September 2009
Summary: Jeff and Thom's wedding at The Cliff House, Folsom Street Fair
Dates on this page
Tue Sep 1, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: various leg exercises. Usual oatmeal breakfast. SCWG meeting. Staff meeting. Lunch: dos tacos from Carmelina's, water. 1-on-1 with Cindy. Drupal planning with Eric D. Listserv management. Management activities. Another bad Muni commute home—1 hour. Dinner at home with Patrick: pig chops with sliced mushrooms, saffron risotto, very sweet corn on the cob. Followup with the bank about a debit card. Web edits for Danny. Reviewed DMV paperwork—they cashed my check over a month ago and still haven't sent me my registration tabs. Weeded friends' RSS feeds in Sage—if your last blog or photo was in 2005, you're probably not going to post anything ever again. Stretches. Weight training: superslow tricep kickback, superslow front raise. Late meal: hot nonfat milk, lowfat yogurt, chunky soup.
Wed Sep 2, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Management activities. Got a photo of 3rd and Parnassus for Lucia's disaster plan. Submitted WeID spreadsheet to TBS. Lexi-Comp renewal. Closed a workshop reg for Scott E. Called the DMV—they haven't sent me my new tabs even though they cashed my check a month ago—lame. Also: they can't handle requests via web or Twitter—lame. The person who answer my first call after 10 minutes on hold hung up on me after 1 second because I didn't pick up from speakerphone quickly enough. The DMV is awful. Called sonicnet with questions about Fusion. Do I need a new modem? (Yes—$50.) How long does the switchover take? (7 to 10 days.) Is there downtime? (No. After Fusion is live, you cancel the old DSL.) Also: someone will need to come to our home to "run a tri-pair." Calendar management. City tours web edits with Shirin. Various other web edits. Lunch from the cafeteria, ate in Saunders Court: roast chicken sandwich, side salad. Updated schedules for Lucia. Helped student PE with a question about MyAccess. Various web edits. Communications staff document work. Dinner at home with Patrick: nonspicy jambalaya, baguette, Smart Balance Light, hot water. Set up home linkchecking again after having none for a long time. Dessert: 2 small scoops of vanilla ice cream with Kahlua. Stretches. Weight training: superslow lateral raise. Stretches. Late meal: hot nonfat milk, lowfat yogurt, chunky soup.
Thu Sep 3, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell press, wrist curl, reverse wrist curl. Stretches. Usual oatmeal breakfast with hot nonfat milk. Reviewed reimbursement paperwork. (I originally submitted PDF scans but was told that only paper originals were accepted.) Listserv management. Calendar management. Sent JWG a copy of the course schedule change form. Responded to Joe H about password management on IT-FORUM. Met with Eric D for Drupal planning. Also recommended UCSB's FlexCard program again for consideration to higher-ups. Pre-registered for DrupalConSF 2010. Posted live 2 web pages—one is an update for iPhone and iPod Touch instructions, the other is a new page about information security. Other web updates. Lunch: leftover non-spicy jambalaya. Management activities. Web planning meeting with Susie L and Eric D. Jeff and Susie gave me a ride home—sweet! Dinner at home with Patrick: baked salmon, cold noodle salad with zucchini, side salad. Helped Patrick bake a coconut pie. Print work for Danny: price list. I notice today that Windows Vista automatically attempted to install SP2 several days ago. It failed with error code 800F0A0A, and there is no clear word from the Microsoft support website about what to do about this. A forum participant suggests disabling antivirus. Dessert: coconut pie - yum! Stretches. Weight training: crunch, concentration curl. Stretches.
