December 2014
Summary: Surgery recovery, Patrick buys an iPhone 6, I buy an iPhone 6 Plus
Dates on this page
Mon Dec 1, 2014
Breakfast at home: leftover thanksgiving food, water. Surgery recovery activities all day. Snack: pistachios. Lunch: leftover vietnamese food. Snack: a few prunes. Snack: seaweed rice crackers. Snack: tater tots with gravy. Archived medical paperwork. Dinner at home with Patrick: meatloaf from Whole Foods deli, water. Finished watching The Trip (2010) on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Dessert: half of an ice cream sandwich.
Tue Dec 2, 2014
Surgery recovery activities all day. Archived medical paperwork. Signed up for a free account with UPS My Choice. Breakfast at home with Patrick: one egg with cheddar, two hash browns, two sausages, water. Archived medical paperwork. Snack: an apple. Lunch at home with Patrick: turkey half sandwich with gravy, tortilla chips with mild salsa, water. Nap. Archived documents. Snack: seaweed rice crackers, salted cashews. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover thanksgiving food, water. Watched part of The Congress (2013) on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Wed Dec 3, 2014
Breakfast: blueberry-apple granola with soy milk, water. Surgery recovery activities all day. Disaster planning: made a list and a Google map of emergency rooms in our area. Snack: one blueberry-flax muffin. Lunch: leftover chinese and thai foods. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: yakisoba. Finished watching The Congress (2013) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Dessert: half of an ice cream sandwich.
Thu Dec 4, 2014
Surgery recovery activities all day. Pre-breakfast: a tiny portion of granola with soy milk. Patrick took me to a Kaiser lab visit. Breakfast at home with Patrick: veggie breakfast burritos, water. Snack: two tiny satsuma mandarins, tortilla chips. Nap. Lunch at home with Patrick: leftover chinese food. Dinner at home with Patrick: vegetable soup, cornbread. Watched Maleficent on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Snack: two satsuma mandarins, cheese quesadilla. Watched Paris is Burning on Netflix instant watch.
Fri Dec 5, 2014
Breakfast: veggie breakfast burrito, water, prune juice. Surgery recovery activities all day. Lunch: leftover yakisoba, two satsuma mandarins. Archived documents. Snack: two fortune cookies. My fortunes: one was empty; the other said, "Never be less than your dreams. 10, 42, 50, 53, 43,45." Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover yakisoba. Dessert at home with Patrick: chocolate cupcakes, peppermint tisane.
Sat Dec 6, 2014
Breakfast: quesadilla. Surgery recovery activities all day. Lunch at home with Patrick: rice pasta mac and cheese, shoestring fries with ketchup, water. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover vegetable soup with crackers. Late meal: 23 tater tots with ketchup. Watched Paris is Burning on Netflix instant watch.
Sun Dec 7, 2014
Breakfast at home with Patrick: mushroom-spinach frittata, water. Surgery recovery activities all day. Patrick gave me a haircut. Lunch at home with Patrick: half of a toasted ham and cheddar sandwich, tortilla chips, water. Dinner at home with Patrick: linguine in marinara sauce with sausage meatballs, water. Watched part of Ocean's Eleven (1960) on SF Library DVD with Patrick.
Mon Dec 8, 2014
Breakfast at home: one egg, one link of pork sausage, one hash brown, two slices of toast with butter. Surgery recovery activities all day. Lunch at home: leftover linguine in marinara sauce with sausage meatball, water. Dinner at home: leftover vegetable soup with crackers, water. Watched "Simpsonsorama" on fox.com. Finished watching Ocean's Eleven (1960) on SF Library DVD with Patrick. Merged duplicate cards in my address book (aka Apple Contacts).
Tue Dec 9, 2014
Breakfast at home: one egg, tater tots, one link of pork sausage. Surgery recovery activities all day. Patrick and I drove to Mission Bay. He taught his students. I had a veggie-egg-cheese Peasant Pie with water then walked around. Grocery shopping at Whole Foods (2001 Market Street). Lunch at home with Patrick: chicken caesar wrap, tortilla chips with mild guacamole, water. Dinner at home with Patrick: bbq chicken pizza from frozen, ginger beer with apple cider and a dash of cinnamon. Based on this concoction we made up on the fly, we surmised one better: 3 parts ginger beer, 2 parts cinnamon schnapps or cinnamon bourbon, 1 part apple cider or apple juice. I call it Gingerfire. Watched December 8, 2014 - Barack Obama - The Colbert Report on thecolbertreport.cc.com with Patrick. Dessert: pumpkin pie with whipped cream, hot chocolate with whipped cream and white and dark chocolate shavings. Began rewatching Ocean's Eleven (2001) on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Wed Dec 10, 2014
Breakfast at home: one egg, one hash brown, one link of pork sausage, an Arkansas Black apple. Surgery recovery activities all day. Installed Weblock for iOS so that I could browse the web using Safari without ads on my iPad. It seems to work. Installed it on my iPhone as well. Lunch at home: leftover vegetable soup but with beef broth, tortilla chips with guacamole, water. Early dinner at home with Patrick: cheese and refried bean quesadilla for me, pasta and leftover meatballs in marinara sauce for him. "Click to open expanded view" is frequently the biggest lie on amazon.com (because the images in expanded view are often the same size as the unexpanded view).
