October 2019
Summary: BADCamp, Mexico City trip begins
Dates on this page
Tue Oct 1, 2019
Breakfast at home: leftover sushi, toasted everything bagel with whipped cream cheese and za'atar, one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni to Stonestown Galleria. Worked from my iPhone X while I waited for Apple Store to open. Calendar management. Responded to a request from Jaime K about SEO. Apple replaced the keyboard and the battery. Upon restart I noticed that it was extraordinarily slow, taking 20 minutes to fully load all my startup items when before the repair it would only take one or two minutes. I spent the next 90 minutes troubleshooting it, partly with an Apple Genius. We could not figure it out. I left thinking that I was going to reimage the computer from scratch and if it still had a problem it would be easy to drop off at Apple again possibly for a logic board replacement. Lunch in the food court at Ike's: menage a trois on French bread with everything ($14.32), water from Starbucks. Rode UberX to UCSF Laurel Heights. Intro to Google Analytics meeting with Eric and the CPCS team: Paul, Neliza, and, over Zoom, Cassandra. When I started my laptop at work, it seemed perfectly fine—no slowness. Responded to a request from Marissa about updating people profiles. Responded to a request from Michelle K about how to add a taxonomy index in her Confluence wiki. Ran lots of app updates for my computer, including Symantec. Began a full scan in Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP). Updated a link for Erin H for the Residencies microsite. Followup with Rebecca D about Nadav's appointment as director of PSPG. Notified QBI of a potential web security problem I discovered on their site. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: deluxe veggie quesadillas with side of refried beans, water. Dessert for Patrick only: Naia Tcho chocolate gelato with whipped cream from a can. To bed. Woke at 11:30 pm. Washed dishes. Recharge Medical web work: content editing followup. Continued troubleshooting slow MacBook Pro problems following the Apple keyboard repair. Late snack: one banana, one cup of leftover homemade minestrone.
Wed Oct 2, 2019
Breakfast at home: leftover homemade minestrone, one murcott. Walked and rode Muni and BART to UC Berkeley for BADCamp Higher Education Summit in the Skillful Means Room at Dharma College (2222 Harold Way, Berkeley, CA). The panel called "Working: Together, Yet Apart" talked about remote work problems and solutions. Arizona University Digital Team presented their work processes. John K talked about Slack in "Slack Brings the UC System Together." Lunch sponsored by Pantheon was pizza and salad. Sponsor case study talks: Anthony R from Yeti who demoed superfast-loading headless Drupal sites (essentially no obvious page load time), someone from platform.sh gave an intro to their services, and Joe C from Aten gave general project advice based on Aten's Stanford On- and Off-campus Learning Opportunities (SOLO) project. This year we did a new afternoon activity called Solution Room. Shawn D organized us into tables with a balance of high-confidence and low-confidence people and we just talked about problems and solutions. I thought it worked well. Lastly we broke into groups by organization. The UC group talked about SiteFarm's direction to moving to a template-only model. Consensus was that it was fine to move in this direction since that's how everyone seemed to be using it anyway. Afterwards we walked to Jupiter where we got drink tickets, ordered at the bar, and continued discussions in the upstairs room with a mediterranean appetizer spread. Walked and rode BART and Muni home. Dinner at home: sirloin and vegetables Chunky Soup, hot water.
Thu Oct 3, 2019
Breakfast at home: toasted english muffin with whipped cream cheese, one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni bus 48 and T to Genentech Hall at UCSF Mission Bay. Lab website kickoff meeting with Jo, Jason S, and Balyn Z. Afterwards I worked in the 5th floor atrium of Genentech Hall, then explored Chase Center and Thrive City. None of the Thrive City eateries were open yet. The entire Chase Center property is extraordinarily beautiful, particularly the views of the bay (at least for now). Much construction was continuing, although it is obvious that they are in the final stages of completion. Lunch at Publico Urban Taqueria: fish and chips burrito, Tejava ($13.78). UCSF shuttle from Mission Bay to Parnassus. Continued working from the 5th floor at Kalmanovitz Library in nearly the only sunny place in the entire library. Lab website kickoff followup. Lots of other email followup. Added Jaime K to Google Analytics for ACDRS and PKCourse. Encountered Kirk H whom I hadn't seen in a long time and chatted with him a bit, and in particular about a documentation project he is working on with OEIS. Styling work in Drupal. Uninstalled Virtualbox now that Docker and fin have been working well for us for some months. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: oktoberfest bratwurst sandwiches with potato salad, Hint pineapple. Watched a few video clips on Facebook with Patrick. Edited and uploaded photos to Flickr. Reported two more website problems to the BADCamp team. Late snack: one Asian pear, Hint pineapple.
