November 2008
Summary: Paul's Election Day Party, Obama Wins, Proposition 8 Wins, Same-sex Marriage Debate Heightens, Thanksgiving Feast at Miss Saigon
Dates on this page
Sat Nov 1, 2008
Realized that I can add Google Talk and Facebook to Adium, so I did. Wow—what a difference! Showered. Picked up Patrick, who slept over at Aaron's last night. Chatted online with Nate. Met MH in the midafternoon at Green Apple Books, chatted at Genki Ramen, which we both enjoyed. MH had takoyaki, an appetizer from the happy hour menu, and I had chicken yakisoba, which had thinner noodles than we both had expected, and was otherwise good but not extraordinary. Hot green tea for both. She gave me XOX truffles as an early birthday present—so thoughtful! While we were in the restaurant, Mike F and Nam D sat at the table next to us for lunch, and we said hello. Learned what steampunk is from Victor C and Wikipedia. House chores. Archived a document for Patrick. Attempted to fix the problem I have in Vista with "Please wait while Windows configures Adobe Acrobat 8.1.2" appearing randomly such as while right-clicking files in Windows Explorer. I used the solution proposed by "Bueford Tannon - 7:55am Mar 31, 08 PST (#45 of 55)". Took apart my Halloween costume. It took a long time because of all the safety pins. Bueford Tannon's proposed solution did not resolve the problem on my computer. Gave up trying to fix this problem. iMac froze today—some kind of kernal panic. Had to cold restart. Late meal: steamed rice, leftover food from PDD's party: lemongrass chicken, fish meatballs. Small web edits for Phil.
Sun Nov 2, 2008
Woke early. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Turned clocks back 1 hour. Brunch with psychobauble and Nate at Cove Cafe. Walked Castro Street. We thought we might do some cold weather clothes shopping, but decided not to—not enough energy. Home. Turned more clocks back 1 hours. House chores, organized, edited photos. Watched Heroes Season 1 Episode 23 commentary on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell press. Stretches. Midafternoon meal: leftovers. Edited photos. Paid bills. Patrick took a nap. Stretches. Weight training: concentration curl, superslow dumbbell press, superslow front raise. Stretches. Edited photos. Snack: leftovers. My camera was returned to me from the repair shop with defaul settings, so I configured the settings the way I wanted them. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: non-spicy jambalaya, sourdough breadsticks, Smart Balance Light, hot water. Still tired from the jetlag, went to bed early.
Mon Nov 3, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Forgot to bring my umbrella to work, so I bought a new one at the bookstore. Updated the how to configure junk email page. Helped Scott set up our temp with what she needed. Canceled recurring meetings because they looked out of sync. Recreated recurring meetings. Followup with student AD about the Class of 2012 wiki—still waiting on the library to create accounts. MyAccess communications review. Lunch: chicken marsala over brown rice, mixed grilled vegetables, corn muffin. Helped student DL with cardkey not working. Clinical Pharmacy faculty meeting. Responded to an applicant's phone call about form E. More emergency action plan review. Updated podcasting section with some links to best practices that I found. Dinner at home with Patrick: turkey burger, corn on the cob, leftover non-spicy jambalaya. Organized files, did some catching up on email. Stretches. Weight training: superslow lying-down overhead tricep kickback. Stretches. Late meal: steamed rice, leftover lemongrass chicken. Found old documents on my computer which told me when I had last owned a cellphone—it was at least between July 3, 1997 and April 18, 2000.
