November 2018
Summary: Dias de los Muertos and fall harvest party at 15th Avenue House; drinks and dinner: Pagan Idol and Mister Jiu's with Patrick; Camp Fire brings poor air quality to the Bay Area; Not-minigolf lunch at Alba Ray's with Phil, Drew, Danny, Romy, Jonathan O, Patrick, Chris, and Andy; Paul and Irene's house party; dinner at Harborview and Castro barhopping with Tony Q; Thanksgiving at home with Patrick, Sam, Kerry, and Mom Ryan; Dorado Schmitt and Django All-Stars at SFJAZZ with Patrick; the Picasso chair is beautifully reupholstered by Joel's Custom Upholstery
Dates on this page
Thu Nov 1, 2018
Breakfast at home with Patrick: oatmeal with fixins, 8 ounces of orange juice. Styling work all day: microsites identity retheme and image sizes. Staged the CPF microsite for Leslie F and Esteban. Lunch from The View Cafe: wonton soup with bbq pork, noodles, and vegetables: about $8. Ate in the courtyard. Siteimprove linkchecking. Rode Uber Pool home. Sold Patrick's old Crate & Barrel rustic-modern minimalist Fulton desk for $250 cash to Pauline L via Craigslist. Dinner at home with Patrick: linguine with pumpkin-sage-cardamom sauce and italian sausage, red wine, Hint. Troubleshot and resolved a home networking problem by restarting the router.
Fri Nov 2, 2018
Breakfast at home: leftovers. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. No standup. Siteimprove Users Helping Users meeting via Zoom. CPF followup. Styling work: microsites identity retheme. Lunch at desk: leftovers. Chatted with Levi, Grant, Eric, and James about renting and landlords. Walked and rode Muni home. Today I contacted Amazon about a partial refund of my Amazon Prime membership because one of my recent deliveries of an Amazon Prime item was 10 days late. In the past Amazon has given me one month of Amazon Prime for free, and I have received this discount many times because Amazon isn't perfect about delivering items on time. This time instead of giving me one month of Amazon Prime for free, they offered me a $5 gift card. I told them that this was not very nice since in the past one month of Amazon Prime was worth $8.25 (when Amazon Prime was $99) and will be worth $9.92 (when Amazon Prime will soon cost $119 due to their recent announcement of a rate change). And remember my delivery was 10 days late? Some apology! After some time spent checking with a supervisor, the representative agreed to give me a $10 gift card. They said the gift card will appear in my account after one or two days, which means that I can't confirm the adjustment immediately like I could with a one-month extension of Amazon Prime. Then, after the chat ended, I noticed via an email receipt that the $10 gift card was provided by making an "account adjustment" for a "goodwill refund" which to me means that Amazon is tightening this partial refund process to their advantage and potentially making it harder to track how often this occurs. This new way means that they will still charge your Amazon Prime membership fee on schedule, and it's up to you to use your gift card. The more customers that delay using the gift card, the more money Amazon saves.
Sat Nov 3, 2018
Breakfast at home with Patrick: pumpkin spice and ginger pancakes with butter and maple syrup, hot earl gray tea, 8 ounces of orange juice. House chores: washed dishes, swept and tidied in the back yard, prepped and installed another Hangman Products S-2040A No Stud TV Hanger Mount TVs up to 55-Inch, this time in the office for the second display that mostly Patrick uses. It took much longer than the 45 minutes last time because I didn't have the right size of screws. I looked in my tool supply and found two screws that fit but they were too long. I then wanted to cut them with my Dremel Multipro Cordless 7.2 Volt 2-speed, but the battery was dead, so I had to wait for it to charge. While waiting I couldn't find my safety eyewear, which took a while but I did find them. Then I began cutting. While cutting, the screw kept slipping loose from the adjustable wrench I had set it in and then put a 20-pound barbell on top. I didn't have a vise. I also ended up with a minor abrasion because I didn't realize for a few seconds that my unprotected arm was in the path of the metal being shaved. I did wear thick gloves but didn't have protection for my arms. I put on a long-sleeve shirt and tried again but still the screw wiggled too much for comfort. I abandoned the Dremel. While searching on YouTube for alternate ways to cut the screws, I realized that I had the same kind of wire cutter that was used in one video to simply cut the screw like with scissors. I was unable to perform this cut like in the video perhaps because the metal was stronger or thicker in the screw I was trying to cut or because I was weaker than the woman in the video. However, I realized that the threaded