Fri Oct 4, 2019
Walked and rode Muni and BART to Downtown Berkeley for the first day of sessions at BADCamp. Lunch at Jupiter with Eric D, Eric G, Austen T, Jayson J. Dinner at Cancun with Austen T, Shawn D, Sasha M, Mark M, Carson B, Danny from Belgium, Tristan P. At the Five and Dime party I met and chatted with Aaron F who was in from Chicago to do a Lando talk. To get home it was a long wait for BART according to the Transit app on my iPhone X, so instead I took an AC Transit F bus from almost directly outside of Five and Dime to Salesforce Transit Center, then rode Muni home. Total time door to door was about 70 minutes, which was shorter than I had expected. Today I briefly and happily encountered Jordan K, whom I hadn't seen in a long time.
Sat Oct 5, 2019
Breakfast at home: Patrick's homemade pumpkin bread, toasted, one pint of hot water. Dining table maintenance: prepped with odorless mineral spirits, waxed with paste wax. Recharge Medical email campaign work. Lunch at home: leftover bratwurst sandwich, one pint of hot water. Washed dishes after Patrick baked and frosted a two-layer lavender-vanilla cake. Snack: Patrick made homemade potato chips with the Cuisinart food processor and a wok filled with hot oil. Watched Superstore s5:e2 on Hulu Basic Plan with Patrick. I prepared dinner: mushroom risotto, white wine for me, Hint water for both. Dessert: Patrick's homemade lavender-vanilla cake with lavender-vanilla frosting. Continued playing The Witness on my iPad Pro with help from answers found on the web. The computer slowness problem that I encountered at the Apple Store after picking up my MacBook Pro from a keyboard repair never returned. I feel lucky.
Sun Oct 6, 2019
Breakfast: one asian pear. Lunch at King of Thai Noodle with Patrick: crispy chicken fried rice for him, yellow curry crispy egg noodles for me, thai iced teas for both. I asked when I ordered about the spiciness of my dish and was told that it was not spicy at all. When I received it I estimated it at 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being spiciest). Patrick tasted it and said it was 7 or 8. I didn't bother complaining since I was too hungry. Mailchimp setup and form work for Patrick's forthcoming website, including setting up Mailchimp SPF and DKIM on his domain. Mailchimp config review for all home web properties. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick prepared a green bean casserole and we ate that with leftovers from lunch, Hint water for Patrick, white wine for me. Dessert: chocolate pudding with whipped cream from a can. Completed home website CMS updates.
Mon Oct 7, 2019
Breakfast: granola with yogurt and red grapes, one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Styling work. Processed an incoming image for Nadav. Lunch: one murcott, some roasted, unsalted pistachios, water. Siteimprove Academy training: Began the SEO learning path. Rode Uber Pool to the Mission. Met Patrick for couples counseling. Walked with Patrick to the Mission for dinner at Dancing Yak (415-525-4857, 280 Valencia Street). Cocktails: Hola! Namaste (vida mezcal, tamarind sauce, lime, agave, Himalayan salt rim) for Patrick, Yak and Yeti (el jimador tequila, fresh ginger, mint syrup, lime juice, basil seed) for me. We shared chicken momo with tomato and roasted soybean sauce on the side, pani puri, Dancing Yak khichidi, and onion naan. Food was variously spicier than we were promised, but I ate it anyway. The chicken momo dumplings have a bit of broth inside similar to xiao loong bao, but they contain more filling. The pani puri are crisp, thin shells filled with potatoes, sprouts, and spices and served with a sweet and tangy water. The khichidi is a dish made with rice, lentils, spices, and roasted cauliflower. We liked the food and drink, and service by Ningma was very good. $72.86 before a $12 tip. Rode UberX home.
Tue Oct 8, 2019
Breakfast at home: red grapes, one slice of toasted pumpkin bread, milk mixed with water. Uploaded images to The Archive. #betterposter followup with the UCSF brand identity team. Styling work: various fixes. Webadmin meeting. 1:1 with Eric. Calendar management. Lunch: snacks: pistachios, peanuts, Sun chips. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover green bean casserole, leftover risotto. Dessert: I had chocolate pudding and a See's dark chocolate molasses chip, Patrick had gelato. We each had a triangular wafer cookie from Trader Joe's. To bed early. Had trouble sleeping during the night, not sure why.
