December 2011
Summary: Steve D's party at Galen and Yuki's place; Holiday party at Ted and Emery's Manger; Dinner at Southpaw with Danny, Drew, Romy, Phil; Vacation to Hawaii with mostly Chris, Nate, and the Tomiyasu family including the family gathering at Dick and Marion's house
Dates on this page
Thu Dec 1, 2011
Breakfast: same as yesterday. Rode my bike to work. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. Met with Matt F from ohns who asked Eric and me questions about our websites and Drupal. Shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Read from the PDF version of HTML5 for Web Designers on my iPhone 3 GS. BearBuy training. Shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Snack: Starbucks frappuccino from a bottle, oatmeal cookie. Helped student RH resolve wireless problems. More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. Drupal Users Group meeting via conference call and Movi. More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: two-bean (black beans and giant northern bean) stew with pearl onions, ciabatta rolls, butter leaf lettuce salad with boiled egg and pepper.
Fri Dec 2, 2011
Breakfast: leftover stuffing, one TJ's steel-cut oat muffin, water. Rode Muni to work. On the ride at 9th and Irving my tire accidentally fell into the Muni tracks while I was concentrating on avoiding a man who was leaving his parked car. I was thrown from the bike, of course, and fortunately I landed mostly on my hands, which were gloved. I was able to get up on my own and after a few minutes of checking for injuries to myself and the bike I reattached my chain and went on my way. Later I discovered that I had a small scrape on my elbow. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Backed up data to external hard drives. Web team conference call. Posted a new P1 schedule for Lucia. Followup with ITS on iPad resource calendar. 1-on-1 with Cindy. iPad setup with Cindy. Followup with UR on month-old problems reported with the A to Z list. Lunch in the cafeteria: garden burger, garlic fries, water. Listserv management. 1-on-1 with Eric: Google Apps, Matt S issue. Updated the list of students spreadsheet (late). More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: taco night. Set up an Asana account for home tasks and projects.
Sat Dec 3, 2011
Light breakfast at home: one TJ's steel-cut oat muffin, water. Washed my biking gloves. Cut my hair. Snacks: a tisane with ginger and california sage honey, pumpkin smoothie with bartlett pear, 2% milk, cinnamon, and california sage honey. Recharge Spa web work. Snack: leftover black bean stew. Recharge Spa web work. Snack: a little TJ's tabbouleh salad. Nap. Steve D's party at Galen and Yuki's place.
Sun Dec 4, 2011
Breakfast: 2 eggs scrambled with onion and mushrooms, 2 hash browns. Recharge Spa work: consent forms, outdoor sign. Weight training: advanced hip extensions. Lunch: soba-miso noodle soup with vegetables, water. Snack: DIY microwave popcorn. Dinner at home with Patrick: grilled vegetables with portobello mushroom ravioli, water. Rewatched Minority Report (2002) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Dessert: Patrick had made a pear tarte tatin.
Mon Dec 5, 2011
Weight training: door pull ups. Small breakfast: organic european style yogurt with fresh, diced fuji apple. Rode my bike to work. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Compiled data regarding video work, sent it to Susie and Eric for review. Followup with ITS about a DNS request. Richmark says they're behind on answering messages to customersupport@ucsf.edu. Best if you can submit your tickets via Service Now. I explained to him why I was unable to submit my ticket via Service Now. Management activities. Lunch with Matt S at Pomelo. He had panzanella with roasted butternut squash (pienza), bread and butter (strasbourg). I had seafood yakisoba (sanuki). Followup with Robin S about a web space request. Calendar management. Meeting with Katja R, Brian T, John D, Michael W, Susie, and Eric about CTSI Profiles. More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. Management activities. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: breaded mahi mahi from frozen, homemade mashed potatoes, baby bok choy with pearl onions in soy sauce. Found and installed a number of extensions to Google Chrome to match my Firefox configuration. Dessert: one almond roca, 6 ounces of unsweetened organic soy milk. Uploaded photos to Flickr. Recharge Spa work: html email newsletter review.