Fri Sep 4, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: superslow kneeling kickback. Stretches. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Typeface research. Coded and tested a new HTML email that was sent from Outlook 2007. What I learned: the template I made isn't perfect everywhere, but it'll do. I also tested forwarding after the receipt of the HTML email. Outlook Web Access and Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition were the worst of the bunch—completely failing to forward an HTML email as HTML—both could forward only the plain text. Next worst was Hotmail which retained the HTML but failed to properly render any of the images in it. Gmail was third-best—just some padding issues. And Yahoo! Mail was second-best—most closely retaining all formatting except the fonts were changed. I think Outlook 2007 performed the best, which is not too surprising since the message was first sent from it. Other webmail options RoundCube, SquirrelMail, and Horde were pretty miserable—they are too conservative by today's standards and should permit HTML by default (but not necessarily images) like the major webmail apps do. Picked up 2 copies of Pro Drupal Development from special order at the bookstore. Submitted timesheets. Lunch: leftover noodles with salmon, chatted with Scott E. Investigated a problem with LimeSurvey. Web edits: the associate dean page, OSACA staff page, update from the dean—geolocation. Purchasing work: Coda for Eric D, prep for Snow Leopard. Finished the leadership group photo page for Cindy. Name change followup. Patrick picked me up at work. Dinner at Harvey's with Patrick: french dip and sweet potato fries and Corona for Patrick, crispy chicken wrap with onion rings, lemonade for me. Watched part of Eddie Izzard's Glorious on Netflix DVD at home with Patrick. Resolved a home network problem. Restored all my websites to no-www Class B. Reviewed linkcheck reports. Resolved a problem with LoQu. Twice attempted to install Bluefish today and failed both times because I couldn't get Fink installed. Stretches. Weight training: sidelying 90-degree leg lift. Stretches. Patrick's replacement debit card arrived today. The bank attempted to replace it twice without requiring a signature and twice (I am sure) it was stolen by thieves who work for the post office in San Francisco. The third time they used FedEx and waived the normally $50 fee for a rush replacement, but failed to address it to both our names when I asked that it be sent to my work address. A receptionist didn't know who Patrick was, so the delivery was returned. The bank's debit card partner said they could not (would not?) change the addressee, so they FedExed the 4th replacement card to the bank who then readdressed the card in a new FedEx delivery so that both our names were on it and that's what I received yesterday. This all started because VISA mistakenly thought—for no logical reason that we could see—that Patrick's card had been compromised or was being abused. Patrick was without a debit card for 38 days and cost the bank at least the 2 FedEx shipments and the cost of generating 4 new debit cards. I don't understand why banks don't send critical documents like this requiring a signature. The DMV is the same way—I am certain that my last replacement ID card was stolen by San Francisco postal employees because the DMV doesn't send those documents in any manner that is considered secure.
Sat Sep 5, 2009
Breakfast: omelette, sausage, lowfat yogurt, tomato juice, hot water. Housecleaning. Edited and uploaded photos and video. Lunch: leftovers. Did home website work: cleaned up some code in the journal, removed photo sections that had been migrated to Flickr. Dinner at La Vie restaurant with Patrick. Watched Pee-Wee's Big Adventure on Netflix instant watch with Patrick.
Sun Sep 6, 2009
Granola breakfast. Edited and uploaded photos. Nap. Cut my hair, showered. Lunch: leftovers. Dinner with Danny, Drew, Phil, Romy, and Patrick at DDP's. Phil prepared roast chicken stuffed with red beans and rice, gravy, vegetable bread. Watched extras from Eddie Izzard's Glorious on Netflix DVD at home with Patrick. Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell row, superslow dumbbell press, crunch, superslow concentration curl. Late meal: hot nonfat milk, chunky soup, V8 high fiber.
Mon Sep 7, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Price list work for Danny. Housecleaning. Lunch at home with Patrick: sandwiches, wheat thins, triscuit, water. Recorded a telephone message that my mom left me. Walked around in the Castro and the Mission with Patrick. Looked for wrapping paper but found nothing we liked. Dinner at Pancho Villa: burrito for Patrick, dos tacos for me, aguas frescas. Stretches. Weight training: various leg exercises. Stretches.
Tue Sep 8, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Listserv management. Followup with Cindy about the photocopy services web page. Updated the school orgchart and related pages for Susie. Checked in with Sue A about today's announcement. WeID followup. Updated the student leadership group photos for Cindy. Followup with an entering student about accounts problems. Answered an entering student's question about computer requirements. Management activities. Calendar management. Answered another entering student's question about computer requirements. More management activities. Updated the course websites page for Claire L and Allison S. Lunch from the cafeteria: 2 pizza slices, fresh cut fruit, cottage cheese. Meeting with Chris C and CBW: IRC and Lexi-Comp. Web edits for Shirin: grad fairs, infoday. Web work with Eric D: LimeSurvey, typeface research. More web edits for Shirin: grad fairs, infoday. Let Cindy know the health events form has been restored so she can review it. Dinner at home with Patrick: grilled chicken salad. Price list followup for Drew. Installed Windows Vista Service Pack 2. To resolve error code 800F0A0A I had to differently able on-access scanning in Sophos. Set up my Google profile after seeing Travis' a few days ago and feeling jealous. Stretches. Weight training: superslow front raise, superslow dumbbell fly. Stretches. Late meal: hot nonfat milk, nonfat black cherry yogurt, spaghetti os.