hole enabled the screw to remain in an almost perfectly fixed position, so I resumed work with the Dremel and eventually was successful. Screws were cut and the display mounted with not too much more trouble after that. Start to finish: about four hours. Shower. Nap. Rode UberX to 15th Avenue House for a late Dias de los Muertos and fall harvest party. I wore a partial skeleton costume: shirt, socks, and gloves with bones on them. A beautiful ofrenda was set in the back yard. Lots of food and drink. This was the first time I saw the outdoor sink, which is in place but not yet hooked to a drain. This was also the first time I saw the outdoor dining table heat lamp in place and working. There were two culinary highlights of the evening. First was the trio of cakes: Mike and Richard made a red velvet cake with white frosting; Quyen made a cake with passionfruit, raspberry, and chocolate; and Wayne and Peter brought a layered sponge cake from Kee Wah Bakery. The second highlight was a late night, fourth meal noodle soup by Danny. In attendance: Danny, Romy, Drew, Phil, Paul, Quyen, Dave, Maneesh, Jonathan, Wayne, Peter, Marci, Jim, Richard, Mike, Amanda, Jonny, John, John, Alyssa, Tim, Brandon, Perry, Adrienne. Drew was surprised that the fire pit gas tank lasted as long as it did. Adrienne told a hilarious story about four pennies in Burger King. Paul took a long nap upstairs during the middle of the party. Brandon recommended a film called Stranger by the Lake. Rode UberX home. To bed late.
Sun Nov 4, 2018
Slept in. Breakfast: I prepared one egg over easy and placed that atop a particularly flaky biscuit that Patrick had brought home from Verve Coffee. To drink: peach cobbler tea with milk. A while later Patrick and I had small slices of the chocolate cake he had made yesterday. Home websites work while sitting in the back yard in the sun: continued and completed work to move all Bluehost websites from PHP 5.6 (single php.ini) to PHP 7.0 (single php.ini). Pushed a lot of Recharge work live. Shower. Early dinner at home with Patrick: soy vay tofu with rice and veggies, Hint pineapple. Watched part of A Star is Born (1937) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Sold Patrick's old black night stand to Kimberly via Craigslist for $49. Late meal: ramen with vegetables.
Mon Nov 5, 2018
Breakfast at home with Patrick: scrambled eggs, pork sausage pattie, half english muffin with butter, 8 ounces of orange juice. Just before breakfast while I was getting orange juice from the fridge a bottle of fish sauce slipped through the gap in the door shelf then fell 19 inches and broke, so we spent some time cleaning during and afterwards. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights, mailing our midterm election ballots along the way. Sprint standup. Asana task followup. Styling work: microsites identity retheme and image sizes with James. Lunch at desk: leftovers from home. In the afternoon not long after I noticed an unusual white haze covering the view outside my window Eric said to go home because a nearby fire was making the air quality unbearable and smelling like burnt plastic. Rode Uber Pool to Peet's in SoMa where I ordered a hot black tea and where Patrick met me a few minutes later for our couples counseling appointment. Afterwards we rode UberX to the Castro, alighting at La Mediteranee but we hadn't realized that they are closed on Mondays. Instead we walked to dinner at Thai House Express: beef pad kee mao, yellow curry chicken, steamed white rice, hot tea. Service by Neon was very good, food was excellent and mind-bogglingly fast. $35.81 before a $7.50 tip. Rode UberX home. Completed file prep work for Drew: a large mural of the Golden Gate Bridge and surrounding area, the files split into two parts. Recharge Medical work: editing for a new menu.
Tue Nov 6, 2018
Had trouble sleeping. Woke and ate a small bowl of leftovers with some hot water. Internet out; I restarted the router. Recharge Medical work: menu. Back to bed. While I slept, the internet went out again and Patrick had restarted the router again. Breakfast at home: leftovers. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Styling work: microsites identity retheme. Eric bought lunch for the team. He sent a Caviar link to a shared cart—super slick. Just remember to "confirm" your order in order to complete it. I had a five spice chicken bun mee, no jalapenos. He also ordered sweet potato fries and fresh rolls with peanut sauce for the group to share. Rode UberX to a physical therapy appointment. Walked and rode Muni home. Continued working from home. Snack: tortilla chips. Dinner at home with Patrick: beef tacos with guacamole and pinto beans. Dessert: Patrick made coconut cream flan. Continued watching A Star is Born (1937) on Netflix DVD with Patrick. Upgraded the firmware on our router.