Thu Dec 11, 2014
Breakfast at home: blueberry-apple granola with soy milk. Patrick installed a new UPS for his computer. Snack: one slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Snack: one biscuit. Lunch: leftover seashell pasta with marinara sauce. Patrick took me to a Kaiser lab visit. Snack: leftover seashell pasta with marinara sauce. Snack: one sliced gala apple. Dinner at home with Patrick: curry fried chicken breast, steamed spinach, water. Dessert: one italian cookie each. Finished rewatching Ocean's Eleven (2001) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Snack: two biscuits with butter. There was a big storm today. We suffered only a few brownouts and feel lucky that our power didn't go out entirely like it did for many others in the city. No issues with water or other kinds of damage.
Fri Dec 12, 2014
Surgery recovery activities all day. Breakfast at home: a banana, a veggie breakfast burrito, water. Nap. Shower. Nap. Installed and surveyed an aggregator called Selfoss. I got my Delicious and Flickr feeds sort of working, but gave up after finding it too difficult to bring in other feeds I wanted: Amazon wish list, Facebook, Twitter. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick's beef stew over steamed white rice. Watched part of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Resolved two problems in Chrome. One was that in Street View in Google Maps the image would appear very low resolution and panning and many other controls did not respond as expected (did nothing). If I opened a new incognito window, the problem disappeared. If I created a new user, the problem did not exist when logged in as that user. Clearing local cache did not resolve the problem. Resetting settings did not resolve the problem. If in Chrome I logged out of my Google account, the problem disappeared. The second problem was that in testing a new website design the page would get stuck trying to load Google fonts. The icon in the tab would spin forever. Again, the problem disappeared in incognito mode. After much work, I resolved both problems by visiting www.google.com/settings/chrome/sync and selecting Stop and Clear. Then I visited chrome://settings and selected Sign In > Disconnect Your Google Account... > and then selected the option called "Also clear your history, bookmarks, settings, and other Chrome data stored on this device" before selecting Disconnect Account. Chrome reopens automatically. I logged back in to my Google account but selected the option called "Choose What to Sync" before selecting Sign In. I entered my 2-step verification number but selected "Don't ask for codes again on this computer" since this was a personal computer. The Advanced sync settings dialog appeared. I changed Sync Everything to Choose What to Sync then deselected (unchecked) all the items. I manually readded two extensions I can't live without, cleared local cache, then confirmed the Google Maps Street View problem still did not occur and then confirmed that the Google Fonts loading problem also still did not occur. The clearing local cache step near the end is important. If you don't do that, the problem still remains. After confirming that this solution works, about two hours later both problems returned. If I sign out of my Google account in Chrome then sign in again, the Google Fonts loading problem disappears but the Street View problem still remains. Late snack: leftover Patrick's beef stew over steamed white rice.
Sat Dec 13, 2014
The two problems yesterday now seem to come and go and it now seems that the resolution is to quit and restart Chrome. Patrick made raspberry corn muffins. Surgery recovery activities all day. Breakfast at home: one muffin, water. Lunch at home: one muffin, leftover vegetable soup with beef broth. Ran errands with Patrick to Lakeshore Plaza: mailed packages, bought some groceries. Reenabled iMessage on my iPhone after realizing I did not receive messages I should have received. Weeded my address book in Apple Contacts from A to R. Received today a case for an iPhone 6 Plus: Speck Candyshell Grip in black / slate gray (core 3, SPK-A3179). I noticed that the case has a California Proposition 65 warning on it indicating that it contains materials known to California to cause cancer. This warning is notably absent from the web page on speckproducts.com where I bought it. However, I'm keeping it since I'm not eating the case and since I'm already germphobic, so I'll continue to wash my hands frequently. (People should always wash their hands before eating anyway.) Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover beef stew over steamed white rice, water. Finished watching Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Normally I can't handle films with talking animals, but this was did not bother me. I loved it. Dessert: one small scoop each of cherry pie ice cream.