Wed Sep 9, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Reprinted font samples that printed jankily yesterday. I thought that switching to Adobe Reader on Mac would fix the problem but it had the exact same problem that I saw in Reader: when printing the current view of a page it would look fine in the preview in the print dialog but upon print to a Xerox 6200DP it would print incorrectly with a portion of the page repeated similar to ghosting. Preview wouldn't do what I needed—print only a selected portion or view —of a PDF page. Skim worked, but I needed to crop the PDF first. Met with Rodney, talked about the IRC and orientation. Cesar installed power management software on our Windows computers. Calendar management. Chatted with Allison S about the course websites page and decided that we can get rid of it, so I checked in with Cindy and Claire who agreed and made the changes live. Sent grad info and infoday updates to Shirin for review. Sent Susie and Eric some research on typefaces. Lunch: roast chicken sandwich, fries. Web planning with Eric D. Sent Eric D more typeface research. Along the way I discovered a really great typography primer written by Adobe in 2000 but all of it is still applicable today. To find it on your own, search for adobe typography primer on scribd. WeID followup with Roberto R and Tyler S—we have received no confirmation since sending our data a week ago. (Monday was a holiday, but still.) Reviewed Update from the Dean photo insertion request from Susie. To home. Fixed home internet problems for Patrick. Dinner at home with Patrick: udonini soup with shrimp and tofu. Baked starshaped sugar cookies. Linkchecking for home websites.
Thu Sep 10, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. iCal 3.0.8 consistently crashes for me when I select multiple recurring events and then attempt to delete them. To work. Shared my calendar with Lisa S. Responded to a computer requirements question. Websteering lunch with Leslie K, John K, Ed C, Tamer S, Eric D at NKRB. IT Services meeting. Posted grad fairs and infoday pages live for Shirin. WeID followup. Email alias followup with OAAIS. Added Don K to our DLS list. Updated the catalog page for JWG. UCSF Drupal group followup with Cynthia P and Beth B. Responded to another computer requirements question. When I got home, Patrick was taking a nap, so I made dinner on my own. Heirloom tomato salad, Annie's macaroni and cheese with tuna, raspberry iced tea. Restarted Airport Express. Installed lots of computer updates. Prepared a pastry bag made from parchment paper, prepared starshaped sandwich cookies filled with organic peppermint cream for tomorrow's office potluck. Stretches. Weight training: superslow lateral raise, superslow front raise. Stretches. Late snack: nonfat green apple pie yogurt.
Fri Sep 11, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Management activities. UCSF Drupal followup. Calendar management. Put the WarnMe notice on the current students page for Cindy. Listserv management. Place an order of 1 license of Panic Coda for Eric. Office potluck, interrupted by the fire alarm. Let student AD borrow our office flipcam for the orientation camping trip. Responded to lots of message traffic about information security, what we should tell students, and whether we trust Apple regarding encryption in iPhone 3GS and the security in general of older models. Asked Heidi S about CAS as a possible single sign-on solution for UCSF. Set up a Twitter account for the school. Alerted students to iPhone compatibility problems with the UCSF Exchange mail server and the fact that Apple has not yet responded to 7-week-old claims that the iPhone 3GS is insecure from a real-world perspective. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken confit, salad with heirloom tomatoes, dinner roll, Smart Balance Light. Dessert: strawberries and powdered sugar.
