March 2010
Summary: Testarossa 80s night at Trigger begins, Elegant St. Patrick's Day Dinnereon, New Orleans vacation with Patrick
Dates on this page
Mon Mar 1, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced apple, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; hot water. Facelift project work all day. Helped student CR set up UCSFwpa wireless. Lunch: 2 Peasant Pies and sparkling lemon water from the Nurseteria. Backed up data to portable hard drive. Dinner at Toasties by myself: crab melt sandwich and french fries. The photos from Richard came through today—hurray! Cleaned up music metadata with TuneUp.
Tue Mar 2, 2010
Stretches. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank; superslow tricep kickback. Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh sliced banana, one level tablespoon of organic raw cane sugar, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8. SCWG meeting. Special meeting called by Jeff K regarding the timing of account closures. Facelift project work: began a full sweep of style review after setting up styles based on the /about branch earlier, some small edits to the homepage stuff. Swapped USB hubs with Eric D to determine if his is defective. Lunch at Darla's: veggie burger, tomato basil soup. When the bill arrived, it came with a small bite of complimentary homemade brownie—a nice surprise! Beats a dinner mint. Backed up data to portable hard drive. Dinner at home by myself: leftover pasta with garlic basil tomato sauce. Cleaned up music metadata with TuneUp. Stretches. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank; superslow tricep kickback; superslow front raise; superslow lateral raise; shrug. Late meal: large baby spinach, baby red romaine, baby green romaine, and herb salad with crimini mushrooms, organic cherry tomatoes. ThinkGeek asked for feedback about their Geek Points loyalty rewards program in an email yesterday, and today I answered it by not answering their survey questions and instead completing the comments section with, "These kinds of things always make me think that this is the vendor's way of getting rid of crap that nobody really wants. More valuable to me would be I earned X dollars off my next order to be applied automatically. No coupon codes to enter, no punch card to keep with the other 50 punch cards in my wallet. Loyalty rewarded. Simple, convenient, unloseable."
Wed Mar 3, 2010
Stretches. Weight training: various leg exercises. Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh sliced banana, one level tablespoon of organic raw cane sugar, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8. Digital asset management meeting with Julia K and others. Background image selection and other brief facelift review with Susie. Helped Scott resolve a problem opening a password-protected ZIP file from PharmCAS. (After reading the PharmCAS message about how they are securing data to meet legal requirements, I laughed.) Lunch from Carmelina's: salmon burrito. Met 1-on-1 with Eric D, prepared a project list. Updated a news story with an edit from JWG. Followup with Shirin about taking photos for student profiles. Installed 7-Zip for Scott. Dinner at home with Patrick: tofu tacos, hot earl gray tea. Began watching Inglorious Basterds on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Thu Mar 4, 2010
Breakfast: two kinds of granola with fresh sliced banana, organic nonfat milk; 16 ounces of V8; hot earl gray tea. Telecommute day. Followup with Rodney about sick leave. Management activities. Updated the preview sessions and spring break preview sessions for Shirin to close registration 15 hours before the session starts instead of just 2 hours. Followup with Claire about IDAF work in OLPPS. Followup with Jeff K and Jon J about student account closure policy. Followup with Julia K about yesterday's meeting, sent her the link to TinEye. Updated the faculty and staff graduation registration form to include Other as a possible department field. Followup with Sierra A about new SAA websites, informed staff. Reviewed proposed changes to campus policy due to FERPA updates—looks like it is nothing to worry about. Lunch: a large salad with mushrooms and tomatoes, blue cheese dressing, hot earl gray tea. Reviewed our office's emergency action plan, populated my address book with a bunch of related info so that it will sync to my iPhone. Small update to the grads health insurance page to clarify that the same is true for dental coverage. Set up Cindy with the graduation ceremony pages to review. Updated the graduation interview page with a new form for Lisa and Cindy. Pointed Cindy and Susie to an EPS version of the UC seal. Reviewed David H's method of distributing messages to students using the CLE. Updated our home page and our fellowships page regarding the CPPFT program for Leslie F and Susie. Completed the FAS survey. Edited facelift background image captions for Susie. 44 items in my inbox, down from 50+ yesterday. Dinner at home by myself: leftovers from last night. Linkchecking for home websites. Stretches. Tennis ball back massage.