Tue Nov 4, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Followup with student GL about email address change. Followup with cwk about the domain for Joel's blog. Began altering the supp app forms to include a watermark that says SAMPLE ONLY now that our admissions deadline has passed. Had trouble with Acrobat—I would apply the watermark but it would not show up. It fortunately worked for one file—all.pdf—so I worked around the problem by copying that and deleting the other pages I didn't need. Ultimately I did not resolve the problem with Acrobat not displaying the watermark file I selected. Chatted briefly with Joel about why pop-up windows are bad, gave him a few tips on writing for the web as well as links to our web style guide. Staff meeting. Lunch: chicken caesar salad from the cafeteria. Must remember in the future to use the packed-to-go salads only as a last resort—croutons were somewhat soggy. Helped Maria C and Steve H with an emergency about a PDF file that needed to be taken offline. Helped Scott with a problem with PharmAdMIT 2009. PharmAdMIT had crashed on him while he was in the middle of sending a letter. We deleted temp files both as him and as admin. I think that's what solved it. More supp app forms work, completed it. Joel discovered today that someone swiped a bunch of pens from his floaty pen collection. He thought I was playing a joke on him, but I was not, and I don't think anyone in the office would play such a cruel joke. Web edits to PHPM course descriptions for Carol. 15 items in my inbox! While waiting to meet Patrick at what used to be Muddy Waters across the street from BriKel's, BriKel appeared on their way to dinner, and Patrick showed up a few seconds later. Great timing! We went to Home Restaurant and chatted mostly about the election. They were thinking about attending the No on 8 party at the Westin afterwards, but weren't sure if they would go. After dinner, Patrick and I went to Paul's election party, where we watched the coverage on television and surfed the web for additional data. Both McCain's and Obama's speeches were excellent, and I was surprised by McCain's generosity. We were very pleased with Obama's stunning victory not simply in the historic event of the first African-American president but also because this represented to us a marked change in the direction our country has taken over the past 8 years of George W. Bush. At times like these there is always talk of putting aside differences which always seems empty to me, and for me the proof will be 6 or 8 months from now. At least the world doesn't hate us as much as they did yesterday, right? I could feel everyone in the room thinking, "Finally I can travel abroad again!" Well, maybe when we all have a little more money than we do now. The results were not in for Proposition 8, the initiative to ban same-sex marriage, even by the time we went to bed around 10:00 or 10:30 PM, so we turned in not knowing its fate.
Wed Nov 5, 2008
More helping Steve H and Lisa C with resolving a web publication problem. Investigated Google Webmaster Tools. Signed up with LinkedIn because Biz Stone at Twitter recommended the Twitter app in LinkedIn. CTS meeting. Joel announced his new PharmD admissions blog: pharmdadmissions.ucsf.edu—woo! Chatted with Eric V about uploading White Coat Ceremony photos. Asked Eric V to winnow and rename headshot photos of the first-year students. Lunch with Joel at Lavash. Chatted on the phone with Susie about our new hire. Lots of work on the job postings form: completed email formatting and began testing the emails. Getting close! Dinner at home with Patrick: artichoke giant ravioli in marinara, bread, Smart Balance Light. Stretches. Weight training: superslow lateral raise, superslow shrug, superslow dumbbell fly.
Thu Nov 6, 2008
Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell press, superslow one-arm dumbbell row, bentover dumbbell row. Stretches. Usual oatmeal breakfast. CCD conference call. Web team meeting. Made live the survey notice to students by web and email. Final touches on domain request for Joel's blog. Rescheduled missed meetings with Eric D. Notified student AD about the availability of the Class of 2012 wiki after Zach notified me that it's ready. Tried helping Eric D with admin password reset, but he'll have to go through OAAIS. CTS and CCD review. Forwarded OAAIS's MyAccess announcement to staff. Found links of interest about screencasting and sent them to Eric D. Followup on the missing Back button in IE7 VPN with Rick S. More CCD review and followup. Stayed late at work to rebuild Apache to include curl. Dinner at home with Patrick: stuffed salmon belle mer, boiled baby beets, and baked potato. Reset the router because I ran into the missing password problem again. Reconfigured the router from scratch and added some new configuration settings that I'll need.
Fri Nov 7, 2008
Usual granola breakfast. I accidentally hit Command+Shift+Y this morning and Stickies opened up. How'd that happen? It's repeatable, too, but Finder must be active for it to work. Maybe it's an undocumented shortcut? Last night's Apache reconfiguration to add curl completed successfully. WeID problem report—why don't our students have access to all perimeter doors 24/7? Helped Scott with PharmAdMIT problems. Over the past week we've had a temp named Rebecca in the office helping out with admissions application processing. Helped a student figure out how to announce a student event—it's actually not an easy process to describe or to perform. Lunch meeting: UCSF Communicators Network with Sarah P. Management work. Followup with student MY about a problem with Sophos. Added code to the admissions overview page to pull in Joel's blog directly to our site. I ended up using code that did not require curl after all. Joel and I reviewed it, then he sent it to Cindy for review. To home. More research to find a replacement for Mozy at home only. Firefox 3.0.3 has been really slow to respond to mouse actions lately, so I disabled Firebug, Operator, and Web Developer and now it's faster again. Dinner at home with Patrick: grilled pig loin, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob. Dessert for me: one XOX truffle. Watched Heroes Season 2 Episode 1 with Patrick on Netflix DVD. I completely forgot that guy with glasses could turn things to gold! Signed up for a free 2 GB account at idrive.com. The client software did not seem to like the 12-character password I used, but I was successfully able to log in to the website using the same password, change it to a shorter password, and then the client software authenticated as expected. Installed CrossOver Pro 7.1.0 for Mac. First thing I installed was Winamp 5.5.4.1, and I was shocked to see the install finish and the player open and the llama soundbite play successfully. Shift+V to fade-stop works, but there are redraw issues with some of the windows. Drawer animation is choppy. Worth further experimentation just to have Shift+V back more native than VMware. (Is it correct to say "more native"? Maybe not.)