Sat Sep 12, 2009
Somehow I woke up when Patrick did and shortly after he left I saw lightning at 4:47 AM. A few minutes later I saw brighter lightning followed by big bursts of thunder. Fell asleep again. When I woke this time, tweets reported that the Castro got big rain, but it seemed to have passed us over here in the Sunset. Breakfast: nonfat cherry yogurt, strawberries. Restarted Airport Express and my iMac. Wrote a complaint to the city about last night's construction noise from the house next door. Talked with Patrick about it and a lot of other things. Web work for Danny and Drew: elizabethW. Lunch at home by myself: leftover-chicken sandwich. Uploaded old photos for Estebahn. Web work for Danny and Drew: custom gift certificate. Dinner at home by myself: biryani, garlic naan, vegetable spring rolls—a Trader Joe's dinner! Today Patrick helped Aaron celebrate the birthday of Aaron's relatively new boyfriend. Today while using my iMac in OS 10.5.8, I happened to accidentally open every icon on my desktop and left this status update on Twitter and Facebook: "Frank Farm thinks OS X should ask something like 'Are you sure...?' when > 5 items are selected and one of them is double-clicked - accidents happen". If you still aren't convinced, try this: Click once on your desktop, Command+A, Command+O—feel the pain, I dare you. The same kind of thing exists with the "Open all in tabs" feature in Mozilla Firefox but there it's less likely to be an accident. One way programmers could implement this would be to include a way to cancel the entire operation at any point along with progressively increasing delays with the first 3 to 5 opens followed by progressively decreasing delays among those that follow. Bonus points if you can make it undoable, but that's not likely to be very useful. Yes, the user initiated the command, but accidents happen, the feature has the potential for being very unproductive, and it's not nice to remove control from the user at any time as is the case while 100+ icons or tabs are sequentially opening automatically.
Sun Sep 13, 2009
Breakfast: nonfat cherry vanilla yogurt. Tried and failed again to install Fink which I wanted because I wanted to install Bluefish. Giving up on both for now. Cleaned up a lot of long-neglected broken links in Lodestar. Brunch at Park Chow with psychobauble, Nate, Patrick. Shopped for wrapping paper. Home. Patrick took a nap. I fixed more broken links on Lodestar and also set up linkchecking for LLGH and Danny's spa. Prepped Tina's site for migration to bluehost. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken with whole wheat pasta in marinara sauce, hot water. Watched Le scaphandre et le papillon (1997) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. My Netflix note: "This touching and partly true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of ELLE magazine, reminds us what it means to live and to enjoy life and what good one can accomplish under the most despairing circumstances."
Mon Sep 14, 2009
Shirin brought in homemade oreo cookies to share with the office. Scott forwarded an amusing photo that he got from Eric V—the photo is an Arrowhead spring water bottle that clearly has a frog floating in it! Troubleshot listserv problems with Beth D—when sending to a particular list, we receive no confirmation request message so the message cannot be delivered. Edited a.pdf and all.pdf for Scott—a small typo that we missed (Form D should say Form C). Reviewed the updated VPN login page. Followup on ordering Panic Coda for Eric D. Clarified a question about computer requirements for an entering student. Sent Lucia a draft of the new student list. Got lunch from Panda Express, ate during the Communicators Network meeting with Susan Penny, JD, who talked about the legal concerns regarding photography, privacy, and release forms. Her role deals with the Medical Center side of things rather than the campus side, but I still learned a lot from her. My fortune: Money and luck are favorable next month. Lucia got back to me quickly, so I updated the spreadsheet with her edits. Populated the P1 mailing list, sent the new spreadsheet to the OSACA. More listserv problems troubleshooting—problem happens for me, too! Management activities. Quickly coded a new email setup page for students with BlackBerry. Dinner at home with Patrick: braised chicken breast with mushrooms and mustard sauce, steamed green peas, dinner roll, Smart Balance Light, hot water.
Tue Sep 15, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: various leg exercises. Stretches. Breakfast: granola with fresh diced apple, high fiber V8 juice. To work. SCWG meeting. Reported the "Enable the ActiveSync" link to be confusing to SCWG. Communicators Network followup. Lots of calendar management. Lunch: leftovers. Coded a special HTML email announcement for the dean. Listserv management. Reported a listserv problem to OAAIS—a student reports never receiving a confirmation request for some messages. Minor web updates: course waiver for CP 110, setup email for iPhone. Revised my orientation handout. Patrick picked me up in the car. The line was too long at San Tung, so we had dinner at Golden Rice Bowl: Shanghai dinner for 2. Generous portions, good food. We had enough left over for another complete meal, $32.85 after a $5.50 tip. Patrick's fortune: You will have many friends when you need them. My fortune #1: You will inherit an unexpected sum of money within the year. My fortune #2: You will live a long, prosperous life. Organized data for car maintenance. I learned today from Eric D and Scott E that Chacos and Rainbows are sandal brands that have good arch support.
