July 2006 Archives
In my condo apartment back in Virginia I never had to deal with door-to-door solicitors. In five weeks here we’ve already been visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses twice and a young boy selling something.
This afternoon was the second visit by the Witnesses. The first time we just waited quietly inside until they went away; this time I thought it might be Jeff at the door, since he had driven over to his mother’s house, and wouldn’t be parking his car back inside the garage since we’d be taking mine out later to visit some friends in Mountain View. So I opened the door, and there they were.
But they seemed even more surprised to see me. “We’re looking for Filipinos,” the woman said. She laughed nervously. “You’re not…” “No,” I agreed, “I’m not.” The two then asked me if I knew which of my neighbors were Filipino; I said that I’d only just moved in, so I didn’t really know my neighbors yet. They started to move away, then the man suggested that his partner leave something with me; she reached into her bag, but then hesitated, “Ah, but you don’t read…” “Tagalog?”, I asked. “No, but my roommate does.” “Your roommate…,” she began, obviously confused, but not pressing the point. She handed me a copy of Ang Batayan, and her associate gave me the usual English version, and then they left on their search for Filipinos to proselytize. I’m confused, though; are we non-Filipinos already automatically saved, or is salvation so totally out of reach for us that they just needn’t bother trying?
Coincidentally, I’d just checked out some Tagalog instruction books from the library last weekend. When we’re just with his mother alone, we all speak English together, but when we’re with a larger group of Jeff’s family, Tagalog is used at least as often as, if not more so than, English and I’ve been wanting to try to learn it in order to be able to participate more fully. Now I’ll have some reading material with which to practice.
Now I just have to figure out how to work the word “watchtower” artfully into a conversation with Jeff’s aunts.
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I feel sick to my stomach; the decision was 5-4
Oh, one more thing about the San Francisco heat wave. Saturday evening Jeff and I still were comfortable in shorts and t-shirts at 9:00 when we drove his uncle and cousin to the bus station. Afterwards, before taking his mom back home, we decided to stop at a Starbucks for refreshing frosty frappucinos. The parking lot at Starbucks was extremely busy, with dozens of people lounging around outside--pretty unusual for that suburban shopping center--but when we went inside we discovered that the unusually high temperatures had generated a run on cold drinks that evening; when we arrived, they were completely out of ice and couldn't even make an iced coffee, much less a blended drink.
Like much of the country and all of California, we’ve been suffering through higher-than-normal temperatures the past week. In using quotes around the phrase, my intention is not to diminish the seriousness of this for so many—the triple-digit temperatures in the East Bay and elsewhere (it was 103 in San Jose, 107 in Napa, and an astonishing 112 in Gilroy) have been responsible for several deaths, for example—but I have found it amusing when my co-workers and acquaintances who live here in San Francisco or Daly City speak so seriously about this “heat wave.”
In downtown San Francisco, that phrase has now been applied to a record-breaking temperature Saturday of 87 degrees Farenheit. Yes, 87 degrees on July 23 was the hottest that day had been; the previous record was 81° sometime in the early 1900s. Back in DC, we’d have considered a July day at 87 degrees a cold snap. And let’s not forget the 30% difference in relative humidity; even 87 degrees here feels cooler than 87 degrees back east.
To be fair, no one here has air conditioning. And I’ll admit that our upstairs level has gotten hot and stuffy during this period, with inside temperatures into the 80s, which isn’t comfortable. Still, it was nice to have some fog-free days; on Sunday afternoon Jeff and I drove up along the beach (I’m still constantly amazed that we live mere minutes from the Pacific Ocean) to the Palace of the Legion of Honor at Lincoln Park, enjoying the sunshine and getting some nice photos (so far, I only have a few of the Holocaust Memorial online, but will be putting some more from Sunday up soon; Jeff has some others up already, including the beautiful one of marigolds seen above). When we got back home, we walked to the top of the hill across the street—someone was even flying a kite—to appreciate the amazing 360° view taking in San Bruno Mountain, Golden Gate Park and downtown San Francisco, the Pacific Ocean and the Marin Headlands; next clear weekend day I’m going to take my camera and tripod up there and take some panoramic photos.
