Thursday, April 4, 2013
Weight training: standing dumbbell curl. Breakfast at home: 2 eggs scrambled with cheese, fresh dill, and a can of tuna; hot water. Rode Muni to UCSF Parnassus. Picked up a network cable order that had arrived at my Parnassus office. UCSF shuttle from Parnassus to Laurel Heights. Tried using one cable but found that the external hard drive I purchased a few weeks ago doesn't work. I need more hardware to troubleshoot this. Set up Time Machine on the laptop, didn't do this until now because I was too frequently on the go and TM needs to sit still for a few hours for at least the first backup. Linkchecking, kiosk work. I've been using Microsoft Office 2013 in my Windows 7 VM for about a week or two now. Outlook 2013 is a nice change from Outlook 2010 except that it is so slow I forget what I'm doing. Sometimes it just hangs Windows completely. I spent about an hour today turning off all unnessary features: unnecessary sounds, unnecessary animations, unnecessary hardware acceleration. I also made optimizations in Windows 7. Basically I felt like I had to turn off everything that made it graceful and pretty such as Windows Aero. I'm very disappointed in the MIcrosoft Office and Microsoft Windows team. There are only a few main reasons why I still use Windows: (1) calendaring in Outlook for Windows is not supported in the same way in the browser or on Outlook 2011. You can't get the calendar overlays or side-by-side calendars anywhere else. You can't get the forever-scroll feature anywhere else (e.g., seeing the last week of one month followed by the next month). And you can't do some of the delegate work on any of the other platforms. (2) I still use HTML-Kit a lot (but that's changing). (3) Some things in which I have to work in Windows because someone eise is in Windows and I have to match a test case (e.g., testing behavior of disabling Java). (4) browser testing. Installed Office 2011 for Mac on my iMac at Laurel Heights. I had trouble finding the installer on the network because someone filed it under Apple instead of Microsoft, Jerry T helped me find it. Began form activities for Susie following team planning. Began planning for DrupalCon Portland (May 20 to 24). Calendar management. Lunch at Pasta Pomodoro: lunch special: conchiglie with grilled chicken, sundried tomatoes, and broccoli; side caesar salad; water. My main course tasted really chemically to me but I ate it all anyway. I couldn't determine exactly what was causing the off taste. It was partly because the broccoli was more bitter than usual, which can be normal. I think it also had something to do with the grill since I got more of the chemical taste when eating the parts of the chicken that touched the grill. Perhaps the chicken seared too long (the black lines were particularly dark) or perhaps the chicken picked up lighter fluid or something else. Bought a cherry bomb from Cal-Mart, which I ate later in my office. The cherry bomb is a meringue filled with cherries and almonds. It's a delight of flavors and textures. Upon the first bite it basically fell apart in my hand and mouth (but I didn't drop any of it). The outside is crunchy, the middle is soft and chewy, almost gooey. Parts of the middle got on my fingers, making them really sticky. In between the soft center and the crunch of the crust is yet another texture that is not quite foamy and not quite spongy but a little of both. I put this in the same exalted category of particularly tasty delights in which sits the ricciarelli from Arizmendi Bakery. Small web update for Susie: interim dean. Posted an updated schedule for Lucia. Theming, worked a bit with Eric 1-on-1. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Rode Muni home, chatting with Bill S briefly. I forgot to mention that in the past day or two I saw Karl B eating at Millberry Union on my way home but was catching a bus so I didn't have time to stop to say hello so I waved instead and he waved back. Dinner at home with Patrick: thai food delivery from Sri Thai (4621 Lincoln Way). Food is tasty, no problems. The tamarind dipping sauce that came with the fresh rolls was distinctively tasty. Newsletter work for Lani: nameplate build. I'm helping my sister create a newsletter for a school that the kids attend.