Wed Nov 7, 2018
Breakfast at home with Patrick: Patrick had a Mexican omelette with a side of flour tortilla, I had a build-your-own breakfast burrito. 8 ounces of orange jucie. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Styling work and sweep: microsites identity retheme. UFD html email build. Lunch at desk: leftovers. Rode Uber Pool and met Patrick at Pagan Idol. It was our first time to this tiki bar which opened about a year ago. It was crowded when we arrived at 6 PM, and it consequently took a while to get drinks. Then it was hard to find a place to sit despite it being a rather large bar. Patrick had a quarantine order; I had a thai tea. After a round we split a mai tai. All the drinks were delicious. We enjoyed the bar's tiki cup collection, detailed decor, cozy nooks and spaces, and surprise entertainment. Afterwards we walked to 28 Waverly Place for dinner at Mister Jiu's. Patrick had to make reservations months in advance. To reduce the complexity in ordering and to optimize being able to try many different things for a party of only two without too many leftovers, we selected the fixed price menu with the wine pairing aka Mister Jiu's Classics: 7 dishes at $69 per person, wine pairing at $45 per person. Dutch crunch BBQ bun; crispy scarlet turnip cake; caviar cheong fun; steak fried rice; tendrils, greens, and stems. Entrees: Patrick had pork "lion's head" meatballs, I had sizzled alaskan halibut. Dessert: frozen whipped honey. The entire meal was excellent, and we particularly enjoyed a perched and picturesque view of Grant Street and a long view down what I think was Commercial Street. Service by Jesse was also excellent. $259.75 before a $41 tip. Rode UberX home.
Thu Nov 8, 2018
Day 1 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast at home with Patrick: yogurt with fixins. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Followup for "Please perform website information maintenance." Followup following Michael H departure. Orgchart work. Content work related to microsites identity retheme: WIHS. UFD followup. Lunch at desk: leftovers. Rode Uber Pool home. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers with steamed white rice. Dessert: coconut cream flan. Watched clips on YouTube with Patrick. Troubleshot router problems, shopped for a new router.
Fri Nov 9, 2018
Day 2 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast at home with Patrick: oatmeal with fixins. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Patrick and I had planned lunch together today but due to the air pollution caused by wildfires we postponed until next week. While working today I wore my face mask most of the time even while indoors because I could smell smoke. Microsites identity retheme sweep and UFD launch. Lunch from The View Cafe: baked bbq pork bun, dumpling, egg roll. Heated the food in the kitchen's toaster oven. UFD followup and hero work. Conference call with Jill W about website attestation. Errand: grocery for baguette. Rode Uber Pool home. Dinner at home with Patrick: gumbo z'herbes. Dessert: chocolate-covered strawberry ice cream. Recharge Medical work: sent new menu draft to Alyssa for review. Troubleshot and resolved a problem with duplicate mount points in /Volumes on Patrick's MacBook. Changed network configuration again in an attempt to prevent our router from failing again.
Sat Nov 10, 2018
Day 3 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast at home with Patrick: pork sausage hash topped with an easy over egg, half english muffin with butter, 8 ounces of orange juice. Continued troubleshooting duplicate mount point volumes on multiple Macs in our household. By now I was getting multiple duplicates and I couldn't figure out how to stop them, so I erased the volume, gave it a new name, and had to go through several laptop reboots finding and removing occurrences where things were trying to reference the previous volume name. Pretty frustrating. It makes it relatively easy to give up years of backup data when you know your data is backed up in three different ways. Placed an order to replace our network router. Late lunch: leftovers. Upgraded Grav on some home websites. Finished watching A Star is Born (1937) on Netflix DVD with Patrick and popcorn. Long nap.