Tue Dec 6, 2011
Breakfast at home: organic oatmeal with fresh, diced fuji apple, cinnamon, organic soy milk. Rode my bike to work. SCWG meeting. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Sent Melanie D feedback on the new and recently mailed eNews to alumni, coordinated with Susie on what changes we might need to make to our website to link to the new publication. Management activities. Calendar management. Worked on implementing a minor rearchitecture of the prospective students section, following the work Shirin and I did a week or two ago. Lunch from Subway: footlong veggie delight. Supp app project work in Drupal for Joel. Help desk committee meeting. Supp app project work in Drupal for Joel and Sammie. Helped student FW with a computer support question. Rode my bike home. Drink: TJ's pear cinnamon cider. Dinner at home with Patrick: veggie pizza from frozen. Watched The Simpsons "The Man in Blue Flannel Pants" on Hulu with Patrick. Snack: DIY microwave popcorn, this time with some canola oil. "The Man in Blue Flannel Pants" was a mediocre episode.
Wed Dec 7, 2011
Breakfast at home: 2 hash browns, 3-egg omelet with mushrooms, Dorot cilantro, parsley, green onions, water. Rode my bike to work. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Followup with Julie C about the problem I encountered entering a DNS request in Service Now. Management activities. Calendar management. Sent suggestions for Service Now to Julie C and Darlena T. Notified staff about the updated list of students on the network. Communications team meeting. WCWG lunch meeting. 1-on-1 with Eric. Supp app project work in Drupal for Joel. More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. WCWG lunch meeting. Helped student FW with a question about a computer emergency. Chatted with Susie briefly. Lunch from the cafeteria: salmon burger, onion rings, water. Lately I've gotten into the habit of carrying my Klean Kanteen water bottle with me, and this makes me less tempted to buy a sugary drink with lunch. More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. Supp app project work in Drupal for Joel. Sent a request to Susie for approval to purchase some nngroup research about email newsletters. Followup with Melanie D about the new eNews html email newsletters just launched by UDAR. Followup with Tran about the OSACA iPad shared calendar setup. Sent an email to staff with details about the introduction of Service Now and how it affects our computer support. Rode my bike to 20th and Noriega. Met Patrick at Lanna Thai but it happened to be unexpectedly closed tonight. I put my bike in the trunk and we drove to Irving Street and decided to eat at Marnee Thai instead. Hotcakes appetizer, silver noodles with shrimp and vegetables, mussamun curry with soy protein, hot tea. Dessert: black sticky rice with mango. About $40 before tip. Home. Read more about iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match. I haven't yet installed Lion or the new iTunes or iOS 5. I decided today I don't need iTunes Match. I can afford it, but I don't really care about music so much that I need it everywhere instantly. I still have a lot of Patrick's music on my computer that I wouldn't need or want to have matched and available everywhere. And nowadays I'm likely to make new purchases through iTunes. Installed iTunes 10.5.1 on my iMac.
Thu Dec 8, 2011
Breakfast at home: organic oatmeal with fresh, diced fuji apple, soy milk. Rode my bike to work. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. WCWG lunch meeting. Reported a problem with fruit flies in our office to Facilities. Style reference work: mailing addresses, followup with Rick V in Mail Services. Ordered an iPad 2 for Joel through BearBuy—my first BearBuy purchase. I found the BearBuy buying process difficult but not impossible. At one point there was a special code that I didn't know but Lisa knew the answer and shortly thereafter I figured out how in the interface I could perform a search to find it. It is probably better than what we had before but better more for perhaps the accounting people rather than me. It's not designed from a user's perspective at all. Midafternoon snack: footlong Subway veggie delight sandwich. Handled long-waiting legal name changes for several students. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: TJ's cauliflower gratin, grilled tuna (from previously frozen) with garlic, green onions, lemon, spices; bread and butter; hot gingerbread spice tisane with sugar.