Fri Mar 5, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced apple, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8. Started IDAF work for Claire. Management activities. Checkpoint meeting for the supp app project. Organized the key cabinet. Late lunch at Soi Gow Thai by myself: pineapple fried rice. Bought Girl Scout cookies in front of Millberry Union. Completed IDAF work for Claire. Web updates in admissions and enteringstudents for JWG. Edited the emergency action plan and sent it to Lucia. Websteering group activities. Posted and announced updated spring draft schedules for Lucia. Dinner at home with Patrick: garlic and chevre organic ravioli in red pepper and spinach marinara sauce, parmesan roll, Smart Balance Light. Finished watching Inglorious Basterds on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Sat Mar 6, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced apple, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8; hot english breakfast tea. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank at several points throughout the day. Recharge Spa web work: created new email accounts, updated the header to include new icons and links, small updates to a number of other pages. Tried and failed installing the macports/darwinports version of wget because I couldn't get darwinports installed—"dlopen(/opt /local /share /macports /Tcl /pextlib1.0 /Pextlib.dylib, 10): no suitable image found." Used the statusq version instead which seems to work in Snow Leopard. The now-old instructions are wrong for Snow Leopard, tho, since I guess Apple moved some stuff around. wget is moved into /usr/local/bin—this part is right. wget.1 is moved into /usr/share/man/man1 instead of /usr/local/man/man1. wgetrc is moved into /private/etc instead of /usr/local/etc. Uninstalled macports. Snack: one small blood orange. Signed up with Groupon and last.fm. Snack: one thin mint Girl Scout cookie. Lunch: organic buckwheat noodle soup with mushroom broth, organic lacinato kale, baby bok choy, organic carrot, organic extra firm tofu, cage free egg, sliced mushrooms. Dinner at home by myself: large baby romaine and baby spinach salad with herbs, broccoli florets, sliced brown mushrooms, lowfat ranch dressing; hot english breakfast tea. Dessert: one thin mint Girl Scout cookie. Dancing with Pure Behrouz, Julius Papp, and Rooz at Mighty. Breakfast at Cafe Baghdad.
Sun Mar 7, 2010
Stretches. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank. Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced organic bosc pear, organic cinnamon, nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8; hot water. Answered this question on Formspring: Question: If you could master one skill what would it be? Answer: Remembering names. Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell press. Prepared a dessert for tonight's potluck bbq at Bryan, Eric, and Dustin's. House chores: cleaned the bathroom, washed dishes. Listened to last.fm Stanton Warriors station all day. Cut my hair, showered. Had never seen The Simpsons 412 Marge vs. the Monorail, so watched it on wtso.net. Midafternoon meal: organic buckwheat noodle stir-fry with canola oil, minced garlic, extra firm tofu, baby bok choy, sliced mushrooms, soy sauce.
Mon Mar 8, 2010
Woke a bit late, skipped breakfast to get to work on time. Listserv management. Checked in with Rodney. Some facelift project work. Posted live admissions pages updates for JWG. Inserted a redirect for the /cpg/ folder for Susie and Kathy. IDAF followup. Calendar management. Continued setting up my fresh Windows 7 VM. Maintenance all day for both shared office laptops. Went to the hardware store and picked up a special order light bulb. Lunch: chow mein noodles, honey walnut prawns, egg flower soup to go from Panda Express. My fortune: You and your spouse will be happy in life together. 1-on-1 meeting with Rodney. More listserv management. Websteering followup work. Sent Susie a homepage news edit. P-card followup: now have access to the website. More facelift project work. Informed Susie and Cindy about news of an IT subgroup of a chancellor's work group to determine efficiencies to be implemented in the next fiscal year. To home. Installed the special order light bulb, but it did not work, don't know why. Dinner at home by myself: large salad with baby romaine, baby spinach, sliced mushrooms, crimini mushrooms, organic cherry tomatoes, shredded sharp white cheddar cheese, Cowgirl Ranch dressing. Dessert: a bowl of 2 small blood oranges peeled and diced, 1 teaspoon of raw organic raw cane sugar. Nap. Went dancing at Testarossa 80s night with VJ Mark Andrus and special guest VJ Don Lynch at Trigger, had the most fun dancing in years, unexpectedly was placed on the club's VIP list. Since I searched for a long time but could not find an ideal offsite backup buddy, I purchased the CrashPlan service. Recently CrashPlan completed uploading our backup data set to the cloud for this offsite backup, and I think this has turned out to be a good deal paying for 3 years in advance.
