Memoirs of a CPUNERD

I love dogs as much as most people. I’ve lived with them all my life and loved everyone I’ve had.  One kind of dog I’ve never owned though, is a pit bull. If a nice, ordinary dog is man’s best friend, pit bulls are surely man’s worst enemy. I know that pit bulls are very friendly towards humans, even though they’d devour another dog in a second. Pit bulls are also known for their stupidity. And I think we all know that stupid beings can cause a lot of harm (thank you President Bush). I present another case of this. Upon leaving my aunt’s place on Monday night, my cousin Adrienne, aunt Lisa, and I dropped a friend name Ginger off at her house. Adrienne wanted to go inside to see Ginger’s son’s pit bull. The pit bull comes in from the backyard very happy and excited. He jumps on me as I’m used to all dogs doing. Though this time, I can just feel the power in his front legs. Looking down, I swear his shoulders were as broad as mine. I got him down and petted him a bit, then went to wait by the front door. While there, I took my headphones out and put them around my neck, such that the cord was laying diagonal across the front of me. When Adrienne and Lisa are ready to leave, they open the bedroom door and out comes the pit bull, still very happy and excited. He jumps on me again, though this time his legs can’t get down because of the cord. Instead of doing what a normal dog would do, which is to hang there waiting for someone to help, this dog just says “what the heck, I’m big, and obviously pulling this cord won’t hurt me” so sure enough, the dog just brings his legs down and proceeds to break an earphone off from the head set, snap the wire from the headset, and break the input jack to the iPod. ARGH!!! But wait, who am I kidding, aren’t women supposed to be man’s worst enemy ; )

Monday brought Javi’s departure. I woke up at 0630 to get a shower before I drove him to the Reno Amtrak station. I finished wrapping my gifts once I got home, and then I went to Quizno’s and Jamba Juice for lunch. For some reason I was still tired, so I took a nap and then headed with my parents over to Michelle’s place. I had way too many wonderful snacks and proceeded to basically stuff myself on sugar and fat whilest enjoying some quality time with my family. Max had a book on logic puzzles so I spent some time working on that. I actually found a grammatical flaw in the book, so HA! Later on, we watched some of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I rode back home with Adrienne, Ginger, and Lisa, and got back around 2100. I watched the tail-end of the MNF game, then went straight to bed.

Christmas came on Tuesday morning, though without much ado. Frank, Mom, Grandmother and I exchanged gifts in the morning. Highlights of my gifts included my parents stuffing my stocking with items I’d left behind and they had been pushing me to take for years, a real cashmere scarf straight from Italy, a printer/scanner, and Rachel got me a paperback copy of The Golden Compass (formerly The Northern Lights). I got my mom an iPod and $100 to the iTunes store, and I got Frank the usual $100 to the movie theatres. I got them both more things, but those were the most notable. After the gift exchange we cleaned up and I helped with preparing some more food. Dina and Paul (who got me something quite… interesting) showed up, followed by Michael (I got him some books and he got me I Am America! (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert) and Bri, Vicki and Sinead, then Lisa, Adrienne, Aunt Barbara, and Lisa’s Mike. We did some more gift exchanging, then ate. I don’t know why, probably because of the comfortable seats and general comatose nature induced by the food, but the entire family ended up playing 20 Questions (though some turned into 40 or 60 questions) for a long period of time. Afterwards, probably around 2130 or so, I went up stairs and went to bed.

On Wednesday, the first thing I did after waking up was read for an hour or so. I didn’t realize how long it had been (practically fifteen months) since I read fiction, because I was reading so slow. After I got out of the shower and packed my stuff up, I helped Mother with her computer, then headed to Davis. I got back in around noon after almost running out of gas on the freeway (shut up, I know, I’m a moron). I went to lunch at Burgers & Brew with Claudia and Victor, the went home and worked for a while. I watched some Family Guy with Abhi at my place before Claudia and Victor joined us to go see National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

I decided that my gluttony was getting the best of me and I need some exercise on Thursday morning. I went to the gym, and then got home and did some work and read some more. Shakeh got in, and then we went to lunch at Pluto’s. We drove back to my place afterwards and relaxed for a few hours, then went to Guadalajara for dinner before going to see Juno at the G Street threatre (which was absolutely packed, might I add). Juno turned out to be a very good movie. It wasn’t as funny as I had hoped, but it had a lot more substance than most of the crap that found its way into the threatres.