Sun Dec 14, 2014
Surgery recovery activities all day. Breakfast at home: raspberry-corn muffin and a biscuit. Snack: one fuji apple. Lunch: leftover beef stew over steamed white rice. Dinner at home with Patrick: cavatelli with diced bacon and diced winter greens, water.
Mon Dec 15, 2014
Surgery recovery activities all day. Breakfast at home: raspberry-corn muffin and a fuji apple, water. Lunch at home: leftover cavatelli with diced bacon and diced winter greens, water.
Tue Dec 16, 2014
Surgery recovery activities all day. Breakfast at home: small veggie breakfast burrito, an apple, water. Nap. Lunch at home: leftover quesadilla, water. Helped Joel and Rick with a problem with one of the Qualtrics forms for admissions. Dinner at home with Patrick: delivery from Clay Oven Indian West Portal which arrived in about 32 minutes. Jenny sent me a gift: The Circle by Dave Eggers. Tina sent us a gift: a Wusthof Classic 8-piece knife set: 7 knives/tools and a 17-slot block.
Wed Dec 17, 2014
Accompanied Patrick on errands: coffee, grocery, library, drug store. At Peet's I had a slice of pumpkin bread with a chai tea latte. Patrick had a slice of banana, chocolate, and cherry bread with a coffee drink. Surgery recovery activities all day. Tested the 30-day lantern I bought for our disaster/emergency go box. It works well. Early lunch at home: leftover indian food from last night, water. Added 24 Mealspec flameless meal heaters to the go box. Backfilled some details in my journal from the April 2012 Hawaii trip. Archived old vacation documents. Threw out some old user manuals I had found: Lucent Technologies Deluxe Tapeless Digital Answering System with Mailboxes 1725, Panasonic KX-TS17-W Integrated Telephone System, Sony STR-D715 FM Stereo FM-AM Receiver, Sony Wireless Stereo Headphone System MDR-RF950RK, Ryobi HP721K Cordless Drill-Driver. Archived documents. Susie dropped off a gift: a Harry and David gift tower with four Royal Riviera pears, Moose Munch popcorn, mixed nuts, raspberry galettes, baklava, chocolate-covered cherries, and assorted truffles—delightful! Archived documents. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers, water for me, red wine for Patrick. For dessert we split half of the Harry and David baklava, and it was really tasty. Archived documents.
Thu Dec 18, 2014
Shower. Breakfast at home: yogurt, small veggie breakfast burrito, water. Patrick took me to a Kaiser lab visit. Lunch at Presidio Pizza Company with Patrick: we split a kale caesar salad, meat special slice and aranciata for Patrick, Frankie's slice and limonata for me. Doctor appointment. Home. Snack with Patrick: one raspberry galette and warm milk for each. Did more organizing of the go box. Dinner at home with Patrick: sausage-parmesan-spinach ravioli in alfredo sauce with sauteed trumpet and alba clamshell mushrooms and broccoli, red wine, water. Dessert: gingerbread cookie from frozen, cherry pie ice cream.
Fri Dec 19, 2014
Breakfast at home: veggie breakfast burrito. Snack: an apple, prune juice. Surgery recovery activities all day. Lunch: leftover ravioli from last night. Nap. Afternoon snack: biscuit sandwich with ham and cheddar and porter mustard. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken stew, water, red wine. Dessert: one Firebrand bombolone each: hazelnut for Patrick, blackberry for me.
Sat Dec 20, 2014
Breakfast at home: two satsuma mandarin oranges, one egg and cheese biscuit sandwich, one biscuit with butter, water. Surgery recovery activities all day. Cut my hair and showered. Did not eat lunch. Surgery recovery therapy: walked outside while snacking on mixed nuts and arare and drinking water. Crossroads nurse Christine visited. Dinner at home with Patrick: oven-baked breaded chicken, ham hock and sausage red beans and rice, water. A glass of red wine for Patrick. Dessert: one raspberry Firebrand bombolone each. Watched part of The Fault in Our Stars (2014) on Netflix DVD with Patrick.
Sun Dec 21, 2014
Breakfast at home: sliced Royal Riviera pear; one egg, ham, and cheese biscuit sandwich, water. Walked around the reservoir with Patrick. Lunch at home with Patrick: leftover ham hock and sausage red beans and rice, water. For dessert we split half of the Harry and David baklava. Dinner at home with Patrick: pepperoni pizza from frozen, butter leaf lettuce salad with sesame seeds and heirloom tomatoes, water. Watched movie trailers on the Apple Trailers app on my iPad with Patrick.
