Journal

June 2007

Summary: Dinners at home with Remi and Jesse, Jen and Lou. Patrick announces the end of Lodestar Quarterly. Dianne visits. Chris and Nate move from Honolulu to San Francisco. Tina visits. Underwear party. Tina and Daniel visit. Gay Pride with Patrick, Chris, and Nate. Dinner at home with Tony Q, Phil, Chris, Nate, and Patrick. Union Square shopping with Patrick. Dinner with Chris, Nate, Phil, Danny, Drew, and Patrick at Phil, Danny, and Drew's.

Dates on this page

Fri Jun 1, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Chatted with student HC on the way to work. Linkchecking. Chatted with Susie about Partners in D website navigation drafts and options. Interview prep, interview. Lunch: student picnic in the 5th floor Lange Room at the library. The patio was open—a rare occasion—but it was cold and windy and overcast outside, so I spent only a few minutes checking out the view out there. Chatted with Chris C and lots of students. Archived data to dvdrw. Minor web update: emergency and safety. Watched SNL Taco Town in the office—some hadn't seen it and others had forgotten they had seen it. It's still gut-bursting funny even after repeat viewings. Graduate PC stopped by to hand out mango gummy candy to the office. Betty-ann's retirement party, chatted with Betty-ann, students, faculty, and staff. Drafted fall 2008 admissions calendar, sent to Steaven for review and approval. Shopped for new Dell computers for the office. (Sorry, Apple—I would have bought 9 Mac Minis within the next 8 months if only you had stayed in the game.) Ugh, there's another update for Winamp again? There's no automatic update—only an automatic notification feature—and for users who aren't given admin permissions the notices of a new Winamp version are not helpful. As much as I love Winamp, I am finding it very tedious to support. Dinner at home with Patrick: roasted lemon chicken, potatoes, carrots. Watched Heroes episode 1 with Patrick. We decided to rewatch Volume 1 from the beginning again. We're sure there are things which would be more interesting or enlightening if we rewatched the whole first season. As before, we're watching from the web, and it's commercial-free probably due to Mike's ad blocking hosts file. Patrick thinks Mrs. Petrelli's shoplifting incident is significant or might be a clue to her powers. Dessert: 3 Girl Scout Thin Mints each.

Sat Jun 2, 2007

Cut my hair, cleaned the bathroom, showered. Usual oatmeal breakfast. I predict that Starbucks will someday introduce the concept of "bright coffee" which is coffee with whitening agents to whiten your teeth while you drink coffee. Similarly, "bright tea"—they chose "bright" over "white" to distinguish from "white tea." Returned mail order purchases that didn't fit me to The Gap. Checked out the new H and M at Stonestown—it's only women's clothing—bah! Light meal at Daphne's. Grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. Home. Patrick prepared dinner for tonight. I cleaned and made autoclave room and hand towel signs for Danny and processed and uploaded photos. I went crazy with velcro. Dinner at home with Remi and Jesse and Patrick: Michael Flynn's menu for 4: apple, pear, and arugula salad with balsamic vinaigrette; grilled salmon steaks (but grilled chicken for Jesse) on warm niçoise vegetables with homemade basil pesto, Tina Luu's crème brulée. Posted videos to youtube under username ffarm3000.

Sun Jun 3, 2007

Lunch at Won Ton House (415-753-6688, 1325-1327 Noriega Street) by myself: shrimp dumplings with noodles soup. I like that this restaurant has a near-perfect health inspection score of 98. Dinner at home with Patrick, Jen, and Lou: Jamie Oliver's prawn and pea risotto with basil and mint, garlic bread, caprese salad.

Mon Jun 4, 2007

Interview prep. Laptop setup for student MB. Video transcoding (law review). Helped student HB with WebCT. Pre-lunch: leftovers. Interview. Post-lunch: leftovers. Laptop setup for student MB. Video transcoding (law review). Chatted briefly with Shane S about the out list and Google Maps mashups. Remove and reinstall Sygate for Carol. Install remote scanning for Alyssa. CDROM project followup with instructors. Figured out how to clear the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) password on an IBM/Lenovo T43 2668-C6U, thanks to milkster of Toronto, Canada who posted the following answer (which I have slightly revised) on Monday, August 28, 2006 at 6:05 PM:

1. Shut down the ThinkPad laptop.
2. Turn on the ThinkPad laptop, then immediately press the Esc key once every 2 seconds until you see white text scroll on a black background indicating that drivers are loading.
3. Hold down the power button for about 4 seconds to turn off the ThinkPad laptop. Note: The machine must shut off before Windows starts. If you let Windows start and continue below, you will not get the option to clear the TPM!
4. Turn on the ThinkPad laptop, and press the F1 key once every 2 seconds until you see a message saying that you're entering the BIOS.
5. One of the sections will deal with security settings—select it.
6. In this section, there should now be an option that will let you clear the embedded security chip. If you don't see it, return to step 1.
7. Save and exit the BIOS. The computer should start normally.

Dinner at home with Patrick: pasta with green beans in marinara. Watched Heroes Volume 1 Episode 2 on nbc.com. Embedded a YouTube video in my June 2 entry but it doesn't show up in Sage and I don't know why not yet.