Oh, and another nice aspect of the heat wave: unlike other cities (I always judged the arrival of spring in DC as much by the disappearance of shirts around Dupont Circle as by the appearance of the cherry blossoms) one otherwise so rarely has a chance to enjoy the sight of shirtless men in San Francisco in the summer.
Washington State's Supreme Court has held, in a 5-4 decision, that banning same-sex couples from marrying is constitutional.
The plurality opinion, concurrences and dissents are found on the Washington Courts site. Despite the depressing final outcome that has left me feeling sick to my stomach, the dissents are a joy to read.
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“Former Air Force Officer Mikey Weinstein Zeroes In on Proselytizing in the Military”
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“we’re born the way we’re born; some people are born gay” - a cute public service campaign funded by the Gill Foundation
When I moved to the Bay Area last month, I knew that I’d have a real commute again (ok, so it’s just thirty minutes, but the past four years my commute was less than half that), but I assumed that Californians, stereotyped as laidback and easy-going, would be polite, unaggressive and defensive drivers. Boy, was I wrong. In just about any other environment around here the stereotype still holds—in general I find local folk really open and friendly—but I don’t think I’ve seen worse or selfish drivers since I left Boston twenty years ago. And it’s possibly worse here because of all the freeways. On the other hand, three- and four-way stops are ubiquitious in Northern California; depending on fairness and taking turns, overall they work really well, with only rare exceptions noted so far (like the jerk in the BMW convertible last night as I was driving home, who stuck to the tail of the car in front of him rather than waiting his turn at the stop sign).
But there are other behaviors I’m encountering on a regular basis that frustrate me much more. First, other than the multi-way stops noted above, drivers here do not readily yield the right-of-way; merging onto or off a freeway is a frightening proposition when everyone believes that the rule of the road is to permit no one to merge in front at any cost. Then there’s the complete lack of signalling turns or lane changes, even on the busiest freeways and amidst the heaviest traffic; I’m beginning to think that San Franciscans believe the earth’s temperature increases a degree every time a turn signal is activated, so assiduously do they avoid their use.
And since driving in so much traffic, at freeway speeds, among all these aggressive, secretive drivers isn’t exhilirating enough, there’s the added excitement of never knowing what’s going to fall off someone’s car or truck, or when. I first heard of this phenomenon in a KQED radio piece my very first day commuting to work, and thought it amusing in its apparent exaggeration. Then the next day alone I heard traffic reports about two separate incidents of ladders having fallen from trucks, and a third in which a sofa was blocking traffic. If anything, the piece had been a model of understatement. Earlier this week there were reports even of a washing machine that had fallen onto the freeway. It’s like a high-speed obstacle course here; praise Lara Croft, at least all that videogaming over the years has amounted to something, giving me the quick reaction time and well-tuned hand-eye coordination necessary to survive on these Donkey Kong highways.
Even my boss has gotten into the act. This past week he’s been attending the Euroscience Open Forum in Munich. While there he’s been providing daily updates and photos via Livejournal and Flickr that we’ve been transferring to a template—Our Mann in Munich—on the UCSF main site. I think it’s added a nice personal and more informal touch to the site.
When I came here for my interview in May, I discovered that my blogging already was known to the staff and my interview panel. At the time I assumed that Julie, the lead web developer on my team and an LJer herself, had discovered it and spread the word. In fact, it was my boss-to-be, Jeff, who had found the blog (admittedly, I noted in my cover letter that I blog, though without mentioning the URL, as it seemed to have some relevance to the position). It’s nice to be in an environment where this activity turns out to be an asset rather than a potential liability (not that there were any overt issues with my blogging when I worked for the State Department, and I wasn’t generally blogging about work anyway, but I did wonder if eventually Department leadership might clamp down on employee blogging, just as they prohibit or monitor other activities by employees, even off-the-job).