Wed Oct 9, 2019
Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Along the way I tried stopping at Starbucks Laurel Village for breakfast but the order ahead app had a confusing interface and when I arrived the line was too long. In the Starbucks app I ordered a featured item but then the next screen told me that that item was out of stock at my chosen store. It asked me if I wanted to choose a different store or continue with my purchase of an out of stock item (??). There was no obvious way to remove the item from my virtual shopping bag. I didn't want to go to a different Starbucks. I abandoned the online purchase. I got breakfast instead from Rigolo: egg and cheddar on a plain bagel. I took the order to go and ate at my desk with water from my water bottle. Helped Erin H with a web editing question. Followup with Rebecca D about a web editing question. Scheduled a meeting with Marley and Eric. Followup with Angela about the CP intranet. Followup with Grant about a question about Lisa K's recent award. Applied for and accepted an offer for an Apple Card. Patrick announced today that he was selected by Roxane Gay as the winner of the 2019 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction to be published in autumn 2020 by University of Georgia Press for his short story collection titled If We Were Electric. This is his first published book, after having published many short stories in various journals earlier in his writing career. I made live changes to his new website to include the announcement and to permit people to sign up for further updates. Lots of hero styling following an update to flexslider related to the php72 update. Walked and rode Muni to Recharge Medical for a web team meeting. Rode UberX home. To bed early.
Thu Oct 10, 2019
Breakfast: leftover green bean casserole, one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Content metadata phone meeting with JoAnne and Eric. Calendar management. Prepped SVGs for #betterposter distribution then rewrote the Presentation Templates page copy accordingly during insertion before making it live. Resolved a process question from Marissa about editing research keywords on faculty profile pages. Styling fix to resolve the misunderstanding that caused Marissa's question. Began the process to retire the SOP IT Wiki. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken pot pies with arugula and cherry tomato salad, Hint water. Recharge Medical work: mostly editing, adding a video to the CoolSculpting page, and a few other small web edits.
Fri Oct 11, 2019
Breakfast at home: two eggs over easy with sauteed tomato and Spice Ace fines herbes, one hash brown with ketchup, one small sausage link, one slice of brioche with butter, one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Followup with a Siteimprove problem report related to momentum scrolling in iOS. Got removed from one of our systems upon request since I haven't used it in years. Responded to a Calpoison request about Facebook Pixel. Followup with David T from Stanford about orgcharts. Followup with Shalimar about her email campaign report. Completed a request from Marissa L about media coverage for John G. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Mount Zion. Lunch at Yum Yum Hunan: cashew chicken lunch special with sweet and sour soup, egg roll, and brown rice. My fortune: A couple of extra bucks could be floating in your direction. $16 after a $1 tip. (I would have tipped more but didn't because I received a $5 and a $1 instead of six $1s.) UCSF shuttle from Mount Zion to Laurel Heights. Worked more. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Ran an errand. Worked from the library from my iPhone X while occasionally glancing out the window to see the Blue Angels swarming. Responded to an inquiry about our job postings form. Stopped at Holy Gelato for some white pistachio gelato. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: beef hard-shell tacos with guacamole and black beans. Dessert: white pistachio gelato with TJ's wafer crisp. Watched Superstore s5:e3 on Hulu Basic Plan with Patrick. Watched two thirds of Jen Kirkman's Just Keep Living on Netflix instant watch with Patrick.
Sat Oct 12, 2019
Breakfast at home: I prepared for myself two eggs over easy with fixins from last night's tacos, side of english muffin with fig jam, one pint of hot water. Recharge Medical work: mostly editing. Discovered that my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription expired unexpectedly. Walked to and enjoyed the Ocean Beach Music and Art Festival. Rode Uber Pool home. Cocktails: Elder Fashioneds. Dinner at home with Patrick: fried shrimp po'boys with carrot pistachio soup, sparkling water for Patrick, hot water for me. Washed dishes. Folded some of the laundry that Patrick had washed earlier. Drink: a shot of carrot juice.
Sun Oct 13, 2019
Slept in. Breakfast at home: banana dipped in peanut butter, some raspberries. Recharge Medical work. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: mushroom and arugula pizza from semi-scratch, San Pell for Patrick, water for me. Dessert: Patrick had a See's molasses chip, I had some raspberries. Finished watching Jen Kirkman's Just Keep Living on Netflix instant watch with Patrick. Recharge Medical web work: adding second row of items to home page, lots of style fixes. Pantry organization. Late meal: Joe's O's, water. Dessert: one See's molasses chip.