Tue Jun 5, 2007

Laptop troubleshooting for student JC. Interview prep, interview. Student MB stopped by to pick up a computer and left me a very nice bottle of wine. Laptop troubleshooting for student LE. Chatted with my mom and my sister on the phone. Took an N-Judah train to Duboce Park. I luckily got a seat but after a few seconds I realized I wasn't so lucky because the man seated next to me talked with his hands a lot to his friend next to him and that would not have been a problem if he didn't have a black in pen in his hand. He had a stack of blank cards on his knee and was writing the same thing at the top of each card. I feared that his hand would stray in the vicinity of my suit causing possibly irreparable grief. In my experience, Muni trains jolt, bus drivers play chicken with other cars on the road forcing sudden stops, people occasionally shove their way through or trip over some slacker's foot which is hanging in the aisle—all kinds of unfortunate things happen on Muni if you're not paying attention and even sometimes when you are. I got up, noticed more empty seats in the rear car, then switched. In the rear car, a policeman or Muni security official was doing the same thing—walking around with an uncapped pen in his hand. Muni officials were checking for fast passes today. I saw one woman receive a ticket. I hurried past and around him—not too quickly as to arouse suspicion, but he checked me for a fast pass anyway (which I had, of course). Dinner at Harvey's (415-431-4278, 500 Castro Street at 18th Street) with Patrick and Mom Ryan. Harvey's recently renovated—it's mostly new and nice inside with fine wood finishes all over. There's nothing on the walls except one painting. On the way over it was freezing cold with strong gusts of very cold wind. This sure ain't like Seattle in June, I'll tell you that. I had lemon tea and a ranch wrap with crispy chicken and side salad with ranch dressing. Patrick had tea and a spicy buffalo chicken salad. Mom Ryan had tea and a chicken and mushroom panini sandwich. The food here is essentially all stuff people might normally eat for lunch rather than dinner. Joel, for example, might come for dinner, take one look at the menu, and then walk out. We couldn't get dessert because they didn't have any to offer (!). "We're still working on it," we were told. The music was too loud for us to have a comfortable conversation, but otherwise we had a good experience at the new Harvey's Restaurant. $44.64 after a $6 tip—typical for a non-alcoholic dinner for 3 in San Francisco. Home. Left a message for Nate. Chatted with Tina.

Wed Jun 6, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Sent graduate KT info about how to purchase Microsoft Office or install Open Office. Sent Outlook tip #16 to Alyssa, Scott, and Carol. Student LE picked up laptop. Met with Cindy one on one. Pre-lunch: leftover risotto. Grievance procedures edits for Cindy. Listserv update for Cindy. Updated the org chart for Bob D. Helped Cindy with creating Excel charts from Excel data. Org chart scripting for forthcoming changes. Post-lunch: taco from Carmelina's. Flickred—haven't Flickred in the work account in a while. More org chart subsite scheduled edits. Prepped fall draft schedules for posting, sent it to Lucia for review. Computer admin: Installed Winamp 5.35 and Firefox 2.0.0.4 for most office users. Reviewed Partners in D site layout mockups for Susie, sent back feedback including an edited comp. Chatted with Tina on the phone. Dinner at home with Patrick: bacon-wrapped pork chops, rice pilaf, arugula salad with tomatoes. Checked on billpaying. Announced the end of Lodestar Quarterly. Patrick went to Costco during the day today and picked up a 25-pack of assorted colors of Sharpies for about $12 and a Sony DVP-NS71HP DVD player. Sometimes when we watch DVDs using the computer things don't work right. Problems happen in both Windows and OS X. These problems are not consistent, but very frustrating when there is no easy workaround. A standalone DVD player will likely save us loads of troubleshooting time in the future. How we shopped: Patrick told me over the phone which four DVD players they had at Costco. I checked listings and reviews on pricegrabber and amazon, then called him back in about 15 minutes with the selection. My notes:

1. Toshiba SD-K770, $40 - NO (no listing on pricegrabber or amazon)
2. Samsung DVD-HD870C, $70 - NO (average rating is 3 on amazon, no listing on pricegrabber)
3. Sony SLVD281P, $90 - NO (no listing on pricegrabber or amazon)
4. Sony DVPNS71H, $120 - YES (no listing on pricegrabber)

The Sony DVP-NS71HP had essentially all favorable reviews. At $120 it was 3 times more expensive than the least expensive model at Costco, but this is a small price to pay for time savings and product satisfaction. I hope it works with our computer monitor—I didn't bother to check. Minor tweaks to Lodestar to put it in hibernation mode. I received a package from my mom today but haven't yet opened it—no time. Still haven't put the Hawaii trip in the journal. It's starting to make it back to the top of my to do list. Also forthcoming: adding more images to Danny's website. Today at work there were no public foods or snacks at all the entire day—this rarely happens.

Thu Jun 7, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Morning run: 20 minutes. I haven't been very good at remembering to include when I exercise because I haven't been very good about exercising. I also started back in on weight training on Sunday. Just trying to stay a little more fit than I've been in the past. The students had their quarterly bagel day, so I stopped by the bagel table to visit, then took a few photos of Saunders Court—the school's Flickr photostream hasn't had anything new lately. Laptop maintenance: MacBook. When I pulled out our office MacBook, I plugged it in but noticed that the plug didn't fit quite right. I unplugged it and found a mangled staple stuck in the power connector. How'd that get in there? Oh yeah, it's magnetic! More computer maintenance—this time it's the old laptop. Helped Lucia test network scanning to her computer—it works! Made a welcome back sign for Scott who has been in Egypt for the past 3 weeks (!). Snack: bagel and light cream cheese. Student computing committee cdrom status and Tech Store report. Uploaded Saunders Court photos to Flickr. Fellowship e-mail admin for fellow MP. Lunch at Pomelo by myself. Used urltea.com for the first time today. Noticed that you can see potentially confidential information simply by entering 3 random characters such as http://urltea.com/q0c (an evite to Alexis and Michael's party this Saturday). Interestingly, http://urltea.com/325 is a short URL to a competing URL-shortening service called notlong.com. Chatted with Danica about how to permit a single Yahoo! e-mail account to send to our listserv. She's still working on a solution. Our replacement lock arrived for the key cabinet. I tried installing it but we're missing a T15 TORX screwdriver. Helped resident KT with setting up the MacBook for a presentation. Got two pairs of sunglasses repaired and a spare eyeglasses case at the on-campus optometry shop. I need to go silent for a few weeks about our interview process for the web developer position, so there will be no more mention of it here until we have someone in place. Today I brought cherries to share with others in the office. However, it was really quiet. Scott's in Egypt, Chris is out of town, Cindy is telecommuting, Joel is out of town dealing with CUCSA, Alyssa is away at jury duty. Dinner at home with Patrick: homemade pesto chicken, mediterranean curry couscous, ciabatta rolls, potato leek soup with shallots and curry dusting. Worked late on Danny's website: added photos. After you upload photos of a certain size to Office Live, Office Live automatically resizes them and saves them with awful JPEG settings. Weight training. I signed up today for whitewater rafting with Travis next month. Late meal: one granny smith apple, some cherries, a turkey burger.