Sat Nov 8, 2008
Woke up too early. iDrive completed its first upload successfully. So far so good. Nap. Errands in the Castro, encountered and said hello to Mark. Lunch by myself at La Tortilla: chicken fajitas burrito. Home. Nap. Cut my hair. Dinner at home with Patrick: benetton pasta with grilled lemon chicken and spinach, garlic biscuits. Dessert: one Jelly Belly jelly bean: crushed pineapple for Patrick, A&W Cream Soda for me. Watched Heroes Season 2 episode 2. Printed Heloise photos for Mom Ryan. Today I noticed that the iDrive icon had a warning sign next to it, and further investigation found that somehow the checkbox to back up my Documents folder became checked after I had previously unchecked it, and I don't know why. Unchecked it again, which fixed the problem, which was that I was over the 2 GB quota. We'll see if the problem comes back. Computer maintenance: changed an ink cartridge, reinstalled 2 printers in the Vista VM, only got one working. Reconfigured network sharing so that I could edit files on Patrick's computer directly. Left a message for Thomas. Edited photos. Stretches. Late snack: popcorn.
Sun Nov 9, 2008
Organized Flickr collections somewhat. Lots of errors when trying to rearrange Flickr collections—they don't have the code worked out properly for that, but none of the errors seem to be damaging. It just doesn't behave like you expect until you reload the Organizr. Discovered Nathan Siemers' Flickr search tool, aka Flickr Hive Mind—interesting. Stretches. Read lots of stuff on the web. Stretches. Lunch at home with Patrick: steamed pig dumplings. House chores: vacuumed, repotted a plant, tidied, cleaned in the bathroom, candle maintenance. Nap. Shower. Dinner at home with Patrick, psychobauble, Nate, Drew, and Danny: Italian salad with salami and parmesan, buttered egg noodles with parsley, beef stew, potato rosemary bread. Dessert: cherry pie with Breyer's vanilla ice cream. Drew and Danny brought a delicious Yalumba muscat which we enjoyed with dessert. psychobauble and Nate gave me 2 books from my Amazon wish list: Second Drafts of History by Lance Morrow and Information Graphics: A Comprehensive Illustrated Reference by Robert L. Harris. Edited photos. While working on my iMac tonight, it crashed. Here are the comments I left in the Apple problem report that was delivered following the restart. [all i know is that as soon as i saw the gray curtain fall i said (on the inside), "oh noooooooooooooooo!" and then the dreaded multi-language power button of gloom appeared and a second after that i thought, "there goes my flickr batch upload!" you must use the information stored inside this droid to find the answer to this problem. our fates depend upon it!] After submitting the report and then finishing/repeating things I was in the process of doing when the crash happened (setting out of office notice, replying to a student's email message, uploading a batch of photos to Flickr), I did a Google search on "power button of gloom" and found that no one else has used this term yet, so I guess I'll be the first.
Mon Nov 10, 2008
Flickr is down at 4:28 PM Pacific. Clothes and Christmas shopping: bought lots of warm clothes I needed but didn't have. Lunch at a Thai restaurant on Powell Street. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover pasta and garlic biscuits.
Tue Nov 11, 2008
Today I updated my Geni profile to say this:
I'm a web developer for the UCSF School of Pharmacy. I have lived in San Francisco with Patrick Ryan since 2000. We have been registered domestic partners with California since October 18, 2001. For our own reasons, Patrick and I are waiting before choosing marriage.
I sometimes get questions about same-sex marriage, and I don't always know who in my family does and doesn't support it. If you haven't expressed your support to me, then I can only presume that you don't agree with my 8-year relationship with the person I love.
