried it yet, tho. Chatted with the neighbors about gardening. Met Jordan when the neighbors brought him over.
Fri Jun 23, 2006
Yogurt for pre-breakfast. Today I traveled to Oakland for a meeting called by Dan G about IT strategy and how UCOP can help. Representatives from all the UC campuses were present and included faculty, students, staff, and systems administrators. The meeting was well organized and I thought the time flew by very quickly. Breakfast was provided—I had a salty bagel with cream cheese, a small slice of quiche, some fresh fruit (the strawberry I had was particularly sweet). During the provided lunch they did an Oprah-in-the-audience style of question and answer panel with students which was very informative. One student from UCLA talked about how she and her classmates use handheld, infrared, vote-taking devices to take quizzes and the results are show within seconds on a display. Many of the students called for IT developers to involve students earlier in the design process—an old familiar tune from recommended web usability best practices ten years ago and just plain usability best practices from before that. Students use Facebook, LiveJournal, and other social networking sites and check them daily. Students are starting to rely on RSS and are very enthusiastic about it. What one person said struck me as very valuable: "the student experience from prospect to alumni"—all too often computer systems are procured, designed, and implemented without this regard to creating relationships with students at every point of contact over time, and this is the reason for many of our IT problems along the way. They used a different vote-taking system called OptionFinder during our meeting—it was the first time I had seen or used it and it was pretty neat even if the controllers looked like out of the 1970s or 1980s. I forgot to mention that at the filmfest showing on Wednesday Joel and I enjoyed chatting with several of the women in the audience. Napped. Late meal: leftovers. Read news, studied OS X keyboard shortcuts. I am seeking an OS X screensaver that will pull image data from Flickr RSS feeds. If you know of one, please let me know.
Sat Jun 24, 2006
Today is the first time I've noticed spam in my junk e-mail folder that is in French. The from line said: "BDSM & Amateurs" and the subject line said: "Les derniers escorts d'Escorteam!" I learned today that there exist in our world Mandarin-speaking Jehovah's Witnesses. I never knew! Installed Slickr (Windows only)—it's very nice, the best of all the Flickr screensavers I found for Windows so far. Read Adobe Proxy (volume 2, issue 2)—disappointing (still) for so many reasons. Unsubscribed from Adobe Proxy. This evening, Patrick and I watched Madonna's I'm going to tell you a secret—a behind-the-scenes look at her Re-Invention World Tour. The film was longer than I had expected—the disc says 148 minutes, and I'm guessing that doesn't include the bonus features. It's very slickly edited—the audio contains very little of the audience noise, and the documentary filmography incorporates the footage of the video that appeared on the giant screens behind her on stage. My favorite part was hearing her young daughter Lola translate an English sentence to French for her. Second favorite part: the reaction of her father and stepmother to her concert which they had just seen. Third favorite part: her son Rocco's charming whining. I'll tell you a secret: she doesn't tell you her secret until the very end, and I found it fascinating to have watched Madonna arrive at this maturity through these 25+ years. You'll want to see this film to understand her modern American life.
Sun Jun 25, 2006
I found out yesterday my emergency room visit cost me $600. Not bad, considering the health plan paid about $3,100. Today is Gay Pride Sunday. Two cousins of mine—Jeanne and Angel—were in the Bay Area today, so I arranged to meet them at my sister's place in Mountain View. My brother showed up as well. We met Angel's husband Jonny. Rob and the kids saw us briefly before they took off (for church?). Lani was on her way back from Portland—she would just miss us before they all went to Mount Herman for a retreat. The rest of us had brunch at Country Gourmet (408-733-9446, 1314 S. Mary Avenue, Sunnyvale) where we enjoyed delicious food on the patio and caught up on family happenings. Afterwards, Patrick and I drove back to San Francisco. Patrick spent the afternoon with Wei, and I had dinner with Phil and Drew: salad, garlic bread, angel hair with meatballs. They have a brand new back door which lets air in but not bugs. (It's not exactly what I'd call a screen door.) After dinner, Phil, Drew, and I walked to the Castro. The night was cold and the fog was rolling in, but people were still reveling in the bars following the gay pride parade. We got cocoa and chai tea at Cafe Flore.
Mon Jun 26, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Downloaded photos from the digicam for Betty-ann. Uploaded them to a download site for her, also burned a backup CD for her. Computer requirements work. Posted the computer reqs for fall 2006. Had an e-mail conversation with one of our entering students. ImageBuilder work: reported a problem, got it confirmed as a bug, did my build. Lunch: double cheeseburger, fries, orange juice from the cafeteria. (I couldn't finish it.) Unpacked the new digicam—a Canon PowerShot A620—and a new battery charger. Dinner at home with Patrick: bowties with grilled chicken and veggies. Got a few good laughs browsing through the Flickr pool called bumperstickers. Weight training: bench dip.