Fri Jun 8, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. LGBTI Visibility Subcommittee meeting. Kevin handed out circular gold pins with the western hemisphere in rainbow stripes on it. We plan to give these out on National Coming Out Day to UCSF faculty, staff, and students who choose to identify as queer and out. Met with student AP: successfully resynched ActiveSync to a Treo 700wx. Tried to get tethering to work but the computer repeatedly failed to recognize the device. Created drafts of the viz project logo based on the theme we had decided upon in meeting today. Made live fall draft schedules for Lucia. Followup with student MP about keeping the UCSF e-mail account if staying for a fellowship. Did a final spec of some new office computers, prepped the order form, and dropped it in Cindy's inbox for a signature. Apple—it's your last chance to announce new Mac Minis on Sunday. I'll be purchasing 4 more computers for the office after the new fiscal year starts on July 1. I'm not counting on you anymore, unfortunately. Chatted briefly with Tony Q online. He needs help finding an apartment in Seattle, so I will help him out this weekend. viz project followup. Hung up my Chancellor's Award for Exceptional University Service. The nail didn't go in the wall properly, but it stuck and I didn't think to bring spares, so I hung it up just like that even though it was a crappy job. I've stopped caring about certain things. Asked around for a T15 torx screwdriver. Installed the latest Google Earth. Internet at home was down the whole day, and Patrick was away all day at Sam's helping him set up for his cocktail party, so frankfarm.org was down, too. Fixed now at 8:20 PM. I had originally planned to go to Sam's cocktail party, but I didn't get enough sleep last night—poor planning. PDD wanted to dine on Polk Street and then go to N'Touch, but I was too tired for that, too. Home. Shot some self-portraits. Evening run: 10 minutes. Unpacked some Costco purchases from dreadful blisterpack: 25-color Sharpie set, 5.5-square-foot sheepskin chamois. Had leftovers for pre-lunch and post-lunch. Late dinner at home by myself: chili mac. Helped Tony Q shop for an apartment to rent in Seattle. Weight training: bench dip.

Sat Jun 9, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Brunch and shopping with Patrick and Mom Ryan. Brunch at Ella's (415-441-5669, 500 Presidio): Mom Ryan had English Breakfast tea and eggs over easy with bacon and toast. Patrick had coffee and chicken hash with biscuit. I had ginger-orange punch with 3 pancakes. The pancakes were huge. I didn't believe our waitress, who seemed doubtful that I could eat 3 on my own, but she was right. I was full after 1 pancake! Patrick helped me eat 1.5 pancakes. Mom Ryan ate one eighth. We still have some left over that no one ate. $48.69 after tip. Mom Ryan needed some lightweight blouses for her forthcoming trip to New Orleans to visit Tommy. She had written in to a magazine about her desire to revisit her brother and a man in Indiana is granting her her wish! At Mervyn's I found a boy's tie for $3.98. Joel is likely to say it's too short, but I don't really care what anyone says. I think it will look good. My mom recently sent me a package in the mail and I finally got around to opening it: 6 bowls of instant noodles, a spiky massage roller thing made of wood and plastic, and a box of Flag's American ginseng tea. I recently finished reading Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran. Holleran is one of Patrick's favorite writers, and I can see the effect—Patrick writes in a rather similar style. Did some catching up with e-mail. Snack: leftover mac and cheese, cherries. Afternoon run: 6 minutes. Weight training: advanced plank, front raise, lateral raise, dumbbell bench press, reverse wrist curl. Cut my hair, showered, night run: 10 minutes. Chatted with Tony Q. He's in Seattle today and found a place to live on First Hill. Continued backfilling journal entries for the Hawaii trip. Dessert: coffee ice cream bar from Trader Joe's—it's goood and good for you, too!

Sun Jun 10, 2007

Slept in. Patrick went to Lucerne for a day trip with Sam and Dianne. Showered. Usual oatmeal breakfast. I continued backfilling journal entries for the Hawaii trip. House chores. Flickrd. Late lunch at Won Ton House: noodles with bbq pork and roast duck. Flickrd. Vacuumed. Weight training: bench dip. Dinner at PDD's. Dessert: sorbet and fruit bars. After dinner we watched One Voice by Barbra Streisand. Part way through we thought we saw Saddam Hussein in the audience, and we rewound to get a better look but then realized it was just Walter Matthau. Funny to see all the women in shoulder padded suit coats, and although I hadn't seen this video before I predicted before it happened that Barry Gibb would emerge from backstage. It was just as much fun seeing Hollywood stars of the 1980s as it was to hear Barbra sing. Home. Danny changed his hours for Refresh SF, so I made corresponding edits to the website and sent him a new CLOSED sign which lists the new hours. To bed late.