Fri Dec 9, 2011
Rode Muni to work. Picked up my free staff appreciation breakfast at the cafeteria. I saw the dean and the chancellor and other executives welcoming staff. Breakfast offerings included scrambled eggs with (chives?), deluxe sausage, juice, coffee, tea, 2 kinds of small muffins, and fruit salad (persimmon, pomegranate, grapes, apple). Carolers sang, and the cafeteria halls were fully decked. As in previous years, the whole process is a bit like running the gauntlet, but it seems to get better each year. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Share folder management. (Tip: to delete files that OS 10.6.8 refuses to delete because they are locked, get properties on them (Cmd+Shift+I), unlock them, then delete them.) Today is Lynn's last day, so I completed with her my part of the paperwork for her exit. ICRD work. More InDesign work on a secret project for Susie. Supp app project work in Drupal for Joel. Followup with legal name changes. Uploaded a video to the School's YouTube account. Prepared account handoff information for Robin S, sent it to Eric for review and holding. Chatted with Victor from Facilities about the fruit fly problem in our office, notified office of the results. UCSF shuttle to Mission Bay. The School held its first achievement celebration at Mission Bay. For the event I created the slideshow, which changed slides every 12 seconds and was displayed on a large screen. I used InDesign, and a few people were impressed with the quality of the result. Most people don't know about any presentation tools other than PowerPoint. Unfortunately, InDesign is harder to learn and use than PowerPoint for the same task. I've been interested in learning how to make presentations in Apple Keynote but haven't had to yet. I feel that day is forthcoming, however, since Joel and Shirin and Cindy now all have iPad 2s. Susie, Eric, and I received gifts from the QBC and grad programs team. Mine was a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. UCSF shuttle to Parnassus. Dropped off cameras, did a bit more work on the prospective students page. Rode Muni home. Read from Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, found a grammatical error within the first minute of reading. Dinner at home: leftover cauliflower gratin, bread and butter, gingerbread spice tisane with sugar. Reorganized my Twitter lists to separate UCSF people from UCSF entities such as departments and units. Snack: stovetop popcorn, which turned out better-tasting than DIY microwave popcorn and DIY microwave popcorn with oil. And, all but one kernel popped!
Sat Dec 10, 2011
Gingerbread spice tisane without sugar. Shower. Grocery shopping at TJ's by myself. Lunch at home with Patrick: TJ's salmon noodle salad, hot panini rustic rolls. Prepared my secret santa gift for the forthcoming office party. Nap. Snack: vegetable and grain country salad from TJ's. Holiday party at Ted and Emery's Manger. Met or encountered Will, David, Monty, Bill, many others. Patrick stayed home and made chocolate-almond-coconut cookies. During the party I accidentally spilled my drink on myself. Gave David a ride home to the Haight. Late meal at Sparky's with Bill and Matthew.
Sun Dec 11, 2011
Ate half of a chocolate-almond-coconut cookie. Laundry. Washed the car windshield with soap scum remover. Breakfast: 2-egg mexican scramble, 2 hash browns, 2 slices of toast with butter. Today I read Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Human Rights Day speech, delivered on December 6, 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland. This was a milestone speech in the history of the worldwide LGBT struggle for equality and respect, clearly and precisely stating the problem, the rationale for this statement, and the steps humans need to take to begin correcting these injustices. My only disappointment is the paragraph containing "...rarely are cultural and religious traditions and teachings actually in conflict with the protection of human rights." Although this statement is probably technically true in the context of all the world's religions in all of history, I suspect that today's dominant religions are indeed in such conflict. This speech implies that religion is part of the solution, but it intentionally overlooks the truth that religion is also a very significant part of the problem. In the long term, either religions and their followers will be forced to adapt and evolve according to what we now refer to as human rights or humans might need to choose to leave such antiquated teachings behind in the march toward creating a richer, more peaceful, more enlightened, and more rational world. Clinton says that progress starts with honest discussion, but even an honest discussion will degenerate quickly when people cling to irrational ideas and behaviors. Humans must move its global culture toward one that disavows practically all actions based on irrational thinking. Our progress will be much slower until that happens. Indeed, a summary and analysis of the United States government's rational and irrational actions in the past 12 years would likely be mostly embarrassing, making Clinton's speech seem both powerful and empty at the same time. Watched The Adjustment Bureau on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Snack: stovetop popcorn with basil pesto. I added the basil pesto with the oil and popcorn and it pretty much all burnt. Patrick said he could taste the pesto in the popcorn, but I couldn't. Next time I'll try melting butter, mixing the pesto with it, pouring it on top after popping, then shaking the popcorn with the butter-pesto mixture. The Adjustment Bureau is an interesting thought experiment—a philosophical amuse bouche. Not the action thriller it seems on the surface (and on the DVD box cover), it's really a love story with a dash of science fiction and fantasy. It's decent enough to watch once, but it fails at its conclusion because nothing relevatory is revealed. Its ending doesn't explain why it ends the way it does; it simply does despite what you have learned earlier in the film. This film is like an earnest, more romantic, less impressive kid brother of The Matrix. Another round of laundry.