Mon Oct 14, 2019
Breakfast at home: banana dipped in peanut butter, some raspberries, one toasted english muffin with mixed cheeses. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Forwarded Andrew M's Google Analytics 201 talk to Jaime K and the Calpoison team. Chatted with Jon to resolve a request from Donna L about a job posting. Responded to a request from Shanthi N about newsletters for Eric and Susie. Followup with Siteimprove about sticky scrolling on iOS devices and certain pages crashing browsers in both iOS and macOS. Edited the VR story for Levi and Grant. Completed Siteimprove Academy "Building a Sustainable SEO Strategy" learning path and "Making Accessibility a Priority in Your Organization" course online training. Lunch: roasted, unsalted peanuts; tamari pumpkin seeds, water. Walked and rode Muni to West Portal. Dinner at Trattoria da Vittorio (415-742-0300, 150 West Portal Avenue) with Patrick. Upon being seated I noticed a very strong and unpleasant body odor coming from somewhere that lingered even after several minutes. We had been seated on an aisle and since I couldn't determine its origin I didn't ask to be moved. I almost walked out, though. After about 20 minutes several tables near us had cleared and the smell subsided, so it might have been one of them. No way to know for certain, though. Peroni for Patrick, glass of baby amarone for me. Brussels sprouts to share. Pollo parmagiana for Patrick, short ribs with polenta and vegetables for me. Tiramisu to share, including a complimentary glass each of port. All the food and drink were perfect. Service by Niccolo was excellent. $100.35 before a $20 tip. Encountered Esteban B and family just before leaving and chatted briefly. Rode UberX home. To bed early, had trouble sleeping during the night. We both slept through the earthquake that occurred late this night and did not feel it.
Tue Oct 15, 2019
Breakfast at home: leftovers from last night, leftover soup, one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Styling work: resolve form fields not fitting on mobile. Set up a new repo for Drupal 8 after James H prepped it for us. Edited the PSPG site for Rebecca D to reflect the leadership change from Kroetz to Ahituv. Attended the livestream of the State of the University Address. Lunch: oil-free, salt-free microwave popcorn, raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds. Watched "New & Experimental CSS Tools in Firefox" by the Firefox DevTools team. Watched "Leveling Up Your Design Communication" by Aarron Walter on An Event Apart's website. Attended the livestream of the School Town Hall. Asana task cleanup and maintenance. Slack maintenance and task prep. Errand: hardware store, grocery, drug store. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: orzo salad, Hint water. Dessert: one small piece each of Tcho dark chocolate with coconut and crispy rice. Afterwards we reviewed the Democratic debate via Twitter. Recharge Medical work: web homepage edits, web page draft edits for the men's clinic. Applied Block Bros. block oil to the butcher block and wooden kitchen utensils. More Recharge Medical editing and web work. Linkchecking for Lodestar. Late snack: tortilla chips and deli guacamole, hot water.
Wed Oct 16, 2019
Breakfast at home: leftover soup, leftover orzo salad, sliced pear. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights, stopping at Cal-Mart for popcorn kernels along the way. Linkchecking. Followup with Rebecca D and Nadav for Nadav's profile pages. Met with Angela K and Marley Q about identity resources and letterhead templates. Resolved an image too heavy problem on an event page for Alexa R. Redirected a logo issue from Lisa C to the identity team and to a brand expert at UC Berkeley. Followup with Angela and Marley about today's meeting. Handled a permissions request and an event pub from Alexa T. Walked to dinner by myself at Le Soleil: glass of malbec, shrimp chips, clay pot rice with shrimp, chicken, bbq pork sausage, mushroom stems, green onions. I liked the food and drink. Service was neglectful but friendly when it arrived. $30.38 before a $3 tip. Walked and rode Muni home which took 65 minutes door to door. I'm not sure if one of the 66 busses failed to appear as scheduled or if something else happened, but something was not right. Recharge Medical web work: print styles.