Sun Nov 11, 2018
Day 4 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Slept in. Breakfast: leftovers. Rode UberX with Patrick to the Mission for first-visit brunch at Alba Ray's (415-872-9409, 2293 Mission Street) with Jonathan O, Phil, Drew, Danny, Quyen, Dave, Chris G, Andy T, and Patrick. People got a bunch of cocktails and coffee, and I remember Andy got an end of the road ($13), Patrick got an absinthe suissesse ($13), and I got a peach cobbler cocktail ($11). We ordered three sets of beignets with salted caramel sauce ($8.50)—delicious, even if not as airy as at Cafe du Monde. Phil got loco moco ($13.50), Jonathan had creole chicken and pork jambalaya ($13.75), Dave ordered smoked pork hash with egg and tater tots ($13.50), Quyen did not order (having just come from dim sum brunch with family), I had fried chicken ($18), Patrick had crispy shrimp po'boy ($14.75), Andy had shrimp remoulade eggs benedict ($15.50), Chris had smoked pork hash with egg and tater tots ($13.50), Danny had shrimp remoulade salad ($15.25), Drew had a breakfast sandwich ($15.50) which looked like a burger. Partway through the meal I also ordered a French 75 ($12). They didn't have a dessert menu—only beignets. I saw later that our receipt included a line item for "SF Business Mandate (4.00%)." I thought this dining experience was terrific, and I had a great time. The (paper) menu is notable for its fine attention to typography. Afterwards Chris and Andy took off and the rest of us came to Patrick's and my place for Patrick's homemade tiramisu. We also served Bialetti espresso, dessert wine, and water. Service by Olivia V. was very good. Afterwards Patrick and I realized that we forgot to distribute napkins—oops—but no one mentioned it. Rested and tidied. Late, light dinner: leftovers. Today I noticed that the tree outside our home had been trimmed, and Patrick told me that the landlord had asked the city to trim it and they did.
Mon Nov 12, 2018
Day 5 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. UCSF holiday. Breakfast at home with Patrick: scrambled eggs with thyme, half english muffin, leftover breakfast hash, 8 ounces of orange juice. Spent an hour in online chat with iDrive. A support technician and his supervisor were both unable to help me resolve a problem which I have only with iDrive: duplicate mount points keep appearing. As I continued troubleshooting on my own, I realized that lots of documentation on the web presume that your duplicate mount points are for a drive physically connected to your computer or server but I was encountering it with a network drive. The solution I came up with is slightly different. Step 1: cd /Volumes. Step 2: sudo umount [drivename]*. Step 3: df. Step 4: check that the drive name no longer appears in the df result. If so: Step 5: rm [drivename]* should be safe to do. Step 6: remount the problematic drive as you normally would. Late lunch at home with Patrick: four-cheese mac and cheese with bbq chicken, 8 ounces of orange juice. Rode UberX with Patrick to couples counseling. Rode UberX to dinner with Patrick at Hi Tops: killer nachos half, Stella for Patrick, Joe Cool for me. Rode UberX home. Patrick recently started a new calendar.
Tue Nov 13, 2018
Day 6 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast at home: egg and cheddar on english muffin with Spice Ace fines herbes, salt, and pepper; 8 ounces of orange juice. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. I remember when the same Uber Pool rides were 20 to 30 minutes instead of 35 to 45 minutes. Today's trip was 40 minutes. 1:1 with Eric. Styling and content work: microsites identity retheme. Orgchart work: finalized dept and education orgcharts. Lunch at desk: leftover four-cheese mac and cheese with bbq chicken. Spent a while trying to resolve error "dyld: Library not loaded" while performing a git commit. I tried lots of potential solutions that didn't fix it. In the end I found that my EDITOR environment variable was somehow not set, so I edited ~/.bash_profile and added [export EDITOR=$(which vim)] as recommended by alpha_989 on Jan 27 at 22:00 on stackoverflow and that did the trick. More orgchart work. Continued troubleshooting bounced messages from an announcement I made last week. Rode UberX home. Dinner at home with Patrick: leftovers, red wine, Hint. After dinner I installed and configured a new router that is much faster and has a stronger signal than our previous router. It took a long time to configure everything correctly, but eventually it did work as expected.
Wed Nov 14, 2018
Day 7 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast at home: eggs with chives, hash brown with ketchup, toast with butter. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Susie has returned from a long trip to Spain and Seville and told us about her journey through an ancient cave called La Cueva de la Pileta. She also shared with us pine nut cookies made by nuns. Lunch with Bo at the JCC. Content work for Residencies. Rode Uber Pool home. Upon arriving I asked Patrick if there had been an internet outage and he said no and this is how I knew that the new router was working better than the old one. The Archer C7 router we used to have lasted a little less than two years, and I think I'm not going to bother trying to have it repaired under warranty—technical support for routers is among the worst kinds of technical support. Dinner at home with Patrick: chicken enchiladas with pintos, Hint. Watched the first South Park shorts on YouTube.