Mon Dec 22, 2014
Breakfast: small bowl of granola with soy milk, water. Accompanied Patrick to Merced Manor Reservoir. He practiced tai chi and shao lin. I walked. Home. Patrick and I drove to Stonestown Galleria and met his mom. I bought a new iPhone 6 Plus from the Apple Store. We then set all of us on one account with T-Mobile and bought a new iPhone 5s for Mom Ryan. We returned to the Apple Store, and Patrick bought a new iPhone 6. Snacks from Wetzel's Pretzels: one pretzel with salt each for me then later Patrick. We said goodbye to Mom Ryan at Peet's Coffee then drove home. Patrick set up his and his mom's phones, and I set up my phone. quantum13 and Markus visited. We ordered Paxti's pizza delivery: mushroom, red onion, and feta; arugula salad; butter leaf lettuce salad, red wine, white wine, water. Markus and quantum13 left to go to the airport. Patrick and I watched season 4 episode 2 "Family" of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix instant watch. Snack: Moose Munch.
Tue Dec 23, 2014
Pre-breakfast at home: two satsuma mandarins. Surgery recovery activities all day. Breakfast at home: leftover salad from last night with blue cheese dressing, 4 ounces of prune juice mixed with 4 ounces of water. I walked to Walgreens on Taraval to run some errands. Lunch at home: I ate leftover beef stew with steamed rice. Patrick ate leftover red beans and rice. Dinner: I ate leftover beef stew with steamed rice, water. Patrick ate pasta stars from a can. Purchased Myst V: End of Ages (Windows) by Cyan Worlds and Ubisoft on Steam and DEVICE 6 by Simogo on the Apple App Store.
Wed Dec 24, 2014
Pre-breakfast: an apple. Breakfast: biscuit sandwich with ham and smoked cheddar. Surgery recovery activities all day. Walked for at least 40 minutes down Taraval and back. Snack: Sociables crackers with hummus. Lunch at home with Patrick: rock cod tacos. Dinner at Shotwell Street with Patrick, Danny, Romy, Drew, Phil, Annita, Jane, Quyen, Dave, Dong-yi, Chris K, Wu-Xiang (sp?), Richard, Marvin, Paul M. Mom Ryan had planned to attend but did not feel well enough shortly before. Home. Chatted with a T-Mobile representative because my phone number did not transfer as expected from Consumer Cellular. They say now it will occur tonight around midnight. Began playing DEVICE 6 by Simogo. Chapter 1 was perfectly executed.
Thu Dec 25, 2014
Pre-breakfast: a pear. Breakfast at home: two hash browns, one pork sausage link, english muffin with butter. Surgery recovery activities all day. Nap. Sam and Mom Ryan came over for brunch. We had chinese food delivery from Alice's Bistro and unwrapped gifts. Mom Ryan enjoyed chatted via Facetime with relatives in Boston, including Aunt Lucille. Sam gave Mom Ryan a ride home. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers. Finished watching The Fault in Our Stars (2014) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Late snack: leftover fried rice.
Fri Dec 26, 2014
Slept in. Breakfast at home: leftover chinese food. Surgery recovery activities all day. Chatted with a T-Mobile representative because my phone number did not transfer as expected from Consumer Cellular. They say now it will occur today. Lunch at home with Patrick: leftover chinese food. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: I made veggie burgers with smoked cheddar and butter leaf lettuce with shoestring fries for Patrick and steak fries for me. We watched Gojira tai Mosura tai Mekagojira: Tôkyô S.O.S. (2003) aka Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. on library DVD borrowed from Sam. Snack: moose munch, pistachio ice cream. Tried again getting AirDrop to work between my new iPhone 6 Plus and my December 2012 iMac, failed and gave up (again). Reorganized apps and synced devices to the iMac. Created an account on imdb. Late snack: bean and cheese quesadilla with butter lettuce chiffonade and sour cream.
Sat Dec 27, 2014
Pre-breakfast: a golden delicious apple. Installed Evernote Clearly for Google Chrome. Ahhhh. Surgery recovery activities all day. Breakfast: one everything bagel with cream cheese. Lunch: I walked to grubbin’ for toasted sub sandwiches: chicken tender for Patrick, corned beef for me. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: I made tuna mac and cheese with peas. Completed chapter 5 of DEVICE 6 by Simogo. I found that I'm getting better at distinguishing the clues from the nonsense.