Wed Sep 16, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Listserv management. Updated the proposed set up iPhone page to include a notice that ActiveSync for original iPhone and iPhone 3G users will end in the foreseeable future, sent a message to SCWG describing the awkward and somewhat contradictory position in which it puts us. More listserv management. Calendar management. Got Shirin to give me and Rodney 15 more minutes of presentation time. Chatted with Susie. Finalized the Assemi announcement for Susie and Sue. Met with entering student RW: Snow Leopard (10.6) GAL (Address Book) setup—we failed because we don't know the correct settings. Troubleshot a listserv problem report—the listserv in question no longer exists. Finished my orientation handout, photocopied it. Reported a problem with the photocopier. Tried to help Cindy with a PowerPoint 2007 animation problem, failed. Web edits for Cindy: curriculum. Initiated a process to identify and remove spammers from the UCSF Drupal Google Group. Lunch: leftovers. Spent a fun afternoon with JWG planning for the supp app project. Today the kiosk monitor on Medical Sciences 9 was installed and it's a startling change—I think people are liking it. 47 items in my inbox. While walking home to the bus stop, I got a text message from MailChimp. They're having a t-shirt giveaway—you have to fill out their form when they tweet the offer. I pulled over and filled out the form—a bit tedious on the tiny screen, but I did indeed win a free t-shirt! I don't get to pick the style, but the designs I saw look pretty cool. The last question on their form was puzzling—a radio button selection of either ninjas or robots. I didn't know if I should pick ninjas or robots, but I picked ninjas because I feel more like a ninja (e.g., code ninja) than a robot. Dinner at home with psychobauble, Nate, Chris G, Romy, Danny, Drew, Phil, and Patrick. Patrick prepared an amazing New Orleans-influenced Cuban meal. So much food! For dessert: lemon cake from Mollie Stone's. Washed about half of the dishes. Canceled 5dollar for Lodestar. Stretches. Weight training: superslow crunch, bridge.
Thu Sep 17, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Added Rodney to the OSACA mailing list, announced it. Resolved "your account has been locked out" problems with the shared office laptop account by opening ADUC and unchecking the lockout checkbox. Listserv management. Handled a request from recent grad CP who learned that she will be staying at UCSF as a postdoc and doesn't know what should happen with her email account. I directed her to the page I wrote specifically for this situation. Requested a new-but-not-really-new listserv; it had been deleted probably from non-use. Management activities. Prepared my slides for tomorrow's presentation. Today is the first day of orientation. Laptop setup at orientation. Orientation: Introduction to the OSACA. Troubleshot low disk space problems with the white shared office laptop. Lunch: free box lunch left over from orientation, ate with Shirin H, Scott E, JWG, Eric D in the HSW lobby. Chatted with Cesar about a new computer configuration for Don K. Prepared my slides for tomorrow's presentation. To home. Patrick redecorated the living room and bedroom today. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers. Watched "Shindig" from Firefly disc 2 on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Fri Sep 18, 2009
Woke around 4 AM, couldn't sleep. Got up around 5:20 AM. Linkchecking. Sent myself a reminder that regarding yesterday's postdoc situation I need a page for IT admins telling them what to do in those situations. I am thinking now that some really weird things have been happening with the listserv system lately—behaviors I cannot explain. So far nothing damaging, though. Stretches. Weight training: superslow crunch, bridge, superslow front raise, superslow lateral raise. Updated Drupal core to 6.14 for LLGH. Shower. Usual oatmeal breakfast. To work. Investigated purchase of a replacement hard drive for the white shared office laptop. Notified Frank M and Gary M about the CP website being down. Calendar management. Resolved event notice distribution questions—they should to go the ASSP president who decides whether to forward to the classes or not. Reviewed Cesar G's computer order proposal for Don K. Notified Frank M and Gary M about the CP site coming back up. Management activities. Lunch: free fresh cut fruit, leftover pasta salad from yesterday. Gave my presentation of computing services to our new students. Rodney joined in for a few minutes taking less time than he said he would. I just barely finished within 1 hour. Met with new student MT: laptop setup. Listserv management. Delivered photos of faculty member Matt J to Mary Anne for a presentation. Opened my first MailChimp account and uploaded our existing HTML email template. The tools are super slick, and it makes me want to use MailChimp even if I have nothing to use it for. It took me about 50 minutes between opening my account and getting a test email sent, and that message turned out nearly perfectly. There is much to explore in the interface. I probably never would have tried it if they didn't have the new freemium option. So far so good. Management activities. 38 items in my inbox. Tried to call the DMV today, but they were closed—dang state furloughs! We had way too many pastries left over from some events today, so I gave them to one of the custodial staff who said she would share them with the others on her staff. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers. Watched "Safe" from Firefly disc 2 on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Started feeling a bit of a sore throat. Was it the unusual hour of talking I did today, or am I getting a cold?