Mon Jun 11, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Lucia's computer had no network connection. I unplugged the network cable, plugged it back in, and it seemed to work. I gave her a new network cable just in case. Ordered computer supplies. Prepped new homepage news for Susie. Attended the UCSF Chancellor's GLBT Leadership Awards. UCSF Chancellor J. Michael Bishop presented the 2007 UCSF GLBT Leadership Awards to recipients Ellen Haller, MD (faculty, psychiatry), Cindy Lima (staff, Medical Center), and Ammon Corl (graduate student, anatomy). I enjoyed hearing the recipients speak—very interesting stories. Lunch: Panda Express. My fortune: An enjoyable vacation is awaiting you. Made live new news for Susie. Viz project: more logo mockups for Kevin and Justin. Cleaned out registry entries for Brother, reinstalled Brother software for Alyssa. Reinstall failed. Cleaned out registry entries for Brother, restarted in Safe Mode, reinstalled Brother software for Alyssa. Reinstall failed. Uninstalled Brother software. Dinner at Catch with Dianne, Sam, Patrick, and Mom Ryan. Weight training: advanced plank, dumbbell bench press, dumbbell fly, concentration curl, reverse wrist curl, wrist curl, calf raise.

Tue Jun 12, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Staff meeting. Joel's big news was that he was recently elected chair for the Council of University of California Staff Assemblies and will serve as vice-chair and chair-elect for a year before taking the position. Congratulatory lunch with Joel at Nan King Road Bistro. Along the way, we ran into Miss Easy E looking fabulous as usual—I didn't catch why she was on campus today. We shared chicken dumplings. Joel had Chinese chicken salad. I had fried noodles with chicken and vegetables. We talked about the secret of successful relationships. Afterwards we stepped in to the nearby barber shop which recently reopened after a refreshing renovation. Joel's former barber complimented him on his slim figure. Swapped out the lock for our key cabinet. Ellie G in Dentistry supplied the required T15 torx screwdriver that I didn't have—thanks again, Ellie! Downloaded and cropped and edited a photo from the camera for Lucia, Alyssa, and James J. Learned that San Francisco has wild parrots. Learned about geni, a Web 2.0 geneology website. Surface looks like an interesting way for technogeeks to easily get their drinks for free by inviting a luddite to the table. ("Hey, look over there—isn't that Cher?!") I also imagine that it will mostly just make it easier for computer geeks to share collections of salacious materials. However, I could be entirely wrong. What do I know? I don't own a cellphone, pda, mp3 player, portable game player, or a portable movie player. Dinner at home with Patrick: pig-wrapped pig (bacon-wrapped pork chops), bowtie pasta with marinara, ciabatta rolls with oil and vinegar, hazelnut soda (surprisingly tasty). Event planning with Patrick. Chatted with Drew online, Danny on the phone, and Esteban on the phone. Website edits for Danny and Drew. Weight training: advanced plank.

Wed Jun 13, 2007

Morning run: 10 minutes. Usual oatmeal breakfast. G.E. lock return followup. Online backup research. Survey Monkey work and troubleshooting. Physical security work. Lunch with Joel: L'Avenida. Joel had a chicken salad. I had dos enchiladas. Submitted my order for 3 new Dell computers. (Apple's next chance: 2011-2012.) OAAIS feedback preparation for Heidi. Dinner at home with Patrick: brie and ricotta with roasted garlic borsetti. Patrick told me today that he ran into Melissa H at the opera I think it was last Saturday. Picked up psychobauble and Nate at the airport, fresh off their one-way Hawaiian Airlines flight. They're permanently moving to San Francisco after living in Honolulu for (roughly) 5 years, 8 months, and 20 days. (Thanks, timeanddate.com, for Calculate duration between two dates.) As I had mildly suspected, they had upgraded to first class. Their salt and pepper packets came in a cardboard sleeve. They drank champagne. They ate satay, scallops, and other fine foods. We collected their 4 pieces of luggage plus a backpack and checked them in to Nob Hill Chateau—their furnished, temporary home for the next month. Luckily we found a parking spot a stone's throw away. The chateau had changed since Patrick and I had stayed there in September, October, and November of 2000. There's no more computer—just an ethernet cable. The rooms look a tad less fancy than they did in 2000. Room cleaning service is weekly but I recall it being daily in 2000. The TV is a large flat screen Dell instead of a CRT. Chris and Nate received no gift basket whereas I recall there being a bottle of wine and wine glasses when we had first arrived. The laundry room in the basement no longer exists—now there are laundry lockers where you leave your clothes and pick it up after it has been cleaned and returned. (We found out later there really still is a laundry room—we just hadn't found it earlier.) Two lamps in Chris and Nate's room (51) were missing light bulbs. One phone has no dial tone. And the fax machine was not plugged in to the phone jack. The carpet is noticeably stained and ought to be replaced. We got a combo pizza at Vito's just down the block, and afterwards I showed them around their immediate neighborhood. We looked to see who was playing at Nob Hill Theatre (Ricky from Florida headlining), they found a nice spot for breakfast in the morning (Roxanne's), I showed them where Tempura Mouse and Double Rainbow were, we peeked in at Cafe Mozart. Chris and Nate seem to be a bit confused timewise and lightwise, but that's to be expected. Just found out from Ted's Twitter feed that Safari 3 is in beta for the Windows platform. Even in OS X Firefox is still my preferred browser, but I don't mind another browser in the Windows mix as long as I don't have to write crappy web code in order to support it. Weight training: reverse wrist curl.