Thu Nov 15, 2018
Day 8 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast at home: leftover mac and cheese, 8 ounces of orange juice. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Content work: Residencies. Helped Markus B with a permissions problem. Spent nearly all of the remainder of the day prepping and posting simplified department orgcharts that removed non-orgchart info below the orgcharts. Near the end of the day I also helped Levi with getting a news story primary image to behave the way we want. At lunch I ran an errand at Spice Ace then ate at Bun Mee: chicken bun bowl, no jalapenos, limeade—delicious and filling. About $16 after $1 counter service tip. Rode Uber Pool home. Dinner at home with Patrick: last night's chicken enchiladas but this time with spanish rice. Red wine, Hint. Afterwards we watched clips on YouTube: the Guardians of the Galaxy roller coaster announcement and various roller coaster POVs.
Fri Nov 16, 2018
Day 9 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. No breakfast. Worked from home due to "very unhealthy" air quality due to the ongoing Camp Fire. Performed a style audit for Susie. Sprint standup. Styling work all day: microsites identity retheme. Lunch: a small cup of leftover gumbo. Snack: tortilla chips. Rode UberX to Paul and Irene's for a house party. I brought two bottles of wine. Met or encountered bartender Bernard (who used to work at The Port but now works at Gibson in Hotel Bisou), stephanie, melissa aka missy, corey, ventura, david, rod, greg, tommy, irene, paul, mario, trey, eric, sean, richie, david m, jef, karl, calvin, tom, bart, doug, christiano. Tommy recommended beasts of the southern wild. Bart talked about china social score alibaba. I wore my Chewbacca onesie and bear slippers thinking that I would go to a onesie party at the Lookout afterwards but I became too tired and didn't. Paul (and Irene?) prepared almost all of the food. Rode UberX home.
Sat Nov 17, 2018
Day 10 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast: leftover gumbo and spanish rice. House chores. Cut my hair, showered. Nap. Rode Muni to Embarcadero Station. Met Tony Q at the Hyatt for dinner at Harborview Restaurant (4 Embarcadero Center) which had just opened this week in the former Crystal Jade Jiang Nan space. A lot of the decor seems identical or similar to the previous space with seemingly fewer authentically expensive furnishings. Jasmine tea ($3). We started with complimentary pork bone broth with lotus root—delicious. Next was four pieces of ha gow ($8), perfectly plump with good flavor but one of mine slipped out of its skin—not sure if user error or poor wrapping or wrapper too thin. The half roasted Peking duck ($28) was an unquestionable disappointment. They had incorrectly left the bone in, making it very hard to eat with the accompanying pancakes. No knives meant I was biting chunks of meat off the bone then spitting back into my plate in order to wrap it in the pancake. Then while eating it I was frequently biting into and then removing bits of bone I had missed removing earlier. So terrible. Do not order the Peking duck here; you will be sorry and sad and your fingers will be greasy. Mu shu vegetables ($18, delicious) and an order of steamed white rice ($1.50) completed our order. No dessert. In the restroom the brown paper towels from a wall dispenser were incongruent with the elegant setting and made my experience seem extraordinarily cheap. I was glad to have tried this restaurant, but I do not anticipate returning. You can find Chinese food that is just as good for much less money. $38.09 each before a $5 tip. The lusher setting here does not make up for the other mistakes. Tip if you go: use the restroom upon arriving and again when leaving since it's a very long walk from the dining room to the restroom relative to other restaurants. Afterwards we wanted to go to the Castro. We walked down to the Muni entrance to check the arrival times (why can't they put arrival times on signs at street level like other cities?) and found they were horrible—32 minutes. Rode UberX to the Castro. Walked around a bit. It was still early for clubbing—8:00 pm—so after some walking we stopped at Castro Fountain for dessert. Tony got a slice of pecan pie with whipped cream. I got a scoop of coffee ice cream with a waffle cone. The bottom half of my waffle cone broke while I ate it. I am not sure if I am too strong or if the cone is thinner or weaker than it should be or something else. I didn't bother trying to resolve it and just messily ate the rest off the waxed paper wrapper. Both desserts were delicious. We walked in the Castro more, chatting along the way. We almost stopped at Blush! Wine Bar but decided it was too crowded and noisy. We instead got wine at Cafe Flore where it was essentially empty. We received very attentive, personal service, and finished around the same time they were closing. Next we walked pretty much everywhere in the Castro to barhop: The Cafe (where it seemed like it was Ladies' Night and we enjoyed the music and danced but only before the gogos appeared and then the music changed), 440 (where we spent only a few minutes), back to The Cafe to pick up my phone which I had accidentally dropped while leaving the coat check, then Lookout (where we spent maybe 60 to 90 minutes). Tandem shared Lyft to our respective homes. A fun evening. Patrick made a chocolate pie today.