The institution of marriage has had a long history, and if you're not familiar with how it has changed over the centuries, I encourage you to learn more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage
The debate about same-sex marriage continues, but I think everyone can agree that:
- Advocates of same-sex marriage see the issue as one of equality, civil rights, intolerance, and bigotry.
- Opponents of same-sex marriage see the issue as one of morality, usually based on religious beliefs.
- Marriage is a legal union recognized by our governments.
- Marriage is commonly, but not always, also a religious union.
- America was founded on the firm belief of a separation of church and state.
If we agree about all this, why can't marriage be permitted as a legal union recognized by our government while also not permitted as a religious union by some organizations of faith? We should be able to have different beliefs without the state's involvement and without churches encouraging changes in law that remove the rights of the minorities with which they disagree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_8_(2008)#Proponents
Same-sex marriage opponents point to civil unions and domestic partnerships as a solution, but they are not equivalent in spirit or in law. Are my domestic partner and I granted the same respect and dignity as a married couple? No. Can we say that we are married and have it mean the same thing as when a married man and a woman say it? No. When I travel outside of California, do I still have all the same rights as a person who is married? No. Separate is not equal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_but_equal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-class_citizen
If you believe that same-sex marriage or my relationship with Patrick harms you or your family, I invite you to a civilized discussion to help me understand your views.
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Edited and uploaded photos. Errands downtown. Today I found our missing egg beaters in the utensils drawer right where we had expected them to be. Patrick says aliens brought them back. Hemmed a pair of jogging pants for Danny. House chores: laundry, cleaning, amputagging. Dinner at home with Patrick: salad, pizza delivery. Stretches. Bookmarks pruning. Thanks, everyone, for all the fine birthday wishes. Still working my way through all the thankyouing. Stretches.
Wed Nov 12, 2008
Usual granola breakfast. Wiki followup with students AD and SM. Followup with student KD about Sophos. Feedback to Jann about sending URLs in email. After 1 year and 7 months, Nancy J from Credant returned my email message saying, "Hi Frank! It has been awhile since we touched base. Hope all is well. Are you all set for endpoint data encryption? What did you decide? Let me know if I can send specific info/schedule time for review." My reply: "Thanks, Nancy, your assistance is no longer needed." Evaluated a link request. CTS work: survey analysis. Lunch by myself in the cafeteria: junior burger no cheese, french fries, POG juice. CTS work: focus group prep conference call. Wiki followup with students AD and SM. Began completing a campuswide survey. Patrick noticed today that our straight (as far as we know) neighbors upstairs put a No on 8 sign in their window—how sweet. Our former coworker Pollyanna aka Polly stopped by today for a surprise visit. She's living in Seattle now, studying web design. Joel and I enjoyed briefly chatting with her and catching up. Dinner at Phil, Danny, and Drew's with Phil, Danny, Drew, Sandip, Mom Ryan, Patrick. I reset Sandip's fancy Starck watch. Home. Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell press, advanced one-legged plank. Stretches. Late meal: leftover noodles with cow stew.
Thu Nov 13, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. To work. Chatted with Scott about his new Mac laptop and Mac software. Helped Scott and Rebecca with PharmAdMIT setup. Reported permissions problems to Cesar. Followup with Michelle K about photos she needed. Followup with Susie about hiring forms. CTS survey results analysis. Made live links from our website to Joel's blog, Reports from the Pharm. SCWG RCO web hosting migration analysis. Prepared for interviews. Small web update: biophysics director. Lunch: Panda Express. 1-on-1 with Cindy. PharmAdMIT admin work on Cindy's computer. Followup on class of 2012 wiki request: permissions. WHelped student PH with setting up wireless and Outlook 2007. Helped student MB with wireless and other computer issues. Completed a surplus pickup request form. Chatted briefly on the phone with Susie. Management paperwork. Followup with student KD about a problem with Sophos. To home. Installed Firefox 3.0.4. Dinner at home with Patrick: steamed broccoli, chicken lasagne, panini rustic rolls, Smart Balance Light. Patrick says the new Levi's store on Castro Street opened yesterday. Watched Heroes Season 2 Episode 4 on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Worked on Danny's website and began work on a mailings solution for Phil.