Thu Jun 14, 2007

I took today and tomorrow off so that I could spend time with Chris and Nate on their first days living in San Francisco. They'll probably sleep in at least somewhat this morning—it's 8:46 AM as I write this, which is 5:46 AM Honolulu time. I have plenty of things I can do besides. Showered. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Met Chris and Nate at Powell and Market where they had just bought Muni passes and browsed at Westfield and San Francisco Centre. Patrick didn't go—he had things to do. I had neglected to remind Chris and Nate to wear shorts today—it was already 80 degrees at 9:30 AM—so we returned to the chateau so they could change. Back out again, we walked up and down streets in Nob Hill and Union Square and parts of the Financial District and Theatre District mostly just giving them an idea of what's where. They learned that Walgreen's is somewhat analagous to Honolulu's ABC Store (in that they both are relatively numerous) and that the Ferry Building is somewhat analagous to Honolulu's Aloha Tower (in that they're both prominent towers next to shipyards). We did some shopping: Paul Frank, H&M, didn't buy anything. We ate lunch at Crowne Plaza Union Square: turkey, ham, and bbq chicken sandwiches on dutch crunch roll, pasta salad, water and juice. According to my receipt, our server's name was Brunella. More walking around. We stopped in a number of neat places I had never been in before: the lobby of Hotel Nikko, San Francisco Museum of Craft & Design. We stopped in various amazing and elegant hotel and bank lobbies. We tried visiting BK at his office, but I must have remembered his address incorrectly—I thought it was 500 Montgomery, but that turned out to be some architecture firm. Took the cable car back to the chateau from the financial district. This was Chris's first San Francisco cable car ride ever, and I think Nate said he had ridden it once before. Patrick met us at the chateau. Chris, Nate, and I each changed into long pants. Walked and then took the cable car down to Market Street. Switched to BART. Took BART to 24th and Mission. Walked over to Valencia and walked Valencia back toward Market Street. The four of us ate dinner at Maharaja Indian Cuisine (415-532-7901, 525 Valencia Street): mix (illegible receipt - nate, what was this?), chicken korma, chicken tikka masala, albo gobhi, vegetable biryani, garlic naan, k. naan (nate - what was this?), raita, mango lassi, lassi, plain naan, o.k. (nate - what was this?). The food was delicious. We ordered "not spicy" but the food was still too spicy for my ultrasensitive palate—I have come to expect this as unfixable when it happens. Our server was annoyingly neglectful. For example, we had requested our check and we got acknowlegement from him that he understood and then we waited perhaps 10 minutes before we decided someone needed to get up and go find out what had happened to him. Afterwards we ate ice cream at Bombay. Strangely enough, there was no server at all behind the counter for about 5 minutes with 3 customers ahead of us. Patrick had saffron and pistachio ice cream, Nate had cardamom, Chris had cardamom rose. I didn't have any—too full. BART then Muni home. Patrick went to bed. Backfilled journal entries from the Hawaii trip. Weight training: advanced plank, dumbbell bench press, crunch, dumbbell squat, shoulder shrug, calf raise. Right knee hurts a little. No more squats, I guess. A very fine day. Late meal: leftover char siu, chicken and pasta soup. Bed.

Fri Jun 15, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Today was Chris and Nate's surprise—"We'll pick you up at the chateau out in front in a blue car," which turned out to be Tina's rental car. Lunch at Fresca in the Fillmore with Chris, Nate, Tina, and Patrick. Stopped at Bittersweet afterwards. We split up—Patrick and Tina went to Chinatown. Patrick needed to visit Simmone's studio. Tina wanted to take photographs of Chinatown. I spent the day with Chris and Nate getting them oriented. We walked throughout Union Square and parts of Nob Hill and the Tenderloin. Back to the chateau. I napped, Chris and Nate relaxed. Headed out to the inner sunset right around rush hour. Got coffee at the Beanery on Irving. Tina and Patrick met us and we got dinner at Crepevine. Afterwards we went to a showing of an apartment. Chris and Nate liked it and decided to apply. Home. Helped Chris and Nate fill out their application and complete a cover letter. Nate and I dropped off the application. Home. We all watched What's Up, Doc?—hilarious again! I laughed so much.

Sat Jun 16, 2007

Coffee, breakfast and shopping at Ferry Building Farmer's Market with Tina, Chris, Nate, and Patrick. We bought groceries then split up—Tina and Patrick stopped at Tower Market before going home. I took Chris and Nate shopping downtown. Chris bought new shoes, Nate bought new Levi's jeans. We stopped at Sprint so they could settle (for now) their cellphone plan transition. Lunch with Chris and Nate at Leila (415-217-0099) at Crocker Gallery, 3rd floor, 50 Post Street. I had tabouleh that was made with pickles instead of cucumbers—very strange (and, we all agreed, wrong). I also had cow with saffron rice, which was good. I realize today at around 3:50 PM that I forgot to change my camera's clock forward one hour many weeks ago, so my Flickr photos have incorrect exif info—one hour too early, changed the clock. I showed them The Container Store, the Metreon, Yerba Buena Gardens. We stopped at Beard Papa for a small bite to eat then took the train home. We got on at Powell and all was fine until Van Ness where the train was delayed for about 20 or 25 minutes due to a problem at Castro Station. By the time we got to Castro Station, about an hour had passed since we entered Muni at Powell - crazy Muni! Home. Relaxed. Patrick prepped for dinner. Tina got back from Petaluma and they cooked. Radish canapes on walnut levain with chevre; carrot and cumin soup; lavender and lemon roast chicken with roasted spring onions; rotelli au gratin with fontina, gruyere, and chevre topped with sauteed mushrooms (porcini, nameko, and king trumpet); cherry clafouti, pinot noir. Began file migration for Tina's computer.