Tue Mar 9, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with organic thompson raisins, organic cinnamon, nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8. To work. Continued setting up my fresh Windows 7 VM. ccd and cpg followup. Facelift project work: put in the last template that needed updating (glossary)—templates are all done, now sweeping for visual design flaws and validating. Lunch by myself at You See Sushi: tempura, California roll, umekyu (plum and cucumber roll). 1-on-1 with Eric: worked on a project list in Google Docs. Dinner at home with Patrick: wild mushroom and thyme ravioli in a tomato cream sauce with grilled kale. Began some new work for Recharge Spa. To bed early.
Wed Mar 10, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with organic thompson raisins, organic cinnamon, nonfat milk. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank. Stretches. To work. Shared white MacBook maintenance. Facelift project work: more sweeping. W3C validator stopped working reliably after a few hours. Reported a problem with UCSF Magazine pages to Public Affairs. Investigated carpet cleaning services—I didn't know about the UCSF carpet cleaning service until Rodney had mentioned what they do for the IRC. Every 18 months it seems FM will clean your office carpets for free. Created a work order for mounting a whiteboard and key safe in Eric's office. More facelift project work: news headings change, more sweeping. Lunch: tostada with grilled veggies from Carmelina's, mango agua fresca. Also got tortilla chips but didn't eat most of them. 1-on-1 meeting with Susie. Web team meeting with Susie and Eric D. Dinner at home by myself: large salad, organic green garlic dressing. Continued work for Recharge Spa. Stretches. Weight training: superslow lateral raise, superslow front raise, superslow tricep kickback, superslow hammer curl. Late meal: tuna with organic mac and cheese. My Windows 7 VM crashed today: "Operation on file ... failed" and "VMware Fusion cannot sync with disk before abort." Closed Fusion, ran disk verify—no problems, repaired permissions—a few permissions fixed.
Thu Mar 11, 2010
Stretches. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank. Started Windows 7 VM normally—it seems okay but I ran a disk check just to be safe. Breakfast: oatmeal with organic thompson raisins, organic cinnamon, nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8. To work. Windows 7 VM at work also had a weird error but was fine after restarting the Mac. Reworked ccd and cpg and other redirects to be more efficient. Facelift project work: more sweeping. 1-on-1 meeting with Cindy. Lunch: to go from the cafeteria: mac and cheese, steamed broccoli, steamed carrots, water. Facelift project work: more sweeping. With Eric's help, I resolved a tricky problem with cufon using the css3 :not() selector. Maintenance for Scott's computer. To home. Dinner at home by myself: inari. Listened to last.fm. More Recharge Spa web work. Late meal: leftover ravioli and vegetables. Dessert: 2 Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies.
Fri Mar 12, 2010
Management activities. Helped student EG with a question about spam. Listserv management. Ingrid K requested a staging area for their website, so I let them know they could use the one we didn't have time to take down. SCWG work. Checked in with Ami J about wireless setup instructions. Lunch from the cafeteria: brown rice, stir-fried tofu and vegetables, steamed zucchini, water. Linkchecking to clean up from SAA websites changes. 1-on-1 with Stephen: set up telecommuting. Supp app project paperwork followup. 1-on-1 with Eric: facelift project work. Dinner at home with Patrick: garlic ravioli, herbed bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Watched The Prestige (2006) on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Sat Mar 13, 2010
Slept in. Cut my hair, showered. Late breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced pear, organic cinnamon, nonfat milk. Reorganized the computer rack, figured out what I needed to complete my USB-to-Firewire-800 migration of my Time Machine drive. Web work for Recharge Spa: gatherings, parties, groups—sent it to Drew for review. Dinner at Moonstar Daly City with Phil, Drew, Sandip, Romy, Dave, Quyen. It was my first time to Moonstar, and it's quite an experience. Lots of people, lots of food, noisy birthday drum and cymbals (only 1 note makes the happy birthday song rather dull). If you're a strict vegetarian, don't eat here. Lucky for me I'm not, so I did okay eating mostly fish with vegetables. Afterwards I accompanied Danny to Badlands, met Max, Cody, Albert, Matthew, Richard, Alan, Roslyn, Bruce, Danny, and many others.
Sun Mar 14, 2010
Slept in. Breakfast: oatmeal with banana, organic cinnamon, soy milk. Web work for Recharge Spa: robes, Allison's bio. Lunch at home by myself: organic soba noodle soup with mushroom broth, organic lacinato kale, baby spinach, minced garlic, 2 kinds of mushroom (alba clamshell and sliced trumpet royale), egg. Considered going to Fresh, decided to not go—it's music I don't like again. Looking forward to Testarossa tomorrow night instead. Investigated possible additional trips during my forthcoming vacation. Stretches. Weight training: superslow dumbbell row, superslow dumbbell press, superslow dumbbell fly. Dinner at home by myself: tuna mac and cheese. Dessert: a bowl of diced blood orange with 1 teaspoon of organic raw cane sugar.