Fri Nov 14, 2008
Stretches. Weight training: advanced plank (3:00), curl, hammer curl, advanced plank (3:00). Stretches. Usual granola breakfast. To work. Hiring activities. Posted updated schedules for Lucia. Hiring activities. Closed a preview session for Eric V. Lunch at Joel's with Joel and Scott: turkey with havarti and dill, rotelle pasta salad with cheese and sliced olives, crisp potato chips. Dessert: coconut sorbet with sliced strawberries. Yum! Cardkey access issues: Parnassus perimeter, S rooms. 1-on-1 with Eric. Surplus pickup prep. Cardkey access followup with Terence. Web update for Eric V: grad placement interviews PDF. Class of 2011 website followup with student DS and with Brian W. Encountered Susie L and daughter Elizabeth at the bus stop. She offered me a ride, of course, but NextBus said my bus was only 4 minutes away, so I declined. After more than the few minutes had passed, the bus didn't show up and now the sign said the next bus was 26 minutes—that's messed up. I crossed the street to get dinner. When I got to the other side, the light had turned red and that's when the bus showed up. The bus made its way to the bus stop, and a Muni train passed through, preventing me from crossing to get to the bus. The Muni train passed, and I crossed the street and was able to get to the bus, but I learned the driver was not taking any new passengers. Someone said that the driver said it was going offline or out of service. Dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant near 9th and Judah. Walked part way home, encountering Jeff B and Heather N. Played with Screen Sharing in OS X. Changed passwords for some things. Updated my mirroring script.
Sat Nov 15, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Cut my hair, showered. Patrick and I attended the Marriage Equality and GLBTQI Rights Rally, saw David H and Shan and Eric R along the way. We saw a few people we knew at the rally: Chris N, Andy M, more. We ate lunch at Frjtz (581 Hayes Street). I thought the fries and chicken sandwich we shared were tasty, but I didn't like having to wait in line (only 1 register), and I didn't like having so much stuff to carry after I left the register (2 receipts, 1 number stand, one iced tea glass, one empty water glass, 2 dipping sauce containers, no trays). (Patrick was saving us a table.) The decor is nice, the ventilation could have been better. We saw James B on Muni going home. Napped. Dinner at home with Patrick: turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob. Watched Heroes season 2 chapter 5 on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Sun Nov 16, 2008
Eggs, sausage, english muffin for brunch. Finished uploading rally photos. Picked up a sandwich and drinks at Safeway. Went to Marshall's Beach by myself. Late lunch: roast cow and swiss, fruit salad, vitamin water. Took photos of the Golden Gate Bridge. Uploaded photos. Drinks at Nate and psychobauble's to celebrate the last weekend in their current apartment. Dinner at Grand Pu Bah.
Mon Nov 17, 2008
Sent video emails using TokBox. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Shared laptop conflict resolution. Computer troubleshooting for student KD (all day). Got ssh screen sharing set up the way I want. Jobs form work. Lunch: leftover sandwich from yesterday. Meetings: 1-on-1 with Susie, web team. Dinner at home with Patrick: cheese ravioli with mushroom ragout, ciabatta roll, Smart Balance Light. Watched Heroes season 2 chapter 6. Stretches. Weight training: advanced plank (4:15, new best). Stretches.
Tue Nov 18, 2008
Installed Flickr Uploadr for Eric V and showed him how to do basic uploads. Tomorrow we'll cover Organizr. Spent most of the day working on the job postings application. Lunch with Ena and Melissa at Dragonfly. Melissa had a lotus root salad, Ena had coconut chicken, I had crab meat noodle soup and green tea. Completed maintenance on student KD's laptop—all is working now. Had a lot of wrangling with CRLF conversions between edit and review screens. Group meeting. Management work. Stretches. Weight training: superslow standing overhead tricep kickback. Stretches. Dinner at home with Patrick: thin-crust combo pizza, sweet potato bisque with nutmeg. Today I notified Mozy that I wanted to close my home account with them. For the past 52 days, they were unable to resolve a problem in which Mozy would crash upon launch in Mac OS 10.5.5. I tried working with them to resolve the problem, and they had me try many things and granted me free extensions to my account, but nothing resolved the problem. They seem like honest people, but I want online backup, not promises of online backup, and Mozy was only delivering on the latter for nearly the past 2 months, and I was tired of it. I've been using iDrive for free the past few weeks and might switch to them instead. For now, I no longer trust Mozy, and I no longer recommend them for home use, but might return to them in the future if they clean up their act. Stretches. Weight training: superslow lying-down overhead tricep kickback, superslow front raise, superslow one-arm dumbbell row. Stretches. Late meal: black cherry yogurt, hot milk.