Sat Sep 19, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell press, various superslow leg exercises. Breakfast: attempted to eat kashi, granola, and plain yogurt but the kashi turned out to be slightly stale. Ate shredded wheat with nonfat milk and a side of sliced nectarine instead. Began web hosting migration for Tina's website from 5dollar to bluehost. Cut my hair, showered and cleaned the shower, nap. Fixed some problems with Lodestar (art, multipage, others), tried to figure out why Google isn't indexing some of its pages—failed. Maybe I need a sitemap? Dinner at home by myself: leftovers. Dancing at UndergroundSF by myself; met Eric, radiologist Dave, Corey, Cain, coffee shop manager Tony; remet accountant Amir. They handed out free music, and I scored an album sampler cd of The Noisettes. Early breakfast by myself at Sparky's: 2 eggs scrambled, wheat toast, hash browns, chicken apple sausage, plain water; said hello to Corey who walked in with another party after I was seated.
Sun Sep 20, 2009
Slept in. Breakfast at home with Patrick: mexican omelette, leftover Cuban rice, hot water. Wrapped a gift. Lunch at home with Patrick: spring rolls, hot water. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: marinated chicken thighs, steamed spinach with boiled egg, shells and cheese, hot water. Watched "Safe" from Firefly disc 2 on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Mon Sep 21, 2009
Helped a student with laptop repair questions. Management activities. Followup activities for a late admit. Entering student email change request. Management activities. Calendar management. SCWG followup on broken link to wireless setup instructions on the OAAIS website. Answered followup questions from Carol W about the white laptop. Followup review of hardware purchasing with Cesar. Listserv management. Figured out what to do with 2 boxes of old media that Chris C left behind, prepared to send a secure disposal package, requested staff to submit items for secure disposal. Free lunch: half of a cow burrito. Met with Susie and Cindy. Sent a followup message to new students about computing services stuff. Ordered a replacement hard drive for the white laptop. Met 1-on-1 with Susie, talked about web projects, subidentities, and color palettes. Eric D stopped by to drop off the camera and tripod and to chat for a bit. Sent Scott E candidates for interview for the 20% of fulltime web app programmer position we have open. To home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Indian food delivery. Tied up a brown paper package with string. Began watching "Jaynestown" from Firefly disc 2 on Netflix DVD with Patrick and popcorn, but the power went out some time after 8:00 PM. I thought it was just a circuit breaker tripping from something the upstairs neighbors were doing, but it turns out the whole block was dark and there was a something on fire glowing orange on a telephone pole down the street, so Patrick lit candles while I silenced the UPSes, shut down the computers gracefully, and turned the UPSes off to stop the annoying hum. To bed early.
Tue Sep 22, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. To work lateish. Answered questions from 2 students. Reported a bounce error to Scott E. Reported network problems to OAAIS. Sent Lisa S electronic paperwork to file. Listserv management. Calendar management. More listserv management. Kiosk work—created a slide talking about @sf311. Followup with OAAIS on several issues. Updated the ECAP brochure for Grace C, took photos of it and uploaded them to Flickr (private) so that she could see how I intended the folds. More listserv management. Responded to a student's question about Sophos and Snow Leopard—no known problems, try clean reinstall, watch out for known VPN issue. Name change followup with JWG and sysadmins. Free lunch: Subway sandwiches. Prepared items for surplus, handed off to Lucia for submittal. Prepared account closure list, asked Lucia to review it for accuracy. Management activities. Email address change followup with Jina S and Doug C. Edited the SCWG encryption summary for ESAC. More email address change followup with Jina S and Doug C. Tested the new listserv for ASSP—seems to be working, asked a student to test it as well. Posted and annoucned final fall schedules for Lucia. Followup with Marcin R about cardkey access. 24 items in my inbox, down from 46+ on Friday and Monday—whew! Late night. Dinner at home with Patrick: tacos, hot water. Successfully watched "Jaynestown" from Firefly disc 2 on Netflix DVD with Patrick and one small scoop of cherry vanilla ice cream.