Sun Jun 17, 2007

Slept in. Usual oatmeal breakfast. File migration for Tina's computer. Cut my hair, showered. Visited Tartine Bakery with Tina and Patrick. Stopped at Bi-Rite Creamery but didn't have any ice cream. Got groceries at Tower Market. Dinner at home with Tina, Patrick, Chris, and Nate: spring mix salad with tomatoes and mushrooms; rotelli and chicken casserole with mushrooms; leftover cherry clafouti with warm milk and plum cherry preserves; assorted chocolates; 2005 La Crema pinot noir and 2003 Bogle merlot. Several of us preferred this Bogle over this La Crema.

Mon Jun 18, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Spent most of the day writing suggestions for improvement for OAAIS for Heidi. Helped Lucia with Excel: how to set the print area. Lots of small web edits. Helped Debbie A with Outlook: setting up a secondary mailbox, setting spam filter settings. Late lunch: leftovers. Patrick had a late lunch with Sam so he didn't need to eat dinner. Dinner at home by myself: leftovers. Worked on Danny's website. I have only 10 messages in my home inbox! Woo!

Tue Jun 19, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Lunch: special at You See Sushi. Computer maintenance: adjusted power save settings for some computers. Dinner at home with Patrick: Safeway roast chicken, salad, and noodle salad. Dessert: Trader Joe's caffe latte frozen bar. Started watching House of Usher (1960) but the DVD just stopped playing about 30 minutes in (and VLC gave an error message for a few seconds and then subsequently closed without further warning—that's not very Maclike!). Removed the DVD from the Mac Mini. Started up the Windows computer, but it took so long Patrick decided to go to bed, and I decided to set up the Sony DVD player we had bought a few weeks ago to resolve these problems. Got it working. Now I just need a longer S-Video cable. At the same time, since the rack was opened up, I moved the cable modem and the router to the UPS—I wonder how I neglected to do that before. Chatted with Nate on the phone. His first 2 days at work were mostly orientation and mostly very busy. Chris and Nate have decided to switch their phone numbers from 808 to 415 area code. They didn't get the apartment they had applied for, so the search continues. Chris signed up for City CarShare today. Woo! Sent Patrick instructions for using the DVD player. My order from shipmycontacts.com arrived recently despite the fact that they failed to use the address I provided. I told them "513 Parnassus Avenue, Room S-960, UCSF Box 0150" and they used instead "513 Parnassus Ave Rm 150." Also, I specified zip code 94143-0150 but they used 94143-2205. I still received my order—luckily—but this experience leaves me uncertain about whether I will purchase from them again. It reminded me of my experience with ordering directly from Tom's of Maine—there a human read the address I submitted electronically and manually typed it into their ordering system. I never ordered from them again. My shipmycontacts order took 9 days to arrive, which seems fast to me considering they got the address wrong. Home inbox down to 9 messages. Archived, organized, and shredded documents. Late meal: leftovers.

Wed Jun 20, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. I still have photos from Hawaii I haven't uploaded yet—they're the Big Island photos. I also have a bunch of photos in my camera that I haven't processed. It feels just a little unright to be not current with Flickr. Archived a document. Met with Deborah N and had a very enjoyable conversation about collaboration tools. I helped her a lot more than I thought I would. OAAIS feedback preparation for Heidi. Late lunch by myself at the cafeteria: grill special: grilled salmon salad, fruit juice. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers. Finished watching House of Usher (1960). I cannot recommend it—booooring! DVD player works great so far, though. Worked on Tina's laptop. Ran into a problem in which every time I logged out and logged back in it failed to save any changes to the Dock and if I looked in the Users folder I found a new user folder for Tina had been created. There are now a bunch of them: tina, tina 1, tina 2, tina 3, and so forth. Very weird. I ran Disk Utility and fixed permissions, but that didn't seem to fix it. I don't know how else to fix this problem without reinstalling OS X completely anew. Will poke around more. Copied more files over from her external hard drive. I suspect many of the files I'm copying are dupes—already on her computer—but will let her decide when she sees it on Friday. Chatted with Danny, left messages for Tina, Drew, Chris/psychobauble. Weight training: bench dip, dumbbell bench press, hammer curl, reverse leg lift.

Thu Jun 21, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. OAAIS feedback preparation for Heidi. Active Directory OU maintenance. Helped Carol with a problem I created with AD maintenance. Pre-lunch: salad with grilled chicken and ranch dressing. CSC steering committee meeting. 1-question survey prep for July. Learned how to use the feature called transpose in Excel—I've been wanting to know how to do that for years! Made live the new admissions calendar. Post-lunch: roast cow and cheddar sandwich from Subway, raspberry iced tea, sun chips. Dinner at home with Patrick: garden vegetable linguine, garlic bread. Chatted on the phone with Nate, Tina, and Danny. Helped Patrick figure out that the USB audio adapter (ASIN B000N35A0Y) we purchased recently from emtcompany.com (aka EMTC) does not fully work in Windows XP SP2. The playback works, but recording does not—a playback device appears but no corresponding recording device appears. It had cost only $10, so I'm not surprised that it didn't work, but it would have been very nice if it did. Here's the description, in case anyone is wondering: "USB 2.0 to Audio/Microphone Jack Adapter - Eliminate the need for a traditional sound card with this USB to Audio adapter. Real USB plug & play to upgrade any on-board soundcard to 5.1 Digital Surround Sound without any hardware installation. Connect a speaker or headphone directly to the adapter and enjoy 3D positional sound and virtual 5.1ch sound track. Use the USB port power directly. Features:

• Plug and Play
• USB 2.0
• Stereo 5.1-channel sound effects
• Virtual speaker shifter
• Speaker/headphone jack
• Microphone jack
• Transform analog sound signals to digital
• USB 2.0 to Audio/Microphone Jack Adapter
• Our Price: $12.95 On Sale! $9.95 (Free Shipping)"

Helped Nate find a place to send a fax near California and Montgomery. (Answer: the 24-hour FedEx at 100 California.) Performed an archive and install reinstallation of OS X on Tina's laptop. I noticed only today that the Apple Remote that comes with Tina's black MacBook is white instead of black! Call me racist, but I think that's aesthetically just plain wrong (just like the white power adapter and cable that I complained about earlier). If this were my laptop, I think I'd have to return it—no joke! How disappointing! Archived documents. Tina's MacBook has a really noisy optical drive. It reminds me of a Sonicare toothbrush. It's not always that noisy, though. It's that noisy while I'm doing the Archive and Install procedure. Very annoying, since this reinstall is taking a couple of hours now. The Archive and Install procedure did not fix the problem with the MacBook. So disappointing! Tina comes back tomorrow and leaves on Saturday. I don't know what I'm going to do!

Fri Jun 22, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Office 2007 preparation. OAAIS feedback preparation for Heidi. Posted new news for Susie. Answered a computer requirements question from entering student MR. Erase and Install for Tina's laptop. Filed for reimbursement. Chris and Nate say they have found a place to live—woo! Online backup research. Erase and Install fixed the problem with Tina's laptop. Hooray! LGBTI viz work with Google Maps—the default caching of KML files is really annoying, and I don't know how to work around it yet. The suggestion to add rand= and a random number to the URL does not work for me. Dinner at So Restaurant with Patrick, Tina, and Daniel. Computer setup for Tina. Napped. Party at 550 Barneveld with Patrick, Danny, and Dong-Yi. We met Quyen there. We saw Scandy, Temery, The Other Dave, Dale, Galen, Yuki, Wataru. I met Martin. Dropped off Danny, Quyen, and Dong-Yi. Stopped at Safeway for a sandwich and a drink.

Sat Jun 23, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Tina and Daniel returned from Peet's with breakfast pastries. Computer prep for Tina. Tina and Daniel left for Berkeley then San Jose. Met Chris and Nate downtown for the Gay Pride celebration. On the train ride in, a man named Kim asked me to model for Calvin Klein jeans and gave me his contact information. It seemed illegitimate since his "business card" was handwritten on Hilton Hotels notepad paper (though he said he lived in San Francisco) and specified an e-mail address at juno.com and the URL of johnrobertpowers.net. I don't consider myself Calvin Klein model quality, so to me it was just a very nice compliment. Walked around, getting drinks, checking out the various booths and the DJ dance area. Took the train to the Castro, walked around. Late lunch at Bullshead—our first time. We all shared a good laugh during lunch. The Castro was particularly abuzz because the men's clothing shop called All American Boy had hired hunky live male models to stand in their shop windows wearing only underwear. I got some photos, but because of the mixed sun-and-shade lighting at the moment it was hard to get a good shot. Home, bringing Chris and Nate with us. We watched Casino Royale on DVD. At 4 PM no one seemed like they needed another meal for the day, so we ate popcorn for dinner during the movie which seemed well-liked all around. Weight training: bench dip, wrist curl.

Sun Jun 24, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Housecleaning, chores. Worked on Danny's website some, fixing some problems with text of color. Joined Chris and Nate at the Gay Pride Parade and Festival. The stickers we got by paying the voluntary entrance fee don't work today. Patrick and I missed the parade. Patrick and I ate beignets and hot dogs and chili nachos and drank water and iced coffee. The four of us split up in the midafternoon. Chris and Nate went home to rest a bit. Patrick and I returned home. Prepped for visitors. Dinner at home with Patrick, Tony Q, Phil, Chris, and Nate. Tony Q brought an assortment of delicious Vietnamese food. Drew, Danny, Quyen, and Dave were expected to come but did not. We talked about Seattle. Phil insisted that Seattle was located on a peninsula, but we could not find any clear evidence on the web for or against that claim.

Mon Jun 25, 2007

Restarted the server which was steady at 100% cpu probably due to large filesize copying over the network and a problem with smc.exe (Sygate). After restart, the server is fine. Online backup research. Small web edit: choosing a domain name. Linkcheck. LGBTI viz work. Began prepping the new cdrom for fall 2007, mostly licensing work. Submitted QuickTime, Flash, Shockwave, Windows Media Player. Helped Joel with a printing problem that even puzzled me for a few minutes. In Word, a setting can be saved with a document to always make it print to a multipurpose tray instead of the default tray. To remove the setting, in the Print dialog click the Options button in the lower left corner, then find the setting and set it to the appropriate tray. Helped Scott find files on our server. Began supp app preparation. More cdrom prep work. OS X and Parallels maintenance for the MacBook. OAAIS suggestions for Heidi: final review and edits and send. New Dell computers have arrived today. Haven't had time to touch them yet—maybe tomorrow. Today I brought in my own liquid soap to use in the restroom because in the past week the custodial crew has switched soaps in the soap dispensers and the new soap smells really awful. Home: dinner at home with Patrick: lemon oven-roasted chicken, corn on the cob, rice pilaf. Dessert: lemon vodka cake, raspberry sorbet. Patrick used a new recipe for the corn, something about salt and sugar and the salt making it crunchier—it was really good. Processed photos, chatted with Nate on the phone. Patrick picked up a new pair of dark blue Levi's Hesher jeans on sale for half off at the Levi's store. He says the sale continues for the next week and urged me to get in to try on some jeans. Flickred.