Thu Oct 17, 2019
Breakfast at home: sliced pear, breakfast quesadilla with one egg with mexican spice blend, leftover taco meat, mixed cheeses, sour cream. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Attempted meeting with Eric and Katherine K but an emergency arose and we had to reschedule. Lunch: popcorn; tamari pumpkin seeds; roasted, unsalted peanuts. Today I used a microwave silicone popcorn maker for the first time. I bought the only one I could find on Amazon that didn't have a logo on it. I used no oil and no salt. It came out not as crisp as I had hoped, but as I ate it became crispier probably due to evaporation of accumulated moisture. Newsletter, web, and logo phone call with Shanthi from MOC. Completed a Mailchimp subscriber import for Susie and Eric. Read through the entirety of Typewolf's fantastic Flawless Typography Checklist. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: deli meatloaf with gravy, mashed potatoes, asparagus, Hint water. Afterwards we listened to The Big Event's Soleil Ho interview with host Peter Hartlaub and guest Paolo Lucchesi then watched various clips on YouTube. Washed dishes. Installed the MyShake earthquake early warning app on my iPhone X.
Fri Oct 18, 2019
Drupal 8 work meeting with Eric D, Eric G, Jayson J, Left gear in the conference room. Lunch at Crafty Fox with Austen, Vanessa, Alyssa, ?, Dana, John K, Eric D, Jayson J, and James H. Almost everyone got the fried chicken sandwich with fries lunch special for $12. $13.02 before a $1 tip. Returned to MCB to pick up gear. Rode UberX from UCSF Mission Center Building to UCSF Laurel Heights. Telephone meeting with Katherine K: content metadata. Watched Chris Coyier's terrific video talk called Ooops, I guess we're full-stack developers now on YouTube. It's an overview with many great animated visuals of how front-end development has changed over the years with many front-end developers empowered by Javascript tools to handle more than just the front-end portion of the development stack. Troubleshot why my MacBook Pro doesn't seem to be sleeping as expected when the lid is closed. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick. We placed an order with Uber Eats. After I placed the order I noticed that somehow the app had an incorrect delivery address. Somehow it had an address one door down. I tried and failed to find a way to resolve this in the app. I called Uber and spent 8 minutes trying to resolve the problem and in the end was told to message the driver when he approached or meet him at the other door. The entire time we waited for the delivery we weren't sure if it would be received successfully, causing anxiety. In the end I met the driver at his car and it was received successfully. I think that because Uber uses (or used in the past?) GPS to determine your current location to offer a suggestion for the pickup address somehow it saved the nearby address. But when ordering, an address that's one digit off looks quite similar to our correct address, and it is easily overlooked, especially if you're hungry, and especially if you have successfully received deliveries from Uber Eats in the past. Uber Eats could improve by not offering a GPS suggestion unless it is easily correctable and by not saving GPS suggestions and by enabling users to delete incorrect addresses. (There's currently no way to delete an incorrect address so that you don't accidentally select it in the future.) Dinner at home with Patrick: delivery from Jika Ramen via Uber Eats: chicken kaarage, wonton and shrimp dumpling ramen, bbq pork chow mein. $39.46 after a $4 tip. We enjoyed the food. To bed early.
Sat Oct 19, 2019
Toast with labne, thinly sliced cucumber, za'atar; sparkling water for Patrick, hot water for me; side of blueberries for me. House chores: washed dishes, washed and dried laundry. Earthquake prevention: successfully used QuakeHOLD!'s A-Maze-ing Picture Hook to secure four framed items in our living room. Lunch: leftovers from last night. Watched Shadow on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Folded laundry. Reviewed local candidate and ballot measures. Dinner at home with Patrick: together we prepared meatloaf enchiladas with side of beans, margaritas with salt, water. Dessert: two flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Watched Superstore s3:e5 on Hulu Basic Plan with Patrick. Watched They Ready: Tracy Ashley on Netflix instant watch with Patrick.
Sun Oct 20, 2019
Nail and skin care. More earthquake prep: zigzag picture hangers prep. Breakfast: blueberries. Earthquake prep and housecleaning all day. Brunch: I prepared and Patrick helped prepare buttermilk banana pancakes which we ate with maple syrup. Nap. Dinner at home with Patrick: I prepared and Patrick helped prepare stir-fried chicken and broccolini in black bean sauce over steamed white rice. Sparking water for Patrick, water for me. Dessert: we shared a slice of leftover lavender cake that we had stored in the freezer. More earthquake prep: investigated cabinet latches, purchased a set of Murakoshi PFR-TSAα latches. Spice cabinet management. Late meal: pasta rings in tomato sauce from a can, water.