Wed Nov 19, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. To work. Management work followup. Adjusted firewall settings. Prepped order of new laptop for the office. Had to restart Windows Vista because of an error: Windows Installer stopped working. Printing problems: Xerox Phaser 6200DP says it needs a new black ink cartridge, so I install one and then it hums for a bit and then says it needs a new black ink cartridge. I tried a few things, but nothing worked. Handed off to DLS for resolution. Discovered EveryBlock via Webmonkey. EveryBlock gathers information related to the neighborhood you specify and shows you what's going on. First look: very impressive. Showed Eric V more Flickr features: Organizr, guest pass. Learned that you can create a guest pass for a private set but the people you send that guest pass to don't have access to the built-in printing options like Qoop. This is true whether or not they have a Flickr account. One suggested way around this problem is to have people add you as a contact and then you add them as either family or friend and then grant printing rights to friends or family, but the problem with this approach and what we're doing is that we have 500+ students—how can we be certain that any particular person is who she says she is? That's probably not problematic, but it's not secure enough for our needs. Instead, we'll tell students that they can use the All Sizes button to download the high-res version and print it themselves or upload it to their favorite photo printing service. Lunch with Joel at Nan King Road Bistro. Computer maintenance for student MK. Job postings application work. Installed Apple updates. To home. Dinner at home with Patrick: shake-and-baked chicken legs, polenta with broccoli and mushrooms, ciabatta roll, Smart Balance Light. Tried to get Patrick's webcam to work with TokBox but it only displayed a black box with a strip of static at the bottom. Signed up with Get Satisfaction. Posted my question about the webcam and TokBox on Get Satisfaction and got an answer within 3 minutes! Get Satisfaction was already impressive before that experience. They really understand a wider range of customer service interactions than anything else like it I've seen, and they're really smart with the latest web technologies. Computer maintenance for Patrick. Learned from wikipedia what slacktivism is. Got work screen sharing working. Resolved Patrick's LifeCam and TokBox problem by updating LifeCam drivers and also ensuring that Flash was current. Thanks, Damon B! Stretches.
Thu Nov 20, 2008
Stretches. Weight training: advanced plank (5:00, new best), side plank (2:00 each side), superslow dumbbell press. To work. Further investigated Get Satisfaction. Did a lot of news reading. I didn't realize how much Microsoft likes the word Live until I read the wikipedia entry for Microsoft Live. What a branding nightmare. Lots of job postings form work. Helped Michelle K prepare for the new faculty meeting tomorrow. Purchased a new presentation clicker—the receiver for our old one was lost. Lunch: subway sandwich to go: footlong black forest ham with provolone on wheat, no cucumbers, no olives, no mustard, no pepperoncinis. Lots of job postings form work.
Fri Nov 21, 2008
Breakfast: pumpkin yogurt. New faculty orientation at the Alumni House—all went smoothly. They had food at the start, so I had some fresh fruit and a cube of ham and egg frittata. Lunch by myself at Pasta Pomodoro. 3 slices of pizza with a side salad: $9.38. The receipt said my server's name was Cindy, and she disappeared for very long stretches leaving me wondering when she was going to take my order and refill my water glass. Corrected calendar web errors reported by Jeff B and Deborah P. Lots of job postings form work—had to redesign the HTML email. My previous design used background colors and was very pretty, but I realized afterwards that people will probably want to print the job postings, and all the background colors would unnecessarily waste printer ink and toner. Also, email applications don't always give people easy options for disabling background colors when printing. So with HTML email it's better to use background colors as sparingly as possible, I think. In the few HTML email templates I've created in the past I don't know that I realized this. Next steps: set up myphpadmin, build the backend database, and set up the insertions. To home. Stretches. Dinner at home with Patrick: rigatoni with chicken and mushrooms, ciabatta roll, Smart Balance Light. Watched Heroes volume 2 chapter 7 on Netflix DVD with Patrick. MH called tonight to report that she passed her bar exam! Woo hoo!