Mon Dec 12, 2011
Breakfast at home: leftover vegetable and grain country salad from TJ's. Rode Muni to the doctor's office. Rode the UCSF shuttle from Mount Zion to Parnassus. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Responded to a request from Darius about backups. Supp app project work in Drupal for Joel. Listserv management. Calendar management. Lunch at the cafeteria: vegetable curry with basmati rice, samosa with dipping sauce. 1-on-1 with Rodney. Set up delegation for the OSACA iPad reservation calendar. Announced availability of the new shared office iPad. Calendar management. Management activities. QBC and grad programs work: minor edits for Rebecca. iPad activation process investigation. Patrick picked me up in the car. We drove to the Mission. Dinner at Krua Thai with Danny, Drew, Phil, Romy, and Patrick. Installed iOS 5.0.1 on my iPhone. The whole process took about 2 hours, which included about 30 minutes of poking at the new features and trying to figure out how iCloud relates to HIPAA and FERPA concerns. I don't think anyone anywhere is asking the right questions about that yet.
Tue Dec 13, 2011
Weight training: door pull ups. Breakfast at home: bagel with cream cheese, chatted with Sam, who stopped in for a few minutes with Patrick. Rode my bike to work. On the way a truck almost hit me. I had stopped at the 4-way-stop intersection, I saw the truck approach and then stop, then was halfway across when it started to move. Obviously the driver hadn't seen me and thought it was his or her turn to go. The driver finally saw me and stopped just in time. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Followup with Eric on the zen project. Spent most of the day editing or creating pages related to information security. Timesheet activities. Lunch #1: leftover pasta. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Mount Zion. Doctor appointments. UCSF shuttle from Mount Zion to Parnassus. Lunch #2: leftover pasta. Rode my bike home. Dinner at home with Patrick: TJ's veggie pizza from frozen, butter leaf lettuce salad with tomatoes and mushrooms, water. Got CrashPlan working again. Installed one SpokeLit light on my bike. Late snack: 2 bagels with cream cheese. Washed dishes. Read from CSS3 for Web Designers by Dan Cederholm.
Wed Dec 14, 2011
Breakfast at home: toasted bagel and cream cheese, 12 ounces of TJ's garden patch juice, hot gingerbread spice tisane. Rode Muni to work. Joel gave me a loaf of banana bread with an orange plastic knife wrapped in cellophane and tied with orange ribbon—very sweet. Chatted briefly with Michael W. Office holiday lunch at Kuleto's with Cindy, Shirin, Sammie, Lisa, Rodney, and Lucia. Shopped a bit. Rode Muni to the doctor's office. UCSF shuttle from Mount Zion to Parnassus. Worked more. Rode Muni to Powell Street Station, chatting with Roshini E while waiting and riding. Dinner at B: bibb leaf lettuce salad with pomegranate, asian pear, persimmon, and goat cheese; water. Smuin Ballet: The Christmas Ballet: Beyond Ballet at Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. I had last seen Smuin Ballet on December 24, 2003, and this show was similar in that the more traditional pieces comprised the first half and the more modern pieces comprised the second half. I sat in K 107 which is in the orchestra. K 107 and K 108 are pretty much exactly in the center of the theatre. Fortunately for me the 2 seats directly in front of me were empty. The program: Act I: The Classical Christmas. Magnificat; Zither Carol; Veni, Veni Emmanuel; Hodie Christus Natus Est; Carol of the Bells; Riu Riu Chiu; Resonet in Laudibus; For Unto Us a Child is Born; Patapan/God Rest Ye; The Goucestershire Wassail; Licht bensh'n "Candle Blessing"; Dobra Notsch "Sleep Well"; Sleigh Ride; La Virgen Lava Pañales; Jauchzet Frohlocket. Intermission. Act II: The Cool Christmas. Overture; Christmas in New Orleans; Drummer Boy; Blue Christmas; Santa Baby; Winter Weather; Pretty Paper; La Calandria; Sugar Rum Cherry; Droopy Little Christmas Tree; Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Christmas Island; Bells of Dublin; Baby It's Cold Outside; Oh, Holy Night; Born in a Manger; Children Go Where I Send Thee; White Christmas. Rode Muni home. Late meal to go from King of Thai Noodle: shrimp pad thai, hot water. Installed StartupSound 1.1b3, began decrypting my startup volume so that I can update PGP Desktop then upgrade to Lion then reencrypt.