Shakeh and I spent virtually all of Friday watching Heroes. We had a brief intermission when Mike and Brianna stopped by for lunch. We went to a deserted Burgers & Brew, then hung out and talked for a while at my place. They eventually took off and headed to Sac to visit Bri’s family. Due to the obscene amount of snacking we did, we skipped dinner in favor of not destroying ourselves.

Saturday brought a wonderfully relaxing day. After showering, Shakeh and I read for a few hours, then headed downtown to Chipotle to get some lunch. We ate there for about half an hour, then went next door to Peet’s to get some coffee. However, the place was packed for some reason, so we instead went to Bogey’s and tried to take advantage of their seventy-five percent off sale. I ended up getting The Fellowship of the Rings, The Return of the King, and two books for Mike. After Bogey’s we went back to Peet’s and found a spot to sit, only to have it overtaken by an unfortunate smelling, seemingly homeless man. We didn’t want to be rude, but it was hard to be around him and enjoy ourselves, so we moved to another table and talked about books we read as kids. After forty-five minutes or so, we went to Border’s so I could pick up The Hobbit and The Two Towers. We also picked up a nice five-hundred piece puzzle depicting a waterfall in Yosemite National Park. On the way back home, we stopped at The Chocolate House to try some truffles and ended up staying there for more than an hour playing chess. We got home around 1700, so I worked while watching the Patriots-Giants game (yay, I can say I saw somethingh historic in sports). After that, Shakeh and I watched Hairspray.

We worked for most of Sunday on the puzzle we bought from Borders. While doing so, we also managed to finish off at least one full season of The Family Guy. Shakeh really wanted soup for lunch, so first we drove to Stone’s Cafe over by Sushi Nobu. Turns out that Stone’s is closed on Sunday, so we went all over Davis and spent about thirty minutes looking for a place to eat. We ended up going to Noodle City. After lunch, we went to the theatres and saw I Am Legend. The movie was a bit disturbing, so when we got home, we turned on all the lights, worked on the puzzle some more, enjoyed some pizza from Round Table, and watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

Now that Christmas is almost here, let’s all pig out! At least, that’s what the voices in my head are screaming. Something about the constant surroundings of sugar and fat, it’s just so hard to resist! When you come back, and you see a blob-like thing slithering through the Davis campus, come by and say hello. Otherwise, I might just eat you!

I got up at a just ungodly hour on Monday. Ken’s flight departed from the Sac airport, so I had to be up at 0345 to pick him up by 0355. Alex escorted us to the airport, where we got to say our goodbyes. Ken was actually the most awake of any of us, probably due to the fact that he didn’t sleep. Alex and I headed back to Davis at that point. Though I guess I should say I headed back, since Alex was quite fast asleep in the passenger seat before we even got out of the airport. I got home around 0500 and went right back to sleep. I woke up and decided to skip the gym in favor of getting some more rest. Once I was actually up, I helped Shakeh ready her things, then took her to the airport, dropping her off around 0930. yes, that means I drove one-hundred and twenty miles in one morning. But it was worth it to be able to see people off. I got back into Davis and met up with Rachel, then we went and picked up Javi. We headed to Arden Fair Mall and got there around 1030. We walked in through Sears and proceeded directly to Cinnabon (first thing to eat for me besides a builder’s bar all morning). I ordered a cinnabon and almost ended up throwing half of it away. It was so sweet! It made the back of my throat burn from the all the sugar. The three of us went around to a bunch of shops. In Anchor Blue, I tried on a pair of jeans. The funny thing about them, they fit my waist perfectly, but when I looked in the mirror, I was wearing tights! No kidding, it was quite ridiculous. Obviously I didn’t buy them. We continued our jaunt around the mall, escorting Rachel around until 1500 or so. The three of us grabbed smoothies from Jamba Juice (so… intake for the day is tons of sugar, nothing else) on the way out. About halfway back, all three of us were starting to feel sick, sleepy, and lightheaded from the overdose of sugar and lack of any real food. We got back into town and went to Crepeville as fast as legally possible. I polished off everything on my plate at a speed of which even Mr. Hendrickson would be proud. After lunner (my word!), we went back to my place so I could send a few emails and Rachel could change, then we dropped Javi off. We headed to the basketball games, where Ish was already waiting. We ran into Dani on the way in so Rachel go to say hi. The women played the opener, and won, almost breaking the century mark. For some reason though, they chose to hold instead of hitting the number. After the game, Ish was quite tired so she left right away. The men were up next, and Javi wandered in to replace Ish just in time. I was actually quite surprised by the height of the men’s team. Eleven out of thirteen of the players were at least one-hundred and ninety centimeters (thats 6′4″ for the metrically challenged). The men’s game was good to watch as well. with luck, they’ll be competing for the conference before I graduate. After the gam, we were all tired so we just headed home and slept.