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some summer camps promote creationism, others evolution. Hard to believe that kids who do the “Creation Walk” could possibly find evolution any more “goofy” than that, though, yet it seems to be the case. Sigh.
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Gays embrace an American tradition: square dancing [from Today’s Local News]
Three weeks into July—and a month since all the work there was completed—and my condo in Arlington hasn’t yet been rented. The property management company contacted me today to tell me that they’ve shown it a few times, and everyone really raves about how much space there is and how nice it looks, but no one is expressing interest in actually leasing it. According to the management company, not being within easy walking distance to a Metro station (even though there are buses every six minutes that get you to the Metro in another six) is the primary reason the condo isn’t renting. I’m starting to wonder if I chose the right management company; no other owner has ever had any trouble selling or renting a unit in our building, one of the most desirable in south Arlington.
Anyway, they want to lower the asking rent by $150, and I’ve agreed, though I already had gone a couple hundred dollars lower than other similar units in the building have rented for. At this point, though, I really need to get the place rented, even if the monthly income won’t completely cover the mortgage payment.
Yesterday Jeff and I traded the cold and fog of Daly City for the heat and sunshine of Napa Valley, taking along Jeff’s mom, his mom’s sister from Concord, and his mom’s brother and nephew from the Philippines for an afternoon of wine tasting and sightseeing. By the time we drove to Concord in the East Bay to pick up Jeff’s aunt and then had lunch at Napa Town Center (at Piccolino’s Italian Cafe), we only had time for a single tasting (we shared two flights, a “classic” and a “reserve”) at Artesa Winery, with its interesting architecture (the tasting and event rooms are built into a hillside) and art collection, and a quick stop to see the faux chateau at Domaine Carneros.
Afterwards, we drove to San Pablo to drop off Jeff’s uncle and cousin at the home of a friend and classmate of his uncle’s from their small town in the Philippines. We thought we’d just drop them off around 6:00 and then head on home, but we hadn’t counted on Filipino hospitality which, I was told again and again that night, required that we stay for a meal. It was closer to 8:30 or 9:00 by the time we finally left. Both Jeff and I were tired and a little annoyed at the unexpected delay (having gotten up early that morning to do the drive to Napa, we knew we’d have to get up early again on Sunday for the AIDS Walk), but the hospitality was quite gracious and the family extremely friendly and engaging. The events of the past week had left us all a little emotionally drained and raw, but even with the extenuating circumstances I’m embarrassed that my desire just to go home was more apparent than I’d have preferred.
Also disappointing was that both cameras’ batteries were nearly exhausted, and the Nikon finally stopped taking photos after just a dozen or so, with each of those even taking 30-40 seconds to focus and save to disk. Some photos I took didn’t get saved at all. It’s strange; in the past my cameras have gone months and months on a single charge, so I’d gotten out of the habit of checking them. But oddly all of my battery-operated devices seem to lose their charge much more rapidly now than they did back in Virginia. My cellphone, which used to go for a week or two between charges, for example, now discharges at least daily; the Pocket PC seems to need charging much more often; and the iPod really has never been able to keep a charge, so I can’t tell if it’s any worse here. It seems on the surface unlikely, but is it possible that there’s something different about the climate or the environment here that would affect a battery’s ability to keep a charge?
This coming Sunday, Jeff and I are participating in the 10K San Francisco AIDS Walk in Golden Gate Park with some of my UCSF colleagues; we just did the one in DC less than a year ago, so I’m not aggressively hitting up anyone for donations. If you are inclined to donate via my participation anyway, you can do so online.
Julie will be videotaping the walk along the way, and sometime later this month we’ll edit and post a multimedia piece about the walk on the UCSF web site.
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“New York and Georgia courts will be on the wrong side of history of gay marriage.”
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(via Tinmanic.com) cool interactive map showing the current status of ant-gay marriage legislation and constitution amendments on a state-by-state basis
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“Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and eight other institutions have just started a major study of a vaccine that seeks to block the pleasurable sensations of satisfying a nicotine addiction.”
No, we weren’t eaten by rabid prairie dogs in Wyoming nor abducted by aliens as we drove through Nevada, but arrived safely in California on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 18. Since then we’ve been busy settling in, and we haven’t had Internet access at home until yesterday, when our DSL service finally started. Later I’ll have more to say about the experience of moving, the five-day cross-country drive, living in Daly City, and my new job at UCSF, but there’s an event that has recently and suddenly overtaken our lives and overshadowed all these other issues. Tragically, Jeff’s father died yesterday.
As Jeff notes, his father had been ill only a short time, beginning with flu-like symptoms in late May that eventually led to an interim (albeit wrong) diagnosis of pneumonia. My first day of work at UCSF he entered the hospital, where his rapid deterioration and a battery of tests led finally to a conclusive diagnosis—only three days ago, on July 4th—of very advanced lung cancer. The prognosis was grim, with the doctors suggesting that he would live no more than a few days with no intervention, and not much longer even with treatment.
By that same evening, his condition had worsened sufficiently to require—at his request—that he be placed on a ventilator. By the next day it was clear that even this stopgap measure had come too late, and he and his family made the agonizing decision to have the ventilator removed on Thursday.
I only met Jeff’s father for the first time in October 2004, and on that occasion he was polite but very reserved. I didn’t see him again until May of this year, when Jeff and I came out here for my interview with UCSF. On that trip, though, I felt that he and I really connected, due at least partly to my appreciation of and interest in the architectural and structural details of the house he would be renting us—he’s an architect, and though he hadn’t designed or built the house, he’d put a lot of himself into it. It seemed to surprise and please him that I was interested in it, and ready to help maintain it.
And our connection was never stronger or clearer than over these past several days. He welcomed me fully into his hospital room as part of his family and took my hand, even despite having just learned that he was dying. Tuesday evening, when we weren’t sure he’d live through the night, Jeff and I stood vigil over him together. On Wednesday, though he wasn’t able to talk, he was again conscious and could gesture. I arrived late that day, and when I was finally able to see him in the ICU, he waved frantically to bring me over to him whereupon he grasped my hand and held it a long while; I told him I’d take care of Jeff and Jeff’s mother, and he nodded his head.
Yesterday I left work early to be with Jeff and his family when the life support systems were turned off. I arrived just a few moments before the respiratory specialist, and joined Jeff in his father’s room. Together we watched while his father was sedated and made comfortable, and while the ventilator was removed, and together we held his hand and stroked his brow while he peacefully and quickly passed from life to death.
It’s been a heartbreaking experience, and I’ve found myself grieving not just for the loss of Jeff’s father, but to some degree reliving my own father’s death from just three years ago. And along with the grief I find myself angry at the unfairness of Jeff losing his father so suddenly and so young, but angry too that I won’t now have the chance to get to know him better, or be able to call him “Dad.”
Irreligious as I am, and my inner cynic notwithstanding, I can’t help but have moments of suspicion that somehow we truly were meant to be here now; as my boss noted, there’s almost something about life in California—or San Francisco, more specifically—that can make almost anyone start to feel that way. So many things fell into place so quickly and so readily to bring us to this place at this point in time, where we were able to visit with Jeff’s father in the few short weeks before his death, and to support his mother and aunts through this difficult period. At other times I know I’ve railed about the unfairness of coincidence and circumstance—the terrible misunderstanding that kept my mother and sister from my father’s bedside at his time of death, for example—but for now there’s almost something comforting about feeling that some greater purpose was served by the timing of our move to California.