Thu Dec 15, 2011
Breakfast at home: hot gingerbread spice tisane, a few bites of Joel's banana bread. Rode Muni to work. Followup with Cindy about Lynn's exit. Small web edit for Susie and Irene B: research. Purchased a site license for Nielsen Norman Group's Email Newsletter Usability and announced the purchase to our web team. Met with Lucia about encrypted external hard drives. Management activities. Chatted with Rodney about AD account deletions. Late lunch from Panda Express: panda bowl with eggplant tofu and chow mein. My fortune: You will find a real bargain. Followup with downtime for the CP website—down since around 11:30 AM today. Holiday dinner for the Communications team (Susie, Eric, David and me) at Park Chow followed by a visit to calacademy. Inside I encountered Joe H and met Alan. Peaches Christ was dressed as Santa Claus. Nightlife also had a lot of handcrafts vendors selling holiday gifts. A fine time. Susie drove me home. Shower. Late snack: hot gingerbread spice tisane, a few bites of Joel's banana bread. Checked on the CP site—it was still down, so I sent in a request for status.
Fri Dec 16, 2011
Can't remember what I had for breakfast. Rode Muni to work. Linkchecking, Flickr work, kiosk work. Followup with iPad paperwork with Lisa. Followup with student DK about email address change. Office secret Santa gift exchange. I received a Target gift card from Sammie. Shirin received Chocolate 4 Ways from me. (Rhinelander Brewing Company Boatswain chocolate stout, TJ's milk-chocolate-covered potato chips, Dilettante Chocolates fruit medley chocolate-covered cherries, TJ's milk chocolate salted caramel butter cookies). Don received an elegant purse from Rodney. Lisa didn't participate but Shirin had a gift for her anyway: a giant nose shower gel dispenser. Cindy received a trio of rectangular serving plates from ?. Rodney received a San Francisco Giants plush panda that also converts to a seat cushion from ?. Lucia received ? from ?. Joel received Facebook like and dislike rubber stamps from ?. Sammie received 6 ceramic wipe-off with marker for place settings or food labels from ?. Each of us also received microwave popcorn, a plastic container for eating popcorn, and gift cards to AMC theatres from Cindy. Followup on a network situation for Michael W. Followup with Susie and Devi about our Facebook presence. Reported a small typo to University Relations with respect to the name of Joel's blog. More followup with Lisa about iPad paperwork. Notified faculty, staff, and students to replace customersupport@ucsf.edu with ITServiceDesk@ucsf.edu in address books. Patrick picked me up in the car. Patrick and I had dinner at Southpaw with Danny, Drew, Romy, Phil and other friends of theirs. We met Linda and Kurt, Marci. Chatted with Cricket. My iMac is on day 3 of decrypting the startup volume.
Sat Dec 17, 2011
Slept in. Brunch with Patrick: mexican jambalaya, partly organic veggie quesadillas. iMac problems at home. The Dock in OS X, Alt+Tab, and Spaces all stopped working. I tried using Terminal and Force Quit Applications to kill the apps that were causing problems (initially KeePassX then Firefox and others) but it didn't work. I didn't want to restart because I was pretty sure my PGP decryption process wasn't done. Eventually I was able to open the PGP window again and it said that it was no longer decrypting and that my drive was still encrypted—strange. I expected either it to be finished or still decrypting. So I cold restarted, somewhat expecting my computer to be dead, but it started up properly. Nap. Early dinner with Patrick. Dancebarhopped amongst GAMeBoi at Mist Ultra, Locoya's I Just Wanna F*ckin Dance / Roma's bday at BeatBox, and Bootie at DNA Lounge. Of these three, I most enjoyed myself at Bootie. Chatted with Ace and Doyle. Met Mad Murdock (Steve) after a wet accident involving the dance floor and someone else's drink. Met Jim, Ben, Nathan, Sam, Kendra, and others.