Mon Oct 21, 2019
Breakfast at home: one leftover enchilada, one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Eric reported that my Adobe subscription issue was resolved today—hooray! Watched Name That Script! by Trent Walton. Lunch: tahini pumpkin seeds, dried fruit. Read various email newsletters about web work. Edited a news story for Grant then published it. Added a user to our Mailchimp account for Alexa T. Walked and rode Muni home, stopping along the way at Cal-Mart for a few grocery items. Lunch: no-salt, no-oil popcorn from a microwave silicone popcorn popper. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftover minestrone soup that we had stored in the freezer, slices of toasted Acme Bread italian batard with butter. Washed dishes. Watched various trailers and clips on YouTube with Patrick. Recharge Medical web work. Late snack: small quesadilla, one See's molasses chip, hot water.
Tue Oct 22, 2019
Breakfast at home: leftover enchiladas, hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Attempted to organize all my ebooks. 1:1 with Eric. Webadmin meeting. Handled requests from Esteban B (content building) and Nadav A (phishing attempt) and Cindy (MOV files don't play in Box on Windows—answer: try Google Drive or VLC). Walked and rode Muni home, stopping at Cal-Mart for groceries and an autumn-themed bouquet of flowers along the way. Dinner at home with Patrick: deli salmon with sliced carrot, zucchini, and red onion; deli saffron rice. Continued playing The Witness while Patrick watched, now following a puzzle solution guide in order to fully complete the game. Washed dishes. Recharge Medical web work. Late snack: tortilla chips, corn chips, toasted Italian batard with mixed grated cheeses, water.
Wed Oct 23, 2019
Breakfast at home: grapes, batard toast with butter, leftover minestrone soup. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Watched Case Study: Closing the CX Gap - Building a Customer Centric Transportation Site on YouTube. Responded to a request to introduce new faculty member Sophie D to our website platform offering. Responded to a request from Marissa L about wysiwyg editing. Began reviewing layout builder options in D8. Edited and published a news item for Grant. Lunch: snacked on roasted, unsalted peanuts; sunflower seeds; and a granola bar. Calendar management. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: I prepared baked macaroni and cheese with sauteed asparagus and warm Italian batard. Dessert: I prepared flourless chocolate cake in mugs. Recharge Medical web work. Troubleshot intermittent internet connection problems with Patrick's MacBook Pro. Mexico City trip planning: reviewed Paul's itinerary from 2017, annotated it, then sent it to the group for review along with a few other links. At his request, I scanned and archived the first check that Patrick received for his writing from University of Georgia for the Flannery O'Connor Prize.
Thu Oct 24, 2019
Breakfast at home: leftover minestrone soup, leftover saffron rice, toasted english muffin with butter. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Watched various videos on layout solutions for Drupal and Drupal 8: Gutenberg Editor vs. Layout Builder in Drupal 8 (Jenna Shenk); Drupal 8 Paragraphs Demonstration; introduction to the Paragraphs Module in Drupal 8; Build banging sites with BPM: Bricks, Paragraphs and Modifiers. Lunch: no-salt, no-oil popcorn from a microwave silicone popcorn popper. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: I prepared leftover baked macaroni with deli tomato-fennel soup. Dessert: chocolate Petit Pot for Patrick, coconut rice pudding Petit Pot for me. Water for both.
Fri Oct 25, 2019
Breakfast at home: toasted english muffin with butter; fried egg with leftovers: meatloaf, corn and red bell pepper from taco night, pinto beans, diced red onion; one pint of hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Spent all day reviewing layout solutions. Late lunch: a small handful of raisins. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: Patrick prepared pizza from frozen. I prepared a romaine salad with croutons and goddess dressing. Hint water to drink. Dessert: chocolate Petit Pot for me, coconut rice pudding Petit Pot for Patrick. Washed dishes. Went to bed while Patrick went to sleep. Awoke. Amputagged a purple Topman XXS t-shirt. Prepped for earthquake safety improvements and for moving the network router. Pressed a fallen orchid blossom in my microwave flower press. Troubleshot problems with the UPS at Patrick's desk; it's five years old and most likely needs a new battery. Did lots of election research. Encountered and removed a small, black, jumping spider with a spider catcher.
Sat Oct 26, 2019
Breakfast at home: grapes, one toasted english muffin with mixed cheeses, one pint of hot water. House chores: dishes, laundry, vacuuming. Contacted a company whose system was emailing me points balances even after I had unsubscribed. Recharge Medical work: created an illustration in Adobe Illustrator for the Men's Clinic launch. Lunch: fried rice. Watched Superstore s5:e5 with Patrick on Hulu Basic Plan. More earthquake safety prep. Prep for moving the network router from the living room to the small bedroom. Nap. Cut my hair, showered. Walked and rode Muni to 15th Avenue House. Dinner with Drew, Phil, Raider, and Romy at Hard Knox Cafe. I had three pieces of fried chicken with two sides: mashed potatoes with gravy, yam fries. Cornbread muffins for the table. We waited about 10 minutes for a table for five around 6:45 pm. There wasn't enough silverware for the first part of our meal. It took a long time for one of our drinks to arrive. The food was delicious, and the portions were huge with many leftovers. Returned to 15th Avenue House. Raider invited two friends over: Albert (aka Al) and Alejandro. We talked in the living room a while mostly about politics in the Philippines then they departed. Rode UberX home. Washed dishes.