Sat Nov 22, 2008
Shower. Patrick made my favorite breakfast. Wrapped gifts and prepared for mailing. Edited and uploaded photos. At yesterday's New Faculty Orientation I saw some PowerPoint presentations that included long URLs, and I realized that instead of publishing a long URL or a TinyURL (which some people still don't trust), another thing you can do instead is tell people what to search on in Google to find the same page. This works particularly well if you can craft a Google search to find exactly the document you want with a minimum of search terms. Or, to help people pick out the content to which you are referring, also show them a thumbnail or sample page. People intuitively use a search methodology like this when wanting to share fun or interesting things. For example, it's likely that no one has memorized the URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg, but most people who have seen this video know that if you visit youtube.com and search on dance history or dancing history you'll be able to easily find it. Indeed, if you search google.com on youtube dance history or youtube dancing history, the video appears (today) as one of the 2 first results with a thumbnail as a bonus. It's much easier for people to jot down a few search terms than an entire URL exactly. Archived documents and photos. Patrick took a nap. Lunch at home by myself: leftover noodles and dumplings. For the first time ever, I noticed the Promote feature appear in Google search results. I didn't know what clicking it would do exactly beyond move the result higher up on the page I was looking at, so I didn't click it. This reminded me of the gold treasure chest in the top right corner of amazon.com which I never click because to me it's like Pandora's box rather than something useful or beneficial to me—it's not entirely clear what will happen if I click it. Errands: post office, alterations drop-off, drug store, sewing supplies, cost plus, party supply. Lunch for Patrick and midafternoon meal for me: Daphne's. Gasoline. Clothing maintenance. Wrapped gifts. Organized out-of-season and other clothes. Cut my hair. Napped. Went to Lookout for Bruce's surprise-not-surprise birthday party.
Sun Nov 23, 2008
Breakfast: leftovers. Recently received a phishing phone call identifying itself as Kaiser and asking me to call 1-866-398-9870—illegitimate, I ignored and deleted. Learned what query by humming is—cool! Nap. Errands. Late lunch: bbq cow submarine sandwich. Watched Heroes season 2 episode 7 on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Wrapped gifts. Work for Recharge Spa: editing. Browsed the new home of Nate and psychobauble, had fun chatting with them for a few hours. We had planned to eat dinner together, but we all had late lunch meals or snacks and were not hungry, so we didn't. Home. Work for Recharge Spa: editing, minor web edits. Late meal: chocolate bunny grahams, savory crackers, sweet potato soup with nutmeg.
Mon Nov 24, 2008
Muni bus didn't show up as predicted by NextBus, longer-than-normal commute. Met with Frank M and Gary M, talked about info technology and computer support stuff—a very good meeting. Impromptu web team meeting with Eric D and Susie—BTS proposed website review. Chatted with student BA about IMAP. Sent out a request for volunteers for a forthcoming focus group of students. Lunch to go from the cafeteria: turkey sandwich, freshly cut fruit with cottage cheese. Management work. Job postings app work: made some edits after receiving good feedback from JWG. Dinner at Basil Canteen with psychobauble and Nate. Chocolate cake at PDD's with Danny, Drew, Jen C, Nate, and psychobauble. Jen drove me home—thanks, Jen! My Apple Mighty Mouse scroller today stopped working properly. It now scrolls down, left, and right, but not up. Worked fine no problems before today. I remember BK saying his Mighty Mouse got clogged all the time and I thought he was crazy because I never had trouble, but now I'm not so sure. Compressed air did not fix the problem.
Tue Nov 25, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast except no sugars. I accidentally fixed the Mighty Mouse scrolling problem that I described yesterday. I was just experimenting with actions that might possible fix the scroller. I guessed that there was some kind of sensor attached to the scroller that was somehow getting blocked from contact with or view of the scroller. I found that vigorously shaking the mouse up and down make the up scrolling work when it hadn't before. Then I tried pressing the button and holding it in and then scrolling in all directions. Several attempts of this last action eventually fixed it, but it took some experimentation and persistence. It didn't get fixed the first time I tried it. Clicking the scroller as a button on my computer invokes the Dashboard. What fixed it for me was click-holding-scrolling after the Dashboard was on the screen and I had let go of the scroller. It didn't fix itself upon invoking the Dashboard. CTS work: asked Eric V to set up pizza and drinks for one of our focus groups. Student computing working group meeting. Job postings form work. Communicators network steering committee meeting. Lunch: tostada from Carmelina's. Reviewed Doug's wireless survey. Job postings form work. Met with Eric D: UCSF identity guide. To home. Work for Recharge: postcard. Command+W failed to close open Finder windows in OS 10.5.5 but in other apps it worked as expected. Logging out and logging back in fixed it.