Sun Nov 18, 2018
Day 11 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Slept in. Ate leftover gumbo and spanish rice in small portions throughout the morning. Nap. Received my first bitcoin scam email and deleted it because I knew it could not be accurate despite appearing to be very convincing. I did not report it because I was not scammed. Dinner at home with Patrick: braised beef short ribs with steamed white rice, Hint. Successfully repaired the bathroom sink faucet which had loosened again at the base. Organized paperwork, tidied. Troubleshot a problem in which in Mac OS X 10.12.6 Sierra a reminder would not clear and would keep coming back aka won't go away. I tried a solution I found on the web and it may take some time before I find out if it works or not.
Mon Nov 19, 2018
Day 12 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Breakfast at home with Patrick: nutella and banana on half english muffin, yogurt with diced fruit and nuts, hot green tea. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Various task followup all day. Lunch: leftovers. Rode Uber Pool to the Mission. Met Patrick at Alamo Drafthouse New Mission for dinner and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in 2D. Bottomless Dr. Pepper for Patrick, Paloma cocktail for me. We shared popcorn no butter, cobb salad, and fennel sausage pizza. No problems with service like last time. Food and drink total: $63.22 before a $10 tip. Rode UberX home.
Tue Nov 20, 2018
Day 13 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Rode Uber Pool Express to UCSF Laurel Heights. Handled a listserv issue for OSACA. Lunch from Panda Express: panda bowl with orange chicken and chow mein, water from my water bottle. My fortune: Your next triumph will be won through kindness. Worked at Kalmanovitz Library: OEIS orgchart followup, CPT crawl and redirect table build, Miller Lab launch. Rode Uber Pool home. Surprise dinner delivery via Postmates via Tina: green chives pancake, XO beef chow fun, xiao loong bao, golden mushroom enoki salad, garlic baby bok choy. Watched Superstore s4:e7 on Hulu Basic Plan with Patrick. To bed early.
Wed Nov 21, 2018
Day 14 of poor air quality due to the Camp Fire. Rain began today. Rode Uber Pool to UCSF Laurel Heights. Chai tea latte from The View Cafe. Sprint standup with celebration of November birthdays with croissants from Arsicault Bakery: plain, ham and cheese, almond. We talked about recent editorial style guide issues: percent vs. % and how many times to use percent or % in a range and whether to use 2017-2018 or 2017-18 and for numbers below ten whether to spell them out or use numerals. I continued work on QBC and grad programs new feeds from Terran and Nicole. The dean let everyone go home at noon. Susie gave me a ride home. At home a ceiling leak had appeared due to today's rain, and I reported it to our landlord. Patrick has been prepping and cooking for Thanksgiving dinner since Sunday. I unpacked, unlabeled, and used Goo Gone on purchases from Crate and Barrel. Dinner at home with Patrick: shrimp creole with steamed white rice and dinner roll, Hint.
Thu Nov 22, 2018
Vacation day and Thanksgiving Day. Slept in. Troubleshot a health issue. Yesterday's rain resulted in the first truly good day of air quality in San Francisco in two weeks. What a relief, and we are all quite thankful for that on Thanksgiving Day! Helped Patrick prep for the Thanksgiving feast, including washing dishes and setting 3M Command Hooks for lamp placement. The landlord stopped by to inspect the ceiling leak while the rain had stopped. Kerry and Mom Ryan arrived by UberX around 12:30 pm, and Sam arrived around 1:00 pm. Mom Ryan's friend Mary had planned to join us but canceled at the last minute due to illness. We watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade from two recordings of the event. We couldn't figure out the Verizon-sponsored feed on YouTube until we learned that it was intended for manual panning. On our Roku television it simply appeared as extreme fisheye lens and was not very comfortable to watch that way. For some reason we couldn't get better than 720p even though we have a Sonic Fiber connection; higher resolutions frequently paused for buffering so we stuck with 720p. Patrick's menu: creole beer-brined roasted turkey with gravy, shrimp-stuffed merlitons, candied yams, corn on the cob, butter rolls with turkey-sculpted butter, pecan pie with whipped cream. Everything came out perfectly. Patrick's pecan pie was from a Commander's Palace recipe which called for it to be (atypically?) baked at a low 250 degrees for 2 hours and 45 minutes. This meal was the first time we used new Collins glasses and a new gravy boat, both from Crate and Barrel. Sam used our Brother MFC-845cw as a photocopier. After everyone else returned home Patrick and I rested then cleaned which took a few hours. Late at night I ate some leftovers and since the rain began again in the evening I tended to the ceiling leaks. Now we have three points of leaking instead of just one from yesterday, and I worried that the largest bucket would fill while we slept. If the rain is steady, that bucket fills completely in about four hours. Late snack: leftover golden mushroom enoki salad, two dinner rolls with turkey gravy for dipping.