Mon Mar 15, 2010
Stretches. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank. This week got busy because I was tying up loose ends before a 2-week vacation (furlough), so my journal notes for the next 7 days or so might not be as accurate as the rest. It's pretty close, though. Breakfast: (it was probably oatmeal). To work. Flickr and kiosk work, linkchecking, maintenance for Joel's and Cindy's computers, reset the staging server for Darius—it wasn't set up correctly like I had thought. Student NS gave me some new ringlogos for my collection—sweet! Observed the previously reported, intermittent problem with Lucia's monitor, determined that it needs to be replaced, began that action. Helped Brian A with a question about some disclosure text from a previous communicators meeting. Lots of calendar management. Facelift project work: more sweeping. Lunch from the cafeteria: brown rice, steamed broccoli, salmon. 27 items in my inbox. Unfollowed jesus on Twitter, then felt guilty about it. Reviewed Cesar's recommendations for a replacement monitor for Lucia, decided on Dell P2210H for $170.19. Can't remember what happened for dinner today.
Tue Mar 16, 2010
SCWG meeting. Staff meeting. Following up on confirming our order for DrupalconSF. Lunch from Panda Express: fried rice, honey walnut shrimp, veggie egg rolls. My fortune: Assert yourself, your ideas are worthwhile. Facelift project work: created new background options. WCWG work: updated the list of websites with data from Maria F. Phone meeting with Susie and Eric D. Grocery shopping at Andronico's. To home. Rested. Dinner at home with Patrick: quesadillas. Made green velvet cupcakes with Bailey's Irish Cream frosting. Snapped facelift project screens for Susie and Eric D to review. Reinstalled CS3 at home in Windows 7.
Wed Mar 17, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with ?, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of V8. To work. Eric, Susie, and I presented our facelift project to the leadership group this morning—people liked it and had some feedback that I wrote down. Followup with confirming our DrupalconSF order. Listserv management. Placed the order for Lucia's new monitor. St. Patrick's day office potluck. Web edits: Carol (pharm sci), list of accounts (remove old new student portal), graduation ceremony. Special St. Patrick's day dinner at Phil, Drew, and Romy's—a most elegant affair, complete with chandelabra and rosewater finger-dipping bowls. Kind of like a luncheon but for dinner, so I call it dinnereon.
Thu Mar 18, 2010
Stretches. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank. Breakfast: oatmeal with organic banana, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk. To work. Listserv maintenance. Helped Joel log in to the front desk computer. Generated new background images for the facelift project. Submitted a ticket for DLS to install Joel's new UPS. Last-minute WCWG prep: title gathering. WCWG meeting. Lunch: leftovers from the potluck. Reviewed a website of photos for Marie, but I saw the same thing she did. Scanned in signatures for Don. Facelift project work: more sweeping, change some coloring. Dinner at home by myself: 8 ounces of carrot juice, 16 ounces of generic V8 juice, steamed medium grain rice, organic garlic udon noodle stir-fry with organic broccoli, organic lacinato kale, minced garlic, light soy sauce, red wine vinegar. Dessert: one Thin Mint cookie. Completed reinstallation of CS3 at home, began the tedious updates installations. More TuneUp music library cleaning in iTunes.
Fri Mar 19, 2010
Stretches. Weight training: one-arm, one-leg, advanced plank; various leg exercises. Breakfast: oatmeal with ?, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of generic V8. Last-minute arrangements for backup roles for me. I start 2 weeks of furlough after today. Sent Susie and Eric the screen snapshots I took at home yesterday. Submitted pcard documentation to La'Trece. WCWG followup work. Listserv management. Web edits: preview session for Shirin, schedules for Lucia. Edited a homepage news story that had a bunch of errors. Set my out-of-office notices. Started having mild cough symptoms yesterday, and it has now turned into a mild cough and mild sore throat. Started 2 weeks of furlough today. Dinner at Miyabi (415-861-0447, 253 Church Street, San Francisco, California, USA) with Patrick.