Sun Dec 28, 2014
Breakfast: yogurt with granola, one sliced pear. Surgery recovery activities all day. Rode Muni to Powell Street Station, met Danny and Denmark at Starbucks on Stockton. We ate dim sum brunch at City View. Afterwards, Denmark left, and Danny and I shopped in Union Square. I returned some items that did not fit to Abercrombie. While on Market Street we encountered ECB and said hello. He introduced us to his friend Eduardo. Home. Patrick finally resolved a T-Mobile problem with his mom's new phone number. Snack: tortilla chips and hummus. T-Mobile called me to resolve the problem of my phone number transfer from Consumer Cellular. The request was submitted again. Now we wait another two days. Watched 38 minutes of Solaris (1972) on Netflix DVD with Patrick, then stopped because I couldn't handle such a slow-paced movie. At different points I thought or expressed out loud: How many times do we need to see the cameraman pan up from water? (During a distance shot:) We're going to wait until he walks across the entire frame and exits the frame, aren't we? (Answer: yes.) How long is this drive?; wake me when we get there. In need of something more engaging, we rewatched season 6 episode 12 of Star Trek: Voyager "Blink of an Eye" on Netflix instant watch with Patrick.
Mon Dec 29, 2014
Breakfast at home: toasted everything bagel with cream cheese. Surgery recovery activities all day. Patrick took me to a Kaiser lab visit. Lunch at Yum Yum: garlic chicken lunch special for Patrick, cashew chicken lunch special for me, hot tea. Patrick's fortune: You deserve respect and will eventually get it; 1, 17, 19, 21, 23,43. My fortunes (three in one cookie): An unexpected payment is coming your way; 6, 15, 21, 27, 31, 41; A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon; 2, 9, 19, 36, 37, 44; Linger over dinner discussions this week for needed advice; 10, 18, 19, 30, 34, 40. Service was good at the start; neglectful at the end. About $20 before tip. We visited the boys at Recharge. Rested. Dinner at home with Patrick: I had leftovers from lunch. Patrick had a biscuit sandwich with egg, side of ham. Dessert: we shared a snowman rice krispie treat given to me by Mom Ryan. Watched 24 minutes of Solaris (1972) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. This was a little better than the first 38 minutes.
Tue Dec 30, 2014
Breakfast at home: one egg, one pork sausage link, two hash browns, one slice of toast with butter. Surgery recovery activities all day. Discovered Flickr's new (beta) camera roll feature. Now Flickr looks more like Photos on my iPhone. I found the interface very intuitive, and it's easier now to see larger localized time spans at a glance. Thought about migrating from Simplenote and Notational Velocity to Evernote but decided against it after reading posts by Doug Belshaw and Jason Kincaid. Lunch at home: leftover chinese food. Snack: one salted dark chocolate caramel, one gingerbread cookie from frozen dough. Prepared no-longer-needed dead tree medical documents for shredding. Dinner at home with Patrick: delivery from Clay Oven Indian West Portal which delivered in 29 minutes. Watched more of Solaris (1972) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. We made it to 1:22:00 then stopped.
Wed Dec 31, 2014
Breakfast at home: leftover chinese food. Surgery recovery activities all day. Chatted with Consumer Cellular support and we discovered the problem with my phone number transfer; every T-Mobile representative I spoke with did not communicate clearly enough for me to understand what information I needed to provide. The Consumer Cellular representative confirmed that there was no password or passcode on my account. And because I was moving to the T-Mobile account in Patrick's name, T-Mobile asked me for the last four digits of his social security number, not mine, which is what was needed. The Consumer Cellular representative was able to release the phone number, and that's when my T-Mobile call dropped because I had only one dot out of five for signal strength in our apartment. The Consumer Cellular representative did not call me back as I had hoped, but it doesn't really matter if the release works. Patrick and I drove to Mom Ryan's, then the three of us drove to Stonestown Galleria for a small bite and errands: Trader Joe's (to drop off plastic bags to be recycled), California Crisp (spinach pasta salad and water for mostly me), Starbucks (for Patrick and Mom Ryan), T-Mobile, Apple Store, Trader Joe's (for a few grocery items). Mom Ryan rode Muni home. Patrick and I returned home. I walked to the mailbox and back. Midafternoon meal: leftover chinese food for me, leftover indian food for Patrick. I walked around the reservoir and took photos. Finished reading (or maybe rereading?) Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick's chicken and vegetable soup. Watched half of Labyrinth on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Watched season 3 episode 15 "Yesterday's Enterprise" on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Dessert: chocolates, a homemade ice cream sandwich. Watched some new year's eve celebrations on the web. We both went to bed around 11:15 PM.