Fri Nov 23, 2018
Vacation day. For breakfast I prepared rosemary biscuits using a recipe from Mark Bittman and ate them with leftover turkey and gravy. In the early afternoon the landlord came over with a new contractor named Gary to inspect the ceiling leaks. For now we need to wait until the rain stopped before anything can be done. Early dinner at home with Patrick: Thanksgiving leftovers. Finished watching Harry Connick, Jr.: Harry and Branford: A Duo Occasion on Netflix DVD with Patrick. We had started watching this video a week or two ago, and I had forgotten to mention it earlier. Began playing Firewatch on Steam on my MacBook Pro with Patrick.
Sat Nov 24, 2018
Slept in. Walked to Lou's for a breakfast sandwich with bacon, sub cheddar for american, hot water. Rode Muni to Powell Street Station. Exchanged a collins glass at Crate and Barrel with help from Libby and Teo. Visited the Apple Store to see the new iPhones and iPads. The iPhone XR feels too large for me. The 11-inch iPad seems like a better size for me than the current 12.9-inch iPad Pro (1st generation) that I have. Passed by the ice rink. Visited Trader Joe’s to buy a box of candy cane Joe Joe's and the ones covered in dark chocolate and candy cane. Visited Cole Hardware for a few items including lemonade iced tea. Drank tea in Yerba Buena Gardens. Passed by Candytopia and the Ice Cream Museum. Visited The North Face and bought a jacket at 25% off. Visited the Christmas tree in Union Square. Tried to visit Salesforce Park but found it still closed. Looked in at CafeX robotic coffee. Waited in the Apple Store to kill an hour or so. Met Patrick for drinks at Smuggler's Cove. Afterwards we went to dinner at Barcino before seeing Dorado Schmitt and Django All-Stars at SFJAZZ. We were both a bit sleepy but the incredible show kept us awake. Rode UberX home with Patrick.
Sun Nov 25, 2018
The Camp Fire is contained. Breakfast at home with Patrick: scrambled eggs with parmesan and green onions, hash brown with ketchup, and leftover biscuits. The landlord visited with another contractor to investigate and resolve the roof leaks. I also discovered that water was leaking underneath the kitchen sink and report it to him. Rinsed trash bins of the upstairs unit because they had been smelling poorly for a week or so. Accompanied Patrick to a beard trim at a new place in the Mission called The Refinery Grooming Club. We walked in the Mission and encountered two women dressed in clean garbage dancing to music in a shop window. We walked to the Castro and stopped for drinks and garlic fries with ketchup and heated bbq sauce at Harvey's: grande margarita for Patrick, mai tai for me. Stopped at Cliff's for printer paper. Rode UberX home. Dinner at home with Patrick: shrimp creole with capellini. Watched Twin Peaks: A Limited Event Series part 14 on purchased DVD with Patrick. Dessert: one Trader Joe's dark-chocolate-covered peppermint Joe Joe each, one milk and Bailey's on the rocks each. Performed software maintenance on all home computers and personal websites.
Mon Nov 26, 2018
Breakfast at home with Patrick: vanilla banana pancakes with butter and maple syrup, 8 ounces of orange juice. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Orgchart work: posted new Education Unit orgchart. QBC and grad programs data feeds work. Watched the NASA InSight landing on Mars—splendid news and the scenes brought tears. Scientific presentation PowerPoint work: new mockups. Lunch: leftovers at desk. Rode Uber Pool to couples counseling. Rode UberX with Patrick to the Castro to see the Christmas tree lighting ceremony starring Donna Sachet, Scott Wiener, and other luminaries. Afterwards we walked to Catch for dinner with Patrick: glass of Wild Horse viognier for me. We shared pan-fried scallops and seafood paella. Service by Cathleen was the usual excellent. Rode UberX home. Continued playing Firewatch. Recharge Medical web work: posted a new pdf menu for Alyssa.