Sun Oct 27, 2019
Breakfast: one pear. Moved the network router in order to resolve connectivity problems in the small bedroom. During the same procedure I earthquake-proofed (earthquake-proved?) equipment on top of the bookcase in the living room: the entertainment server, a UPS, two backup hard drives, a data hard drive, a DVD drive, and a docking station. This process required disconnecting all the cables, cleaning the area of dust, cleaning again with odorless mineral spirits, applying QuakeHOLD! Museum Putty. I had first tried QuakeHOLD! Museum Wax, but it didn't hold the UPS, and I didn't know exactly why. Maybe it's only for more delicate items? For lunch Patrick ate my leftovers from dinner last night: fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and a cornbread muffin. I ate leftover fried rice and leftover cheese pizza. Watched Shazam! on Netflix DVD with Patrick. We liked the film. Began dinner: deli lasagne from frozen, which took 90 minutes to bake. Installed plastic cable raceway near the router's new location to hide some ethernet cables. Rearranged equipment atop the bookshelf in the small bedroom to make it less likely that objects will fall on the area where I keep my laptop when it's home from work. Dinner at home with Patrick: deli lasagne from frozen topped with grated parmesan, ciabatta, San Pell for Patrick, water for me. Late snack: one navel orange.
Mon Oct 28, 2019
Breakfast at home with Patrick: for each: two scrambled eggs, one hash brown, one toasted english muffin with butter. Patrick also had a sausage patty and orange juice. I had two small link sausages and a pint of hot water. Washed dishes. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Edited and published a BTS-only news story for Katherine K. Continued exploring D8 layout solutions. Rode Muni to a doctor appointment and back. Dinner at home with Patrick: I prepared bratwurst sandwiches, side of tomato-fennel soup. Dessert: we shared a slice of chocolate cake. To bed early.
Tue Oct 29, 2019
Walked to breakfast at El Antigua Cafe: breakfast burrito with bacon, spinach tortilla, hot water. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. 1:1 with Eric. Webadmin team meeting. Lunch: no-salt, no-oil popcorn from a microwave silicone popcorn popper. Lots of calendar management. Sent requests for updating our mailing list before the next Update from the Dean. Watched Building More Expressive Products by Val Head on An Event Apart. Walked and rode Muni home, stopping at Cal-Mart for groceries along the way. Dinner at home with Patrick: I prepared salmon fillets from frozen in tikka masala from a jar with sauteed carrots, parsley, and garlic. San Pell for Patrick, Hint water for me. Dessert for me only: white pistachio gelato. Amputagged a long-sleeve shirt for Patrick while he was wearing it, then repaired it because I had accidentally removed too many stitches. Packed for a short trip. Late snack: blue corn chips.
Wed Oct 30, 2019
Vacation day. Mexico City vacation, day 1 of 6. Breakfast at home with Patrick: toasted thin everything bagels with cream cheese, 8 ounces of chocolate milk for Patrick, one pint of hot water for me. Finished packing. Processed one load of laundry. Phil and Drew picked me up at home. We're going to Mexico City for a few days with Quyen and Dave to see one of the Dia de los Muertos parades. Two of their friends are joining us: Julio and Efrain. Patrick is staying at home. Phil, Drew, and I drove to SFO where we met Danny who was returning from Philadelphia. We alighted with our luggage, and Danny took the car home with his luggage. Phil and Drew had Global Entry and passed through TSA in a few seconds. I did not and spent 30 minutes in TSA. I met them in the KLM lounge where they got me in. We enjoyed food and drink. 9:00 am Aeromexico flight 669 with Phil and Drew. The flight departed on time. I attempted to watch movies borrowed from Hoopla, but when I opened Hoopla with airplane mode turned on the app's screen was blank and I could not find any of the content I had downloaded earlier. Instead I watched Journey to the Center of the Earth on the plane's video screen and then rewatched Joan Rivers Don't Start With Me on my iPhone X via Netflix downloaded video. The inflight meal served not long after we were in the air was ham and swiss on croissant, applesauce, a small piece of dark chocolate. Upon arriving in Mexico City there was a long delay on the tarmac waiting for an available gate. Continued reading from Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living. After our flight, we waited about 2.5 hours for Quyen and Dave whose flight was expected to arrive 30 minutes after ours. Gave up waiting after about 2.5 hours. Rode UberXL to the Airbnb. Efrain was already there. Quyen and Dave arrived a little later. After settling, Efrain, Phil, Drew, Quyen, and I walked to drinks and small bites at J&G Grill at the St. Regis. Dave remained at the Airbnb resting. Back to the Airbnb. We had noticed that the Airbnb had advertised two bathrooms but had only one, which was going to present a problem since we had 6 persons. It was also a much smaller place than we are used to for 6 persons. To bed.