Wed Sep 23, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: tricep kickback. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Mailing list problem followup with student PYL. Mailing list maintenance, followup with Claire L. Email address change followup. Web edits for Susie: admin, organization, numbers, funding pie chart, faculty. Helped Shirin with a presentation problem in HSW302—Microsoft My Day from Office 2008 was preventing advancement to the next slide in PowerPoint. Solution: switch to My Day, Command+Q. More listserv management. Lunch: leftovers. Updated OSACA staff listing on the web for Cindy. Coded and tested a quick-and-dirty html email for Cindy. Met with Susie—web planning. After work I met Patrick at the farmer's market in the Castro. We bought some pumpkin bolani and nectarines. Dinner at Escape from New York Pizza with Patrick. Picked up a video from Superstar. To home. Watched 1:16 of The Thief of Baghdad (1940) on Superstar DVD with Patrick.
Thu Sep 24, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell fly, superslow dumbbell press. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Worked on our kiosk project. This was started by Chris C before he left the School on August 30 for a position with SAA. He arranged for a large flat panel display in the elevator lobby. We'll use it to display announcements for people to read while they wait for the elevator. Since its installation I have heard only one person say they hate it; everyone else seems to love it. To do it, we're using a Sony display with a computer running Windows XP. The announcement slides are fed from Flickr. We use Slickr 1.0.3 as a standalone application. A DOS batch file scheduled with XP's Scheduled Tasks clears the Slickr cache daily. We can manage the computer remotely with Remote Desktop. Any campus entity can submit announcements to our special moderated Flickr group. When approved, the announcement appears on the display along with all the other announcements in the pool. I believe it is the first such announcement system at UCSF that enables any campus entity to participate. Lunch: pumpkin bolani, triscuit, hot water. Student PYL reports that when you create an HTML email message in OWA in IE8 the message displays as expected before sending but when received it displays as plain text in many other email clients including Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and Hotmail. When the same message is received in OWA in IE8 and Outlook 2007 and Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition, the message displays as expected. She also says that she used to be able to do this with no problem—something changed about a month ago and HTML emails created in OWA in IE8 no longer display as expected in Yahoo!, Gmail, and Hotmail. I was able to duplicate the problem she described. Met with Lynn B and Allison G from UCTV and with others from UCSF ComNet arranged by Sarah P. Management activities. Followup with a late admit student. Responded to a listserv problem report from students about hyperlinks not working in messages sent to listservs. Announced that UCSFwpa and UCSFnet now work at the library on Parnassus, updated the /go/wireless page accordingly and to add some missing info about wireless at SFGH and the library at Mission Bay. Updated the list of students spreadsheet. Notified sysadmins of accounts to close on October 1 or January 1. Mailing list maintenance. Followup with WeID on a late admit student. Answered a question about wireless from student GL. Web edits for Cindy: core curr. Web edits for Susie: about admin. Web edits for Matt D, asked Susie if we can remove the purchasing subsite. Dinner with Jane, Rose, Drew, Danny, and Patrick at Danny, Drew, and Phil's. Mom Ryan was not feeling well and couldn't make it. Danny prepared a lot of food: beef stew, marinated chicken, sticky rice, fried baby bok choy, julienned pork, sourdough round. Patrick brought chocolate chip cookies which Drew served with 20-year-old tawny port.
Fri Sep 25, 2009
Woke at 4, couldn't sleep. Got up at 5. Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell row. Resolved Time Machine errors: "asp_tcp disconnect" and errors -43, 18, 19, 29 by restarting 4 devices (1 Airport Express, 2 external hard drives, 1 iMac). I now believe that all my recurring Time Machine problems can be resolved by restarting some combination of these devices. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Presentation work for Susie. Lunch with psychobauble at Pluto's. More presentation work with Susie; The Archive was a huge help. Susie and I shared a very delicious white nectarine. On the way home I missed the bus because it left 1 minute early. I could tell because I saw the bus pulling away and the Nextbus sign in the bus shelter said "1 minute" for my bus. Chatted with K and M at the bus stop. Had a lot of trouble with VMware Fusion and Windows XP Automatic Updates today. Automatic Updates would install some updates but then my VM would be in a restart loop and I would have to roll back in Fusion to an earlier state to fix it. Dinner at home with Patrick: pig chops, salad with avocado and tiny heirloom tomatoes, dinner roll, Smart Balance Light, hot water. Gift certificate work for Danny and Drew. Late snack: white nectarine, remaining pumpkin bolani.