Sun Dec 18, 2011
Breakfast at home with Patrick: 2 eggs over easy for him, 2-egg omelette and 2 hash browns for me, bread and butter for both. Pruned Facebook. The car windshield still isn't as clean as I'd like, so today I washed it with Barkeeper's Friend. Archived a document. Finished packing. One of my external drives didn't mount properly, so I logged out, logged back in, then cold restarted the drive, and that fixed it. Dinner at home with Patrick: Kingdom of Dumpling veggie dumplings from frozen. Watched The Help (2011) on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Mon Dec 19, 2011
Patrick drove me to SFO. Hawaiian Airlines flight to Hawaii. Watched movie trailers: Contagion, Apollo 18, Friends With Benefits, Crazy Stupid Love, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Beach, The Town. When alighting from the plane there was a problem with the jetway and we were delayed while the plane was moved backwards 3 feet. Chris met me at baggage claim. We drove to Longhi's for lunch then to Chris and Nate's place where I stayed. Dinner at Brasserie Du Vin with Chris and Nate. This is a French restaurant with delicious food and a very charming patio.
Tue Dec 20, 2011
Chris and Nate worked today, so I'm on my own. Walked in warm rain to breakfast at Sure Shot Cafe: veggie melt bagel on whole wheat, skinny latte. Grocery shopping at Foodland. Late lunch at their place by myself: veggie burger with bleu cheese dressing. Nap. Planning. Uncle Richard and Auntie Helen with Raina picked me up at C&N's place. Dinner at Golden Palace in Chinatown. Matthew, Celine, Bev. Back to C&N. Watched episodes of Archer and Shaun the Sheep with Chris and Nate.
Wed Dec 21, 2011
Chris and Nate worked today, so I'm on my own. Sore throat. Made steel-cut oatmeal for the first time. Ate it with a fresh, diced fuji apple. Rested. Late lunch: veggie burger with pesto. Took a random walk, ended up at Ala Moana Shopping Center. Snack at Saigon Garden: fresh summer rolls with peanut sauce. Crossed the street, a park, a bridge. Walked around the Hilton lagoon. Rode TheBus #13 back to S King Street, then walked back to C&N's. Relaxed with C&N. Walked to Gyotaku. Dinner with Richard, Helen, Bertha, Raina, Beverly, Celine, Matthew, Chris, Nate. Walked back. Chatted. to bed.
Thu Dec 22, 2011
Sore throat. Slept in. Brunch at C&N's: veggie burger with pesto. Shower. Realized that I have a blister on my right foot between my big toe and the next toe from wearing flip flops since I arrived. Midafternoon meal: leftover poke don from last night. Watched The Simpsons on Hulu: "The Ten-Percent Solution" and "Holidays of Future Passed." Began watching Speed, stopped when Nate arrived. Dinner at Peace Cafe with Chris and Nate. We visited City Lights, a display of Christmas lights and Christmas decorations. Yogurtland. Back to their place. Watched The Simpsons on Hulu: "The Ten-Percent Solution" and "Holidays of Future Passed." Watched Archer.
Fri Dec 23, 2011
Had difficulty sleeping last night due to coughing. Accidentally figured out how to see the hourly forecast in the Weather app in iOS 5. It was not intutitive to figure out because I didn't realize that the word "Hourly" was clickable. Sunbathing with Chris at Queen's Surf Beach. Lunch with Chris at Tiki's Bar & Grill. Bought malasadas at Leonard's Bakery. Nap. Dinner at Bella Mia Pizzeria with Chris and Nate. Drinks at Station followed by Bacchus. Nate got Nyquil for me very late at night.