Thu Oct 31, 2019
Mexico City vacation, day 2 of 6. For this trip I prepared an version of Pauls 2017 Mexico City itinerary annotated with notes about things we had missed on that trip. Breakfast at Ojo de Agua with Phil, Drew, Quyen, Dave, Efra. I can't recall everything we ordered, but a receipt I have says: huevos polanco, molletes 3 dientes, combinaciones ch $55, licuado combinado ch, leche deslactosada: 478 pesos ($25). Walked in Polanco district. We saw many dog walkers, many of whom were walking three or more dogs. We also encountered two dog walkers each with at least seven dogs. Many businesses displayed beautiful ofrendas, one of which included rum, whiskey, and cigarettes in addition to pan de muerte, fresh fruit, marigolds, candles, sugar skulls, and colorful decorations. Street corners included large skull formations or Catrinas painted by various artists. We stopped briefly in a department store called Sanborns for Dave to look for a jacket, but we didn't buy anything. We continued down Avenida Presidente Masaryk. Alongside the park we encountered an old, red VW bus in excellent condition. We continued walking into Bosque de Chapultepec, primera sección. Walked to and visited Castillo de Chapultepec (aka Chapultepec Castle). We saw a large ofrenda still being assembled in a small stairway and passage, a collection of local plant life (mostly desert), another ofrenda, a display of Japanese-Mexican art, stained glass, murals, paintings, sculptures, historic artifacts, and other art. From a large balcony with black and white square tiles we took many photos of the great view with billowy white and gray clouds. After exiting the castle we passed by Altar a la Patria, aka Monumento a los Niños Héroes or Altar to the Homeland. At a BBVC at Avenida Paseo de la Reforma 510 near Estela de Luz some of us got money from ATMs along a wall made entirely of video screens. We continued walking along Reforma observing the alebrijes on display along the sidewalks. We reached El Angel de la Independencia. We stopped at La Pain Quotidienne Reforma for small bites and other refreshments: berry-glazed croissant, lemon tart. After reaching Glorieta de La Palma we stopped at a huge shopping mall at Reforma 222. From pull & Bear Dave bought a black jacket and Quyen bought a mustard jacket. Ef shopped at an Apple authorized retailer. Phil bought a three-way charging cable: USB-C on one end and USB-A, Lightning, and Micro-USB on the other. Walked in Zona Rosa. Stopped at a rooftop bar called Toledo. Six guards at entrance downstairs, up above: many waiters doing nothing. We sat outside with a nice view of the city skyline including three prominent skyscrapers. Cold, but tolerable even though space heaters didn't really warm us. Food and drinks: 785 pesos ($41) before tip. Continued walking along Reforma. Stopped for drinks at the bar at Marriott Reforma (Reforma 276), which I think is where Julio joined us. We sat in the Great Room with good service by Hugo Eduardo Ernesto. I had a cafe san dionisio: mezcal bruxo, xtabentun liquor, coffee, whipped cream, cherries flavored with Don Julio tequila and ancho reyes (red). It was served in a crystal goblet with an edible flower. Other cocktails were served in bamboo cups or textured copper mugs—all with edible flowers. Others drank: moctezuma, carajillo, tempus stout, malinche, ginger ale. 1,178.75 pesos ($62) before tip. Afterwards we all visited Kinky Bar, which had a cover charge and there was much pressure to buy drinks in one-liter cups or an entire bottle of wine or liquor. We were able to secure a table for a while and later had to relinquish it because we didn't give in to their sales pressure. Gogo dancers. Crowded. Back to the Airbnb. To bed late, with Phil still awake and determined to do more exploring. At some point on this trip Efra decided that his nickname would be Ef.