Tue Jun 27, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Bought some scotch tape and x-acto knife blades from the bookstore for use at home. Bought a new ID badge holder from the bookstore. Student computing committee meeting. Sean S demoed SSL VPN and answered all of our difficult questions. Garrett S talked with us about computer configs, working with Apple and Dell, repair services offered by Eaton and Associates. A very productive meeting. Installed software for the Canon PowerShot A620 digicam. ImageBuilder work—I got an error message when attempting to download ISO files. Lunch at desk by myself: taco, tortilla chips, pasta salad, fresh fruit (oranges, pineapple). Apps training for Julia. Set up the grads listserv. Updated the maps page. Workstation maintenance for Chris. Winamp updates. Chatted with Chris late about data security and other topics. Dinner at home by myself: Patrick's leftover pad thai. Chatted with Nate. Installed Mac OS 10.4.7 at home. Weight training: push-up, plank, squat.
Wed Jun 28, 2006
I finally got around to trying on a pair of dress socks that I bought at Nordstrom months ago. Like the Thorlos I bought on the same day, these were $12 for one pair. The size on it says "shoe size 5.5-7.5" but I took a gamble and it paid off—they fit perfectly. I wear shoe size 8.5. Yesterday our landlord helped us remove a bunch of junk from our back yard that previous tenants had left behind. In San Francisco, you can schedule a pickup for large items with the garbage company and they come and take it away. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Telecommute day except I had a meeting on campus at 2:00. Worked on student computing committee things. Lunch: leftovers. Left for the meeting. Dan canceled 15 minutes before the meeting started, so I notified Susie (who was at the gas station) and then went to meet Julie and Thom. It was my first time seeing Thom again after his interview awhile back—he started at UCSF 2 days ago and seems to be enjoying it very much. I showed them my office and the IRC and then we chatted in the student lounge for about an hour. More student computing committee work. Dinner at home with Patrick: cow stir-fry with mushrooms, bell peppers, and onions; steamed rice. Weight training: lateral raise, dumbbell shrug, tricep kickback, hammer curl. Late meal: leftovers.
Thu Jun 29, 2006
I received my 2nd custom shirt from Land's End a few days ago and finally found time to try it on. It has the exact same problem that the first one did, despite their walking me through adjustments to my previous order. My feedback to them was this: "Your custom shirt service is extremely disappointing because I told you with my first order exactly what I needed and you simply ignored it. This is the reorder which was supposed to fix everything but it has the exact same problem as the first one. I will never trust Land's End again." The problem was that the shirt was simply too big. I specified armpit-to-armpit and bicep-laid-flat measurements in my first order and Land's End sent me a shirt that didn't meet those measurements. I called to reorder, but they could not guarantee what those measurements would come out to before you order, nor, it seems, can they adjust them. (For the shirt I ordered, they were, respectively, 19 inches, and 8 inches.) I suppose I will need to find a tailor now. This online custom shirt business is not working for me. Only yogurt for breakfast. Today was very productive. I created a backup ghost image of the Dell laptop we're configuring so I could restore it when I'm done testing with it. I downloaded ISO files from ImageBuilder and burned them to CD-ROM. I reimaged the Dell laptop with the newly burned CD-ROMs to test the build I created in ImageBuilder. There are some problems, which I documented. I took photos of the Dell laptop and uploaded them to Flickr and added notes to clarify things like what ports are what. I went to the doctor. I bought new Muni passes for Patrick and me. I followed up with Apple on the custom store we're setting up with them. I followed up with Apple licensing on our QuickTime license agreement—they finally fixed one but not the other. I helped Julia get a list of filenames into electronic format by using a DOS window and Microsoft Word. Lunch was two mini meals of leftovers during the day, one around 11:30 AM and the other around 4:00 PM. Late dinner at home by myself at 9:00 PM: leftovers. Patrick is at Andrew Holleran's reading tonight. Felice Picano is going to be there as well. Patrick received an encouraging word from his agent today, but nothing more concrete. Chris sent me some links to some OS X Flickr screen savers (thanks!), and I tried several of them but didn't like any of them enough to keep. The best was ShuffleSaver, but I wasn't happy with the low resolution of the images it downloaded. Weight training: plank, bridge.
Fri Jun 30, 2006
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Cindy and I met to discuss our web Flickr project. Tiki and I were supposed to meet for lunch today, but I couldn't reach her by telephone and she didn't show up. Instead, I had a very late lunch with Joel at You See Sushi. I rotated the listservs, did ImageBuilder work, sent Sean some suggestions on the forthcoming VPN rollout, updated the STOR link on the current students page based on a suggestion submitted by student MP, reposted some schedules for Lucia, followed up with Julie and Dan about a student reporting problems accessing our site from student housing at Mission Bay, agreed to sub for Rodney while he was out on vacation on Monday. Dinner at home by myself: canned soup. Patrick met with Wei tonight, came home around 9:45 PM. Weight training: squat, hammer curl, front raise, bent over dumbbell row. Late snack: mac and cheese.