Sat Sep 26, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: various leg and ab exercises. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Gift certificate work for Danny. Enjoyed Jeff and Thom's exquisite wedding by the ocean at the Cliff House, sat with Julie, Ziggy, Richard, Dennis, Vishi, Jeff, and Patrick at the UCSF table. Chatted briefly with Jane and Melissa. Home. More gift certificate work for Danny. Cut my hair, vacuumed. Dinner: nonfat plain yogurt with honey and diced white nectarine. Nap. Late meal: chunky soup.
Sun Sep 27, 2009
Slept in. Light breakfast: yogurt and diced white nectarine. Folsom Street Fair and Ted and Emery's party. Chatted briefly with psychobauble and Nate. Nate fed us each a spoonful of a new homemade almond and chocolate gelato—yum! Dinner at home with Patrick: bowties and garlic tomato sauce, flowered organic greens mix with baby heirloom tomatoes and grated cheddar, poppyseed dressing, dinner rolls, Smart Balance Light. Processed photos and video—about 150 after first-pass weeding. Realized that I accidentally had my camera on the wrong ISO setting for a lot of photos—oops. Oh, well. this is why I'm not a professional photographer.
Mon Sep 28, 2009
Stretches. Usual oatmeal breakfast. To work. Tweaked Twitter notifications for Lisa S. Listserv management. Calendar management. ICRD work for Rodney. Management activities. SDH Powerpoint work with Susie. More management activities. Email address change work for 2 students. Listserv work. Lunch from the cafeteria: chicken piccata with brown rice, side salad, water. More management activities. Reviewed a proposed hardware purchase for Rodney. Troubleshot a listserv problem from student SM. WeID issues work. Followup with student MP about how to archive email to the computer. To home. Bus 66 left early again, so I missed it and took the usual alternate route home. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover bowties with tomato garlic sauce with extra garlic and onions. Dessert: we shared one of Jeff and Thom's wedding cookies—delicious, of course! Reviewed Folsom Street Fair photos with Patrick. Troubleshot Time Machine problems on my iMac: errors -43, 11, 26, -6602, -128, 19, 18, 29, and 18 again. Restarted Airport Express and the external drive running Time Machine—this seemed to fix the problem this time.
Tue Sep 29, 2009
Usual oatmeal breakfast. SCWG meeting. Management activities. Light lunch at the SDH presentation which went well. To home. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken glazed with bbq sauce, leftover pad thai, side salad. Dessert: we shared one of Jeff and Thom's wedding cookies. Archived documents. Worked on home websites. Made live GC switch for Drew and Danny.
Wed Sep 30, 2009
Stretches. Weight training: superslow lateral raise, superslow front raise. Usual oatmeal breakfast. Walked most of the way to work because last night I noticed one of the busses on our route was broken down at 9th and Kirkham and so today when I checked NextBus the next bus was 41 minutes. Management activities. Lots of followup on student issues. Chatted with Martin S—he's having problems receiving email from some people. Handed Eric D his license key for Panic Coda. More student issues followup. Troubleshot listserv problem: confirmation request never received. Listserv management. Tested a listserv problem for student JW. Met with Rodney, talked about forthcoming monitor purchases. Met with Susie, we talked about colors and Eric D joined us for some of it at the end. Lunch: leftovers at desk during our meeting. Supp app planning with JWG. Took an alternate route home that I never took before: bus 6 to its end then walked the rest of the way. Patrick has a sore throat and stayed home all day, so I picked up dinner. Dinner at home with Patrick: Mexican food to go from the local burritoria. Troubleshot Time Machine error "The backup volume is read only" on Patrick's iMac. Reselecting the volume in Time Machine preferences did not fix it. Turned off Time Machine for both computers. Unmounted the Time Machine drive. Powered the drive down then up. Connected the Time Machine drive directly to my iMac. Opened Disk Utility. Ran Disk Repair on the Time Machine drive: "Incorrect number of access control lists" and "volume header needs minor repair" and "the volume was repaired successfully." This did not fix it. Troubleshot CrashPlan problems on both computers. Shopped for a new alarm clock, decided to not buy a new alarm clock and just use the alarm clock on my iPhone. We'll see how it goes. Edited Folsom Street Fair photos.