Tue Nov 27, 2018
Breakfast at home: leftover pancakes with butter and maple syrup, leftover biscuits with butter. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. 1:1 with Eric. QBC and grad programs feed work: handoff to Eric G for Acquia Cloud question. Lots of task followup. Orgchart work: added Judie T to Education Unit for Susie and Sharon. Jobs listserv configuration for Jon and Cindy. Launched the CPT microsite and performed post-launch tasks. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Parnassus. Lunch from Panda Express: two veggie spring rolls no sauce. Walked to errands in Cole Valley. Walked back to UCSF Parnassus. Worked from Kalmanovitz Library. Built a letterhead template for PD in Renslo Lab. Helped Angela K with a website person page request. Scientific poster template followup with Taryn and Susie. Snack: fortune cookie from Panda Express: Now is the time to book that trip you've always wanted to take. Walked and rode Muni home. Patrick retrieved our reupholstered Picasso chair from Joel's Upholstery today, and we are very happy with the result. Finished playing Firewatch on my MacBook Pro. Dinner at home with Patrick: turkey and andouille jambalaya, Hint. Dessert: one Trader Joe's dark-chocolate-covered peppermint Joe Joe each, milk and Bailey's on the rocks for me.
Wed Nov 28, 2018
Breakfast at home with Patrick: scrambled eggs, hash brown with ketchup, half english muffin with butter, 8 ounces of orange juice. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Sprint standup. Microsites identity retheme and image sizing work all day. Various task followup. Filed pcard paperwork. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Mt. Zion. Walked to my health care provider office to get routine medical lab work done. Lunch at My Father's Kitchen: large #4 (pho ga with beef) with thai iced tea. UCSF shuttle from Mt. Zion to Laurel Heights. Susie gave me a ride home. We talked about dentist appointments and anesthesia, SFJAZZ and gypsy jazz, Stagecoach Greens, and what's for dinner. I had planned to have leftover jambalaya but realized we had older leftover paella from Catch and ate that instead with leftover Thanksgiving corn on the cob. Listened to some Paris Combo songs on Spotify—nice. Mended my gray Zara Boys jacket which had developed a small hole in the right arm. Tonight Patrick and Sam attended an SFJAZZ Laurie Anderson listening party. Rain started again late tonight, so I made preparations in case ceiling leaks returned. Checked on one of Patrick's local backups which had recently failed because a network drive did not automatically reconnect. Reconfigured software for Patrick's uninterruptible power supply following a mild brownout. The rain storm tonight seemed to bring a lot of wind with it which caused doors to rattle in our house.
Thu Nov 29, 2018
Breakfast at home with Patrick: english muffin sandwich with basil, egg, and cheese; yogurt with raspberries and ginger syrup; 8 ounces of orange juice. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. On the bus today a woman had a medical emergency. She was worried about her daughter, and it wasn't clear to me what was wrong with the daughter who was slightly drooling and unresponsive. 911 was called by another bus rider, and everyone else alighted while a medic team attended to the event, eventually taking the woman and child away in an ambulance. The bus drove away empty and it took me maybe twenty minutes to continue on my way with an alternate route. Standup via Slack. Scientific poster presentation template followup. Posted an update to the Academic Affairs web page for Diana K. Followup with QBC feeds change for Terran. And styling work all day: microsites identity retheme Safari sweep. Lunch: leftover jambalaya. Dinner at home with Patrick: shrimp, avocado, and crispy potato smørrebrød, Hint cherry. Dessert: one Trader Joe's dark-chocolate-covered peppermint Joe Joe each, warm milk with orgeat syrup.
Fri Nov 30, 2018
Replaced a battery in a smoke alarm in the garage. Breakfast at home: leftover smørrebrød. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Shared images from The Archive with Liana upon her request. Standup via Slack. Styling work all day: microsites identity retheme Safari sweep. Lunch: leftover jambalaya. I reported to Amazon Support today that another Amazon Prime delivery was late instead of the promised two days. The last time this happened was November 2, 2018. This time I asked for another $10 gift card since that's what they gave me last time but the support technician instead suggested that they refund the order amount, which was $9.75. I said okay. Delivered a PharmD Ed html email for Alexa. Handled a request from Cassandra to get access to analytics for their site. Lots of task followup. Walked and rode Muni home. Dinner at home with Patrick: spiced black lentils with smoked salmon, yogurt, and garlic puree; rye toast with butter and za'atar. Dessert: Whole Foods tres leches cake—yum!