Sat Dec 24, 2011
Woke up early to go to KCC Farmers' Market but I woke at a different time than C&N and so we ended up sleeping in. Breakfast with C&N at Morning Glass Cafe. Grocery shopping. Nap. Bertha, Helen, and Raina picked me up and we drove to Dick and Marion's house in Mililani for the annual family gathering. I hadn't seen many of them for at least 15 years, and it was an excellent time. There was lots to eat and drink, Santa brought presents for all the kids, and there was a raffle for a variety of small gifts. Tony gave me a ride back to C&N's.
Sun Dec 25, 2011
Pre-breakfast: a banana. Christmas brunch with Chris and Nate: roasted new potatoes, mushroom and green onion scramble, sausage for C&N, fruit salad, mimosas, coffee. Nap. Nate and I took a walk through the UH Manoa campus, stopping at 7-Eleven for refreshment. Dinner at SHOR with Chris, Nate, and Ed. We had planned to go to Rum Fire tonight, but the kitchen at SHOR was backed up and our meal took about an hour longer than we had expected.
Mon Dec 26, 2011
Made plans. Breakfast: leftover potatoes and fruit salad. Lunch: Leftover pizza. Rested. Tin Tin and shopping with Chris at Ward 16. Dinner at the Mikes with Mike P, Mike D, Mike C, Chris, and Nate. Watched Archer.
Tue Dec 27, 2011
Nate went to work. Breakfast wih Chris: mushroom scramble, leftover fruit salad, toast with butter, orange juice. Costco shopping with Chris (lost card). Lunch at home: naked turkey burger (Chris) and bunned veggie burger (me), cut veggies with edamame hummus dip. Sunbathing at Queen's Surf Beach. Dinner with Chris and Nate at Brasserie du Vin. Remet Johnny, who was such an excellent waiter to us. Nate and I had first encountered him in the elevator with Nick (from Bacchus). (I think that first encounter with Johnny was on Sunday.) Watched Mission: Impossible (1998) on Apple TV with Chris and Nate. I laughed when I saw a Netscape web browser in the film. After it finished, Chris said, "Okay, I never have to watch that film again."
Wed Dec 28, 2011
Breakfast: one banana and one fuji apple. Honolulu Zoo with Chris and Nate. Lunch at the Zoo: veggie burger, lemonade. Starbucks. Nap. Drinks with Chris and Nate at House Without a Key at Halekulani. We were seated moments before the sun dipped below the Pacific Ocean. Failed attempt to dine at Ocean House. Dinner at Keo's.
Thu Dec 29, 2011
I'm on my own today. Chris and Nate have work to do. Pre-breakfast. Took the bus to Waikiki. Looked for a place to eat. Eggs N Things had too long of a line, so I kept walking but didn't find anything I liked. I came across another Eggs N Things and had to wait only a few minutes. Veggie omelet with home fries, hot tea. Sunbathed at Fort DeRussy Park. Walked along the beach. Afternoon snack at Starbucks: black cherry yogurt with granola, grande iced chai tea latte. Weight training at a public exercise set at Kapiolani Park: upper body. Sunbathed at Queen's Surf Beach. Mildly skinned my left knee. Rode the bus back. Ate leftovers. Dinner with Chris and Nate: cheese tortelloni in marinara sauce, wine. Watched Aeon Flux on Apple TV with Chris and Nate. Nate made chocolate grand marnier shakes.
Fri Dec 30, 2011
Breakfast: mushroom scramble, side of pineapple and grapes, toast. Visited Pearl Harbor, with tickets courtesy of Uncle Bootie via Auntie Helen. Lunch at La Mariana Sailing Club. Nap. Dinner with Chris and Nate: turkey burgers for them, veggie burger for me, side salad. Nap.
Sat Dec 31, 2011
KCC Farmer's Market, dim sum lunch at Hee Hing Restaurant, failed attempt at hula's cruise, bocce with Johnny, Nick, and Becky. Also met Francisco. Tsukeneya dinner with Aaron, John, Andre, Ben, Nate, Michael C, Chris, Marc, Ryan, Tom, and Ryan. Cabs to Bacchus. Cab to Kaimana (Sans Souci) Beach, but Johnny et al had left. Watched fireworks from the Natatorium at Kaimana Beach—a great vantage point, and the half moon settled neatly to the side of the fireworks display closest to us. Cab home.