Wed Nov 26, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast except no sugars. Old WeID ticket followup. Created a test Google Group for UCSF Communicators. Management work. BTS org chart work for Susie. Posted updated draft winter schedules for Lucia. Began investigating posting our job listing to places other than Craigslist. CTS focus group work—Jilian and I are trying to move the date and time. Lunch: subway sandwich, sun chips. IMW work. Reported nonaction on our FM request higher up the org chart. More management work. Left work at 4. To home. Picked up alterations. Tried fixing the sticky car door handle but was unsuccessful. Received a suspicious phone call supposedly from Kaiser asking me to call 866-398-9870. I don't trust it, so I deleted the message. Talked on the telephone for a long time. Recharge work: postcards, 4 up. Online backup solution research. Dinner at home with Patrick: sesame chicken, peas, wild rice. Dessert: root beer ice cream bar. Watched Heroes season 2 episode 10. I noticed that I didn't keep accurate track of which Heroes episodes we watched, but we're definitely at season 2 episode 10 right now and only (re)watched each episode once. One more episode to go and then all of Disc 4's extras and then we can start watching season 3 on the web.
Thu Nov 27, 2008
Baked 2 large, 4 mini, and 4 tiny loaves of pumpkin bread. Spent about 4 hours reconfiguring wireless router and wireless print server settings because wireless printing stopped working to one printer. Lunch at home with Patrick: chunky soups, crackers. Shower. Drove to Miss Saigon. Thanksgiving feast at Miss Saigon with Chi, Coung, Hy, Phong, Quyen, Tony Q, Drew, Phil, Danny, Jane, Chad, Marissa, Nate, psychobauble, Patrick, Pat, Sam, Sandip, Ludwig, and lots of the restaurant staff. We ate pumpkin bread, crackers, smoked salmon, smoked ham and salad, turkey, stuffing, another kind of stuffing, mashed potato, green beans, shrimp balls, shrimp puffs, haricots verts with almonds or creamed spinach, pull-apart bread, cheesecake, toasted corn and sweet onion salad, southern sweet potato casserole, 2 bourbon chocolate pecan pies, cranberry sauce, roasted pear trifle, tiramisu. We drank wine, water, tea, soda. A fine evening. We took many leftovers home.
Fri Nov 28, 2008
My favorite breakfast. Nap. Stretches. Weight training: advanced plank (3:00). Stretches. Late lunch: leftovers. Watched Heroes end of season 2 DVD extras on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Shopped online. Picked up Tony Q. Went to the de Young Museum, parked in the garage. Tony bought a membership. We caught the beginning of the Aztec dancers parade through the museum, heard live Jamaican and English dub music from Native Elements which Patrick particularly enjoyed, observed people making woodcut prints inspired by Teikichi Hikoyama's Sierra Pine with "art diva" Kim Erickson, watched part of the film screening of Yves Saint Laurent, tout terriblement. Parking cost $5—again that terribly designed parking payment machine. Dropped off Patrick at home. Tony Q and I ate dinner at Askew Grill (Castro). Afterwards we both went to Cafe Flore where we happened upon and joined Eric N, Dave M, Vic, Chris, Hermann. Club Dragon: Galen, Nate, Quyen, Danny, Emery, Eric N, Dave M, Vic, and more.
Sat Nov 29, 2008
Slept in. Usual granola breakfast, side of organic black seedless grapes. House chores. Lunch at home with Patrick: steamed dumplings. Patrick took a nap. I edited Patrick's submission to a fellowship. Nap. Shower. Dinner at home with Patrick: campanelle in mushroom tomato sauce, sourdough rolls, Smart Balance Light.
Sun Nov 30, 2008
Usual granola breakfast. Archived documents. Patrick took a nap. Stretches. Weight training: superslow lying-down overhead tricep kickback, superslow dumbbell press, superslow one-arm dumbbell row. Stretches. Cut my hair. Showered. House cleaning. Late picnic lunch at Dolores Park with Patrick: sandwiches, salads, bottled teas, and cookie from Thorough Bread (248 Church Street, San Francisco, California, 94114, USA) which we liked very much. Read from Life of Pi. Stopped at the car wash on the way home. Edited Patrick's fellowship application letter. Archived documents. Dinner at home with Patrick: pig chops, mac and cheese, corn on the cob. Listened to This American Life, "Sissies" from the web during dinner. Archived documents. Patrick and I made and applied custom gift tags to gifts. Edited and uploaded a photo. Added data to Geni.