Sat Mar 20, 2010
Woke up around 2:30 AM, both Patrick and I having trouble sleeping. I got up and did more TuneUp music collection cleaning. He went back to sleep. Slept in. Lunch at King of Thai Noodle with Patrick: seafood noodle soup for me, vegetable curry and rice for Patrick. Still feeling not so well, so I went back to sleep. Woke up. More TuneUp music library cleaning. Dinner at home by myself: Amy's organic vegetarian barley soup from a can. It's a little too peppery for my taste but with my cold it was just the perfect thing. More TuneUp music library cleaning. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover sushi from last night. Watched the first half of The Future of Food on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Sun Mar 21, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced organic d'anjou pear, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of generic V8. Still sick. More TuneUp music collection cleaning, some housecleaning. Midafternoon meal: organic tomato bisque from a can. Dinner at home by myself: organic brown rice miso soup with sliced fresh scallion. Late meal at home with Patrick: yogurt, granola, and huckleberry jam for Patrick; yogurt and mixed berry jam and dried sour cherries, 2 corn tortillas, ginger tea, and organic salt-and-pepper fries for me.
Mon Mar 22, 2010
Breakfast at home by myself: organic plain yogurt with wild huckleberry jam and granola, hot water. Still feeling sick: mostly headaches. Took some aspirin. Began the process to renew my United States passport, which required me to write a paper check—I haven't done that in years. Lunch: rice thread noodle soup with mushroom broth, mushrooms, green chard, 2 eggs, scallions. Cut my hair, showered. Got passport photos taken. It took about 10 minutes to get my "instant" passport photos. The guy at the UPS Store used a dictionary-sized Polaroid camera to take my photo. After a few minutes it spit out my pair of photos and he snipped them out with a special cutter. Afterwards I dropped off plastic grocery bags for recycle at the grocery store and had a late afternoon meal by myself at Ono Hawaiian BBQ (415-681-6388, 1501 Sloat Boulevard, Suite A, San Francisco, California, USA): fried shrimp, steamed white rice, cabbage, macaroni salad, dipping sauce, extra salt, plain water—about $8. Caught up on journaling. Uploaded photos to Flickr, but Flickr Uploadr 3.1.4 crashed on me twice, so I restarted the computer and tried again—same problem. Gave up for now. Stretches. Sore throat seems to be not as bad as this morning, cough lingering but also not as bad. I think this cold is going away.
Tue Mar 23, 2010
Woke up at 4 AM—throat is still sore. Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh, diced, organic d'anjou pear; organic cinnamon; organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of generic V8. Was tired of staying home and being sick, and it was warm and sunny today, so I walked to the post office and mailed my US passport renewal. Got on Muni and ran some shopping errands and walked in the Mission and the Castro. Got fries at Frjtz. Visited Retrofit Your World but it was closed—boo. Took photos from the top of Dolores Park. Got a green tea lemonade at Bearbucks. Throat still hurts, and I still have headaches. Home. Dinner at home with Patrick: tortellini with marinara sauce, small pizza. Watched the remainder of The Future of Food (2004) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Washed dishes. Deleted my Flickr Uploadr plist and tried uploading files again—success! Ran some internet speed tests. Not getting our full 6/1 for some reason—it's more like 3.5/1. Installed GrowlTunes and GrowlMail.
Wed Mar 24, 2010
Still sick. Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh sliced banana, organic cinnamon, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, organic nonfat milk; hot tea; 8 ounces of generic V8. Chatted with sonic.net about the slow connection—they gave some things to try and that bumped it up to 4/1. They said to call back in a few days and they will review the line stats. Lunch at home by myself: chow mein noodles stir-fry with baby bok choy, garlic, mushrooms, soy sauce; 8 ounces of carrot juice. Set up near-bihourly backups for our music library to Patrick's computer because Patrick was afraid of losing it. It's our 4th backup copy. (The 3 others: 2 local copies next to my computer (one hourly, one daily), 1 offsite copy (daily).) More TuneUp music library cleaning. Snack: small pretzels, hot water. Dinner at home by myself: leftover pizza from last night, hot water, one Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookie, 8 ounces of hot nonfat milk. Steam treatment to improve air circulation in lungs.
Thu Mar 25, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced organic d'anjou pear, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; hot water. Acupuncture and bodywork treatment at Joseph's. Midafternoon meal: noodle soup with tofu at Cambodian restaurant. Grocery shopping at Mollie Stone's. Home. More TuneUp music library cleaning. Dinner at home by myself: chow mein noodles stir-fry with organic tofu, spinach, garlic, organic onions, baby bok choy, ground ginger, dark soy sauce, salt. Began preparing my tax returns.