Tuesday morning came the removal of Rachel’s stitches. My apologies, but you’ll have to wander over to Facebook to view the video. It’s over nine minutes long, but most of the good stuff is in the beginning. Before going, we chatted with Verena for an hour or so while the ladies had their morning tea. Rachel made plans to hang out with Danny, so Verena and I schemed to get a few people together for lunch at Zia’s. As Rachel and I were walking out of Verena’s place, a parking attendant was parked by my car. I ran over and quietly explained that I was just picking up Rachel. He said okay, and didn’t bother writing the ticket. I was quite upset at the matter though. I know that the area outside of Verena’s complex requires a resident’s pass to park, but there was NO OTHER CAR to be seen on the block. The attendant really could’ve let that slide… I dropped Rachel off downtown to get some shoes and meet up with Danny, and then I went to run a few errands before lunch. I picked up Alex and then headed to Zia’s to meet up with Ish, Verena, Justin, and Javi. Apparently half the group hadn’t been before, and luckily they enjoyed it. While there, we had a discussion about how within virtually every country, dialects are always present. For example, I know at least fifteen people from Deutschland, and none of them speak with the same accent. At some point in the conversation, Verena showed us her lovely Prussian accent that she uses to scare her students into doing their homework. After lunch, Alex and I dropped Ish off, then headed to the MU to pick up a few things. One of those things happened to be Ken’s old bike that was given to Alex. We found it outside by the fountain, then walked it to B&L to get a basket installed. After we dropped her bike off, I dropped her off at her place and went back to mine with Javi. We watched some Family Guy and messed around on our computers for a few hours, then Rachel showed back up so we switched to watching some basketball. She headed out around 1830 for dinner with her friend, and then Javi headed to Guadalajara while I swung by Alex’s to pick her up on the way. We met up with Justin and his friend Lindsay for dinner. After some wonderful conversation about injuries from sports, we headed over to Cold Stone to partake in some dessert. Unfortunately for us, the place had just closed. Justin and Javi suggested going to Safeway right next door, so we did just that. I got some of Stephen Colbert’s flavor from Ben & Jerry’s, I think it’s called Americone Dream. The four of us took our ice cream and headed to my place for a movie. We all sat and talked on the couch for a bit and somehow got to mentioning Stephen Colbert (I think due to my ice cream) and his appearance at the White House Correspondent Dinner. We ended up going to my room to watch some Youtube clips, including the Stephen Colbert clips. Instead of watching a movie, we just did that for a few hours. I must add that I think I finally met my match in ice-cream eating. Somehow Alex finished off her pint before I did mine! Astonishing. We watched some Happy Tree Friends, Flight of the Conchords, and a few more random clips. Everyone was tired by the end, so we called it a night and people went home.

I finally went to the gym on Wednesday. Justin staggered in at the tail end of my workout so he just did some cardio with me. After the seventeen miles of biking, I walked over to meet up with Rachel, and then we walked even more to go to The Grad. We stopped off at the Starbucks at the University Mall to get her some breakfast food that wasn’t rich in fat, then we headed over to watch the Chelsea-Liverpool match. While watching the match, I took the opportunity to use my free lunch card. The match was good, though sadly Liverpool lost. They also got hit with a red card. Some guy went at someone elses knees with both feet and his spikes showing. That would have hurt. After the match, javi went home for food and Rachel and I went to the market. I didn’t have any cash, so I went to the bank first while Rachel headed to the market to meet up with Jeff. While at the bank, I realized that we had left the speakerbox on the table! Woops… I briskly walked home and then drove back to get my ID. After that, I drove and parked at the market, and then met up with Rachel, Jeff, and not much later, Alex and her shiny man-bike. There were only a handful of vendors at the market, so we stayed only long enough to get some apple juice and cookies. After that, we walked to a few bookstores looking for a “Californian” bookmark for Rachel’s mother. We had no luck with this unfortunately. So we headed back to the park and gave Alex and her manly bike a ride home. Rachel and I then went and picked up Justin and gave him a ride to the airport. And of course, what would a night be without watching some basketball = ) Later on, Abhi, Alex, Javi, and Wijnand joined Rachel and I at Thai2K, followed by some yummy Cinnabread from Woodstock’s.  I dropped Alex off at home and then met up with everyone at my place for some Family Guy.

I managed to get my lazy butt to the gym again on Thursday morning. After I got home and showered, I headed to the airport to pick up Shakeh. We dropped her stuff off at her place, then went to Habit Burger for lunch. We each went back to our places after that and did some wrapping. Rachel got back later in the afternoon, so we hung out for an hour or so, then went to Safeway for some party supplies and Dos Coyotes for Rachel’s last burrito of her trip. We went back home and got the stuff all prepped for the party. A lot of people showed up, I think fourteen in total. There was Franci and Larry, Pieter and Anne, Victor and Claudia, Matthias and Frederic, Shakeh and I, Rachel and Abhi, and Javi and Sebastian. Franci brought some wonderful pumpkin-bread, and the germans, bless them, brought some PBR ; ) The gift exchange was quite fun, and people got away with some, umm, interesting (?) gifts. Not a whole lot of stealing was going on though, at least until near the end. Once we got to the last four people or so, everyone started large chains, which made for some lovely fun.

Friday morning Shakeh and I joined Rachel and Abh at Crepeville for Rachel’s final breakfast in Davis. After that, Shakeh ran to the registrar to pay for her tuition. picked up shakeh from the campus when she was done paying her bills. When she was done, I surprised her with a full day at the movies. First, we went ot the G Street theatre to see Charlie Wilson’s War. We went to Burgers & Brew for a few minutes after that to say goodbye to Charlotte, as she was leaving the next morning. After saying goodbye, we went to Chipotle to get some lunch, and then rushed to the movie theatre to see Sweeney Todd. I needed to move my car once the movie was over, so I did that, and then came back in and we watched Walk Hard. I liked all of the movies, though the first was my favorite from the bunch. After the movies, we went home for a few hours and did some more gift-wrapping, then went to dinner at Cafe Mediteranee.

We got up early on Saturday and packed up our stuff. I headed over to pick up Javi, and then we were off to Reno! We stopped off in Auburn for gas and in Truckee to get some pictures of the landscape. Once we got in, we dropped off our stuff and talked with my parents for an hour or so. We headed to Jamba Juice and then over to the university to check out the campus. While there, I stopped off in the bookstore and bought some items for myself. We headed back home after that, and then went to Bully’s for lunch. The Nevada bowl game ws on while we were there, but they were doing terrible. By the end of the game, Nevada didn’t score a single point. After lunch, Javi and I went downtown and tried our luck at some of the Circus-Circus games. Javi had more luck than I, as he actually won something. After the games, we went to the ice-rink on First street and tried our luck. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but by the end we were both capable of skating around without holding the railing. We headed home after that and watched Love Actually, then went to sleep.

After Javi got up on Sunday, I took him to enjoy one of the worst (for you) American things one can imagine, Krispy Kreme. After getting breakfast, we headed to Sparky’s to watch the Madrid-Barcelona match. Madrid actually won! Javi was quite pleased, being as he is from Spain, not Catalunya. After the match we headed around to Reno to check out some of the landscape and local architecture. I took Javi to Windy Hill and Grandview before we headed home. At 1730, we went to check out the Christmas lights. As a surprise for everyone, I rented a limo. The problem… The limo would only seat eight people and we had sixteen to come along. The other slight inconvenience was that even though I had requested the limo for checking out Christmas lights, the driver had never done so. He didn’t even know where Hidden Valley was. It wasn’t that big of a problem though. We got to just sit back and relax. We ended up going to Idle Wild Park, Hidden Valley, Moana and Skyline, and the Los Altos Hills.

By it, I am referring to that which, as a child, I could feel quite literally oozing from my pores and the pores of my peers. Christmas Spirit, the one thing that seems so unreal and yet always present as a child. Not only was it a feeling of anxiousness over presents, but also one of joy for getting to see the entire family, and seeing others around being just a little more courteous others. It seems now that those days, and more importanly those lovely feelings, are all gone now. Christmas is no longer something about which I’m excited. It still manages to hang on, by just a thread, as a time to which I can look forward. If not for the chance to see my family, I fear December twenty-fifth would quickly fade to be no more important than any other day of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still quite cheerful. I like wishing people “Merry Christmas,” looking at lights, listening to the songs, and all the other things that are involved in the Christmas season. I just don’t look forward to them.

Monday marked my rebirth. No, I’m not suddenly a born-again christian. I’m just now waking up at 0715 to go work out instead of 0630. After still getting to the gym late, I went to lunch at the MU, then to the lab for a bit. As it would turn out, the rest of the RAM in my machine got hosed. I think it had something to do with the network card or the driver. The driver is listed as experimental, but why would it be killing the RAM? We had a quick meeting for the MGI project, then I went home. I brought some Pluto’s to shakeh’s place for dinner. I ate with her for a bit, then let her get back to studying. I went home and watched MNF, then did some more work and went to sleep early (I think 2130).

Not much happened on Tuesday. I took Shakeh to Sophia’s after her final so she could relax and eat some decent food. We talked a bit about evolution and the repurcussions of the effect a large society has on evolution. In the end, we didn’t agree on much, except that Wal-Mart is bad as it allows those who would otherwise die without it to live. ; )

Justin didn’t show up for working out for some reason on Wednesday. I got to play one last match of racquetball and squash with John after I lifted. After that, I showered off and got some Zia’s for Shakeh and I for lunch. After eating, I went to frye’s and bought a new case and a new hard drive. I got home with apparently just enough time to take my old case apart. I had to leave right after that to meet up with Dave and Martyn at Safeway. They bought their supplies, and I mine. We headed over to pick up Shakeh from there, and then over to the BBQ. For some weird-o reason, the guys were having the BBQ on the outskirts of the complex, instead of on the interior. It was quite cold outside, but the company helped to warm things up a bit. We hung out by the flames for a bit, then finally got around to the Secret Santa gifts. When my turn came, I looked for my gift and it wasn’t there. As it would turn out, Abhi was not there, and he didn’t drop off his gift. I guess that tells me who was my secret santa. After the BBQ and presents, we went indoors to play billiards. After the BBQ, I dropped Shakeh off, then went home and watched Walk The Line with Martyn, Amy, and Jade.

I put most of the case together in the morning on Thursday. The one thing I couldn’t figure out was how to get the freaking hard drives into the bays. the whoel concept just didn’t make sense to me. Due to my toiling, I got into the gym late. I didn’t get a chance to play any sports, which was good because it gave me some extra time to look at my computer before I took what was left of our Sophia’s dinner over to Shakeh’s for lunch. I met up with others at the MU afterwards for half an hour or so, then went back home and finally figured out how to reassemble my case while watching the fallout from the release of the report by former senator Mitchell on the use of performance enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball. Shakeh and I went to Chipotle for dinner so as not to take up too much of her time, then I went to the final Salsa lesson. I learned the pretzel and the octopus. After the lesson, I picked up Ish, then Ken, Alex, and Martyn. We ended up watching Eurotrip until almost midnight

With Friday came the IDAV Christmas social. It wasn’t anything truly special. And there were more people there with whom I would rather not speak than with whom I would like to speak. Thus, I didn’t stay nearly as long as I thought I would. For dinner, Shakeh and I went to Caffe Italia for dinner. After that, I drove around to kill some time, then we went to Cold Stone for dessert. I surprised Shakeh with a trip to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. We didn’t get done until almost midnight though, and by that time we were both very ready to go to bed.

On Saturday, I woke up rather early, even for me. I picked up Verena, and then we headed to Ita’s. Ita and Emma weren’t answering the door. I tried calling to no avail. Then, right as I was about to knock again, Verena and I heard what had to be a very large explosing in the distance, followed by all the lights in the apartment complex dying and then some coming back on. Ita walked out after having just woke up, but luckily her and Emma were very quick in getting ready. We ended up having to wait for Justin, Javi, and Tina, which luckily didn’t take too long. We stopped off at Pedrick’s on the way there. When we got into the city, we ended up parking near Union Square. Somehow, the first place we went was to a Starbucks. I went there to use the restroom, though it was closed and thus I ended up getting a drink, quite the opposite of my first intentions. We proceeded through the square to Borders. At that point, the three girls besides Tina split off and headed shopping, while Tina, Justin, Javi and I headed to do some of our own shopping. I went to the Apple Store for a few things, and then stopped in at the Virgin Megastore for quite literally a few seconds. We walked to Chinatown and most of us bought some things from a few of the shops there. We got to meet up with Brian for lunch at the San Fransico Brewing Company. Brian headed out for Reno after that, while we went to another book store. Javi, Justin, and I wandered into an adult bookstore for some gag gifts. After that, it was time to head to the airport, so we all did just that. I originally thought it would just be Tina and I, but Justin and Javi decided to come along to send off Tina and (for Justing) to welcome Rachel. Rachel got in, and after the exchange of warm embraces and hello laughter, we proceeded to Ghirardelli Square. I somehow managed to spend a hundred and twenty dollars on chocolate… Everyone met up with us about an hour later and the square, and we all had some wonderful treats like coffee and sundaes. While there, I tied a few cherry stems with my mouth. Emma didn’t believe that I had actually done it. Thus, Alex gave me the stem from her sundae’s cherry and Emma watched me intently as I tied the thing into a knot. It took about ten seconds of silence, but Ita said what apparently all the girls were thinking in “Someone needs to tell Shakeh she’s a lucky woman” followed by Ken’s quiet remark that made me laugh hysterically of “Jeff you really need to stop out-manning me.” = ) I left with Rachel, Ken, and Alex. We headed to an airport hotel in San Bruno to drop Ita off and to meet up with Les and Bill, who had missed their flights by only half an hour due to the Radiers-Colts game. We stayed for a bit, just long enough to make sure everyone was okay. I headed home with Emma, Alex, Ken, and Eachel. EVERYONE slept in the car (except me). I normally would insist the person in the front passenger seat stay awake to keep my company, but I wasn’t going to do that to a freshly jet-lagged Rachel. I got home, dropped Rachel off, then went to Shakeh’s and literally passed out.

We woke up bright and early and headed over to pick up Rachel. The three of us went to Starbucks and Posh Bagel for breakfast. Shakeh had an absolutely enormous amount of laundry to do, so she brought it over to my place and we started all three loads of it at once. Shakeh headed out to do some shopping while the laundry was going. Rachel and I headed to Borders for a quick look, then went back home and finished the laundry. Shakeh, Falcon, Tony, Rachel and I went to Chipotle for Rachel’s first burrito while back in the states. After that, Falcon left, but we met up with Abhi at the theatre to see The Golden Compass. I thought the movie was quite good. Yes, the dialogue was a bit simple, but to those who say the movie “just ended,” I tell you to consider how Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ended. After the movie, we dropped by the dollar store to pick up some party supplies, then went home. Justin and Javi took charge of Rachel’s entertainment for the night, and I took Shakeh to the Outback Steackhouse for her last dinner before she was to go to LA for a few days.

Funny thing isn’t it? Most people who follow tennis have heard lots of stories recently about players being confronted by the Mafia, Russian Mob, and various other members of organized crime. This is supposedly all in an attempt to fix matches and make sure that when these people bet, they don’t lose. Well, what about another kind of match fixing? Did anyone see the Federer-Sampras matches? Now, it’s hard for me to say anything, especially since any pro, let alone Federer or Sampras, look like they are always giving it their all in a match. However, many people feel that the organizers of the match coerced Federer into easing up on Sampras in the last match. Why you ask? So Federer can say “Man would I like to try and sweep him in a three match tournament” and Sampras can say “If I can win one, I can win more.” Thus, if each player seems to want to compete still, the public will obviously want to watch said competitions, and thus the exhibitioners now make another boatload of money for airing the matches. Like I said, I don’t think this. It makes sense, but watching them play, all I see is two guys going at it with everything they’ve got. But other will say “Federer smoked him in straight sets the first two matches” or “Please, Federer was obviously going easy the last match.” Me? I’d just be happy to have Sampras back on tour again. I don’t care if he’s just playing in the tournaments like all the other pros out there or if he’s only playing exhibition matches. I miss watching a great serve and volley player, and he was one of the best.

It is getting soooooooooo freaking cold now. Thank goodness that Monday was the second to last day of MW PE classes, meaning that I soon won’t have to bike all sweaty in the freezing cold and then stay in said freezing cold for an hour. On that note, tennis was actually quite good. My work computer on the other hand… not so much. The stupid NIC keeps getting disabled, and I have no idea why. It doesn’t require a restart or a reload of a kernel module, just a simple “ifconfig up” seems to do the trick.

The rain on Tuesday didn’t help much with the temperature. I remember in Reno, when it rained, the heat put out by the phase change could raise the area by at least 5C. WTF Davis?! Seriously. Tuesday morning was highlighted by the routines in gymnastics; which included a group performing to the oompa-loompa song, and another group with two members in fake martial arts fight while the rest of the group performed to the TMNT song. One of the members got kicked in the face loud enough for us to hear it. Of course, were any of us concerned? Apparently not, because most everyone was just laughing at it. Frisbee was cancelled, so I ended up playing racquetball against Evan during what should have been frisbee time. I dropped Shakeh off at school (also due to the rain), then went over to check out the damage at Frederick and Matthias’ place. There are two methods for fixing a hole in a wall. One is to get a piece of wire mesh slightly bigger than the hole, then adhering the mesh to the wall over the hole and painting over the mesh and using a hardener. The other method involves cutting out the sheetrock and attaching a new, smaller piece of sheet rock in its place. Frederick and Matthias weren’t sure which method to use, so they decided to hold off. We sat around and BS’ed for an hour or so, just until Cris and Amira got back from their shopping extravaganze. I continued from their place to pick up Shakeh and take her to Applebee’s for dinner.

I had mixed emotions about Wednesday. On one hand, no more necessity to bike in the cold. On the other hand, no more tennis until Spring. I was especially sad to see tennis go since I was able to force a draw from one of the guys in the class from which I had yet to even win a game. Shakeh and I went to Kathmandu Kitchen for lunch. The buffet was quite good, but it was also a bit more expensive than the other lunch buffets in Davis. Decisions, decisions for next time.

Thursday was definitely more sad than Wednesday. My PE classes officially ended, meaning I am screwed for playing sports until the next quarter begins. In tumbling I screwed around in the pit most of the time, ending the session by throwing a bunch of people into the pit. I played clink at squash, and still got him = ) Frisbee was cancelled, so I went home, got the Boeing finished, and sent the pieces back to burn. I ordered some take-out from Dos Coyotes for dinner and took it to Shakeh’s place. After dinner, Shakeh worked on her paper’s while I went to Salsa lessons. We reviewed most of what we had learned, and we were taught how to do  a cross-body turn. After Salsa, I went to Ita’s and hung out for two or so hours. Emma made almond cookies that were quite good, though she was upset because she had to use crushed almonds instead of almond powder. I left when I started getting tired, and thus went home and went right to sleep.

Since we didn’t get the chance to properly celebrate on the fourth, I took shakeh to The Firehouse Restaurant in Old Town Sac for dinner on Friday. We were both quite freezing inbetween the restaurant and the car. And to make matters worse, I didn’t quite remember where the restaurant was located in the area, so we ended up doing a circle. If you’ve been to Old Town Sac, you’ll recall that the walkways are made from wooden planks with gaps between them. Well, despitemy persistent advising to do the opposite, Shakeh decided to wear her heels. She got stuck in the gaps a number of times, and had to focus very hard just to walk (Not to mention that her feet were absolutely killing her by the end of the night). We eventually made it to the restaurant. We didn’t go in through the correct entrance apparently, so we walked through and saw plenty of completely smashed well-off people. I also noticed that my outside shirt was a button too-undonefor the place. I actually felt like I shouldn’ve been wearing a different outfit, but at that point there was nothing for me to do about it. The food there was quite exquisite. It was the first time either of us had escargot or a souflet on a salad. The entire meal was great, and ended up costing less than the time we went to Tucos by ten dollars. Surprising.

Shakeh and I watched The Weatherman on Saturday morning. Once it was a decent hour, I gathered Justing and we helped moved some furniture from Franci and Anita’s place into Shakeh’s place. I did some work at Shakeh’s whilest she studied. Neither of us were up for going out to dinner, so I just made a quick jaunt over to Round Table Pizza. We were supposed to go to Ish’s party and to Dani’s party, but Shakeh got sick so we stayed at her place so I could take care of her.

We woke up and cleaned up Shakeh’s apartment before heading over to my place for the day. Shakeh studied while I worked and watched some tackle football. For lucnh, we joined Rawi, Abhi, and Tony at Habit Burger. And for dinner, I somehow convinced Shakeh to go to Bistro 33. She still thinks the place is overpriced, but at least she found some food she can enjoy. Once we got home, we popped in The Devil Wears Prada and I got a little sick looking at the anorexic women while Shakeh could only focus on the clothes and shoes.

Yes, yes, I know, I know, I’m not actually taking any classes. But still, the end of the quarter is something meaningful. I now have to schedule my daily sport instead of having it handed to me. Not only that, but with the end of the fall quarter comes the departure of several friends. Anuja, Charlotte, Paul, Wijnand, and my Kenny Bear are all departing for good. While I didn’t get to know everyone of them as well as I would have liked, I’m still going to miss them all.

Monday wasn’t very eventful. After my early meeting, I fixed a problem with the splitter (yay!), but not much else happened. Shakeh and I watched the episode of DH that we missed the night before.

Happy Birthday Mr. Kulkarni! Yes, yes, Tuesday was Abhi’s birthday. To celebrate, Vanessa and Charlotte bought a whole Yin-Yang cake from the MU bakery. I stayed and chatted with people until 1400 or so, then went home and got some more work done. I met Shakeh for dinner around 1715 at the new burger place called Burgers and Brew by Crepeville (exquisite, though awful waiting, just go to the Crepeville method). I went home after that and worked until Shakeh picked me up for my IM game. Verena was with her, and so the three of us headed to pick up Ita and Emma. We headed to the fields from there. Long story short, we lost the game. I am now officially against penalty shots. We played the game very well. The final score was 0-0, but the ball encroached onto our side of the field only a handful of times. For the majority of the game, we were pressuring their defense. The opposing team didn’t get a single shot on the goal, while we had several on their goal. And it was a good game too, the other team didn’t play dirty and they didn’t flop, though they did at one point grab onto Leslie’s arm and his shoulder popped out again. This time his arm didn’t go back into the socket though, so there was a very long and unfortunate ordeal for him to get to the hospital. I felt really bad for him since I know almost exactly what he was going through. After the game (which ran until 2230), we gave Ita and Emma a ride home, and then I went home and slept.

Shakeh and I decided to go back to Raja’s for lunch on Wednesday. After lunch, I went to the MU bakery, then talked with Shakeh until 1400. I did some work at the lab, and even to this day am still utterly confused by my machine’s desire to disable its NIC intermittently. For dinner, Google took Elliot, Francis, Daniel, Shakeh, and Justin out to Thai2k for dinner. Afterwards, Shakeh and I went to The Yogurt Shack (on my own nickel, not Google’s) then back to my place for some South Park.

We started doing back-handsprings in tumbling on Thursday. Finally, finally, finally, I took a racquetball game from Coach Clink. I had a really long lunch with everyone, then Went to the lab for some work. I stayed until 1600 or so, then rode home. For dinner, Shakeh, Falcon, and I took Tony to Sophia’s (his choice). After dinner, Shakeh and I went to our first of three extended Salsa lessons. There were significantly less people there, which was very nice. Van went over several of the previous moves, then we went over the Figure-8 turn. After dancing, I met up with Zach and Daniel to go see Enchanted. The movie was alright, though a bit tought to watch. For some reason, disbelief is much more easily suspended with a cartoon then with a live-action sequence.

We had to get a few more things for Abhi and Verena, so on Friday, Shakeh and I went to the Davis Commons. We went to Pluto’s for lunch, then ran to The Gap and Borders afterwards. Google hosted TGIF, and as usual, several people showed up. Getting the food ordered was a bit of a mess though, the silly gift card has some reservations with how much cap is needed for a tip and what not. I eventually had to go to the pizza place in person and get everything situated. After TGIF, I went home and worked for a bit, then took Shakeh to BJ’s in Vacaville for dinner. There was a long wait to get in, but we passed that by having drinks. Shakeh sampled a fruity cocktail that tasted good, while I tried root beer from the tap (it was great). We sat down and decided to split a buffalo chicken pizza. We each ate a slice or two, then boxed everything up and headed home to get some well needed sleep.

Shakeh fell in love on Saturday, this time with a show called Beauty and the Geek. MTV ran the previous seasons and Shakeh couldn’t turn the TV off while it was being played. I managed to tear her away for a bit as we went to look for some wrapping paper and get her some coffee. The time eventually came for us to go to Abhi and Verena’s birthday bash at La Casa de Frederic y Matthias. It was a smart party, so I busted out a tie. We got there and made Abhi open his gifts, which included a wonderful floppy frisbee set featuring the faces of famous Disney princesses. Throughout the night, there was plenty of beer pong and screwing around on the no-stripping strip-pole. Miles screwed around a bit too much though and apparently put two holes in the wall. Woops… Before I left, I danced a bit with the girls, then got thrown into a grid session between Miles