Tue Jun 26, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Weight training: reverse wrist curl. Outlook mailbox problems for me, troubleshooting, resolved. My computer at work, a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB of RAM running Windows XP SP2 has gotten super slow within the past 2 months. Time for a new computer for me. PharmCAS web conference in the IRC with Joel, Cindy, and Scott; Rodney assisting. Lunch: salad from the cafeteria. Today I signed up for a prepaid purchase card good at most eating places on campus. In the cafeteria, there's also a discount of 10% when you use the card. I hadn't known about the card until a few days ago when a cashier in the cafeteria recommended it to me. Met with Cindy one-on-one. Archived documents. New computers recently arrived for 3 of our office staff. I began setup. The new Dell works very well, and setup and customization took only about 2 hours. Recently, Tina reported that she had problems with her MacBook after she had left and she visited the Apple Store and they told her the problem was File Vault (aka FileVault) and that she shouldn't use it. Again, the problem was that all her preferences got erased when she logged out and (when I observed the problem) a new user account would be created. For example, she started with one user account called tina and then she'd log out and then log back in and then the Users folder would have tina and tina 2. Log out again, then log back in, and the Users folder would have tina, tina 2, and tina 3, and so on. This experience with Apple's File Vault has wasted hours of our time, caused confusion and frustration, and reduced my confidence in Apple. Does Tina get some money back from Apple in exchange for accepting that this claimed feature of OS X must go unused? No. I am thinking now that user-transparent and robust data encryption will not ever become a reality. Microsoft and Apple and others have been at this for years—why is this so impossible? TrueCrypt seems to work fine for me in Windows, and encrypted disk images seem to work fine for me in OS X. At least for now. Dessert: coffee frozen yogurt. Cut my hair. Patrick made a video today for one of his songs. It's him dancing in our kitchen. Today I started reading the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon. I'm enjoying it so far.

Wed Jun 27, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Telecommute day. Looks like we're going to sign up for Mozy Pro for online backup services, so I did some more work with setting up the arrangement. Worked on an RSS feed for School of Pharmacy news—got it mostly all working, only some final edits tomorrow need to be done. Linkchecking. Small web edits for Susie. Weight training: dumbbell fly. Lunch: leftovers with whole wheat egg noodles. Made many updates to our maps page. LGBTI viz work in KML. Housecleaning, house chores. Dinner at home with Patrick, Chris, and Nate: pot roast, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob. Watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on DVD with Chris, Nate, and Patrick.

Thu Jun 28, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Computer maintenance for Chris: num lock light, printer goes offline randomly, set up new treo, Nortel vpn doesn't work, how to read a 3-inch cd (aka 80 mm cd aka 3-inch cdrom aka 80 mm cdrom) in a slot-loading cdrom drive such as with a macbook pro? (Answer for the last problem: must use a plastic adapter such as Memorex 311123-00 aka ASIN B000M52EW0.) New computer configuration. Did research on Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Couldn't log in to the new computer using the domain admin account. Resolved it by logging in as local admin, changing the computer to a workgroup instead of a domain, restarting, renaming the computer, restarting, then rejoining it back to the domain. Bought money, then Muni passes. Lunch at Hahn's Hibachi by myself: bbq chicken sandwich, vegetable kabob, about $8.40, and a $1.60 tip. Stopped at the hardware store to buy more padlocks for the office. Treo 755p setup for Chris. Had OL-ERR errors appear in Palm sync log after attempting first synch. Resolved it using the outlook /resetfolders solution described in solution ID 31167 on palm.com. Got Bluetooth working, too—had some trickiness to resolve with the virtual COM port, though. More new computer configuration. Began reworking inventory data into a new Excel spreadsheet. Dinner at home with Patrick: red pepper and mushroom chicken drumsticks, broccoli and cheese risotto, steamed broccoli, Grace Bakery odessa rye bread and Smart Balance. Shopped online. Worked on Tina's website: added Flickr photos. Weight training: bench dip.

Fri Jun 29, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Helped Gail R select a router with wireless access point. Started the server. There was a power outage this morning around 6:00 AM. Organized cds and dvds. Reviewed Garrett's new computer bundles page, sent feedback. It looks pretty good to me. Submitted Joel's telephone line swap request to OAAIS. Fielded a request from student YW about how to connect to wireless in the Medical Center. I don't know the answer—it's the first time I've gotten this question. Sent the question in to OAAIS. Server still acting funny—seemingly no network connection from the server and trying to connect from my computer prompts me to log in to the server again. Restarted the server, all better now. Very late lunch: Panda Express. My fortune: Forge ahead with your new ideas. New computer configuration. Prep for LISTSERV rotation. Made new draft schedules live. Small web edits. Organized e-mail and e-mail folders. Heather H offered us 2 tickets to tonight's True Colors Tour at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, but Patrick didn't want to sit on the grass in unreserved seating, so we declined. Dinner at home with Patrick: potstickers, creamy corn soup.

Sat Jun 30, 2007

Usual oatmeal breakfast. Lunch at Won Ton House, brought food back for Patrick. Repotted a small house plant. Shoe and clothes shopping with Patrick downtown: Levi's Store (300 Post at Stockton), Rockport (new store at 165 Post at Grant not opening until August 2007), the shoe store formely known as Skechers, DSW (111 Powell), H&M (150 Powell). Picked up desserts at Eppler's Bakery and Beard Papa. Picked up Chris and Nate. Dinner with Chris, Nate, Phil, Danny, Drew, and Patrick at Phil, Danny, and Drew's. Danny prepared a meal of rice noodles with bean sprouts, ham, mint, dried onions. Dessert: chocolate deco cake from Eppler's, vanilla cream puffs and green tea cream puffs from Beard Papa.