Fri Mar 26, 2010
Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced organic d'anjou pear, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; hot water. Still have a cold. Snack: one organic navel orange. Lunch at home by myself: flour tortilla burrito with refried beans, grilled tofu and bean sprouts; one Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookie. More TuneUp music library cleaning. More tax return preparation. Nap. Phil thinks some of my symptoms are that of pneumonia. Dinner at home with Patrick: buckwheat noodle soup for me, Chinese vegetarian stew for Patrick. Dessert: one Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookie. Chatted with sonic.net tech support. After they did some tweaking with settings on their end, we got it back to 5.11 Mbps down and .91 Mbps up. This is what I got shortly after tweaking post-install in September, so I'm happy with this for now. (We purchased 6 down/1 up).
Sat Mar 27, 2010
Woke too early, coughing. Breakfast: oatmeal with fresh diced gala apple, organic cinnamon, organic nonfat milk; 12 ounces of generic V8. Back to bed. Woke around 10. Lunch: 2 small bean and cheese quesadillas, 8 ounces of carrot juice, hot tea. More TuneUp music library cleaning. Sunbathed at Baker Beach. Home. Shower. Dinner at home by myself: bean and cheese and mexican rice burrito from nearly scratch. Still have a sore throat and coughing. Watched The Big Lebowski on Netflix DVD by myself.
Sun Mar 28, 2010
Still sick but I think it's going away finally. Breakfast at home with Patrick: I made breakfast burritos. More TuneUp music library cleaning. Dinner at home with Patrick: veggie burger, sweet potato fries, ketchup, hot water. Watched the first half of Lust, Caution on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Mon Mar 29, 2010
Woke at 3 AM, coughing. Hot bath. Errands: 7-Eleven (where I tried to get money from my credit union without a surcharge but it wanted me to create an account, so I walked away), Kaiser Pharmacy (where I had a terrible experience), Walgreen's, Cliff's Variety. Lunch at Brandy Ho's in the Castro: braised fish fillets lunch special. Ice cream special at Naia: tiramisu. Dinner at home by myself: burrito with spanish rice, black beans, cheese, sour cream. Drank 2 cups of hot vegetable broth with extra salt. Packed. Patrick and I leave for New Orleans early tomorrow morning for 4 days.
Tue Mar 30, 2010
Sam drove me and Patrick to SFO. We flew Continental to New Orleans with a layover in Houston. On the SFO-IAH flight Continental served us breakfast: Cheerios cereal and a whole fresh banana. At the New Orleans airport, we purchased round-trip fares for 2 on Airport Shuttle (504-522-3500)—$76. Checked in to room 460 at Omni Royal Orleans in the heart of the French Quarter. After briefly settling in to our room, we walked Royal Street to Verdi Marte (504-525-4767, 1201 Royal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA 70195). Bought shrimp po boys, Zapp's potato chips, and drinks, then walked to Latrobe Park and ate. Very delicious—I couldn't eat much more than half a sandwich, though. Back to the hotel, checked out the hotel's observation deck and rooftop pool. Back down to the street, we walked to Community Coffee Cafe and had some coffee. Walked to Faubourg/Maurigny, returned via Decatur. Stopped at Walgreen's. Hotel. The concierge helped us set up our dinner plans for tomorrow night. We walked the Moonwalk. There was a full moon as well as a moon over Bourbon Street. Stopped at The Pub. Patrick had a bourbon. I still had a sore throat so I had a lemonady thing. The bartender called me baby and refilled my drink without asking. Hotel. Room service: tomato basil soup, caesar salad. The tray included a gravy boat with what seemed like over a pint of Italian dressing. We didn't know why they chose to serve Italian dressing with a caesar salad, and we didn't know why there was so much dressing.
Wed Mar 31, 2010
Woke too early. Since I signed up for the Omni Hotels Select Guest program, we received free morning beverages from room service today. It was a very nice treat that was probably worth around $20. We like the Select Guest program. Walked to Cafe du Monde and had coffee with chicory and beignets—yum! We walked all over the French Quarter. Hotel. Patrick and I visited Audubon Zoo—$27 for 2 adults. On the walk back in Audubon Park I found a 4-leaf clover! We met Sam's mom Dianne and had a late lunch at Camellia Grill. Hotel. Boarded Steamboat Natchez for live jazz and a dinner cruise along the Mississippi River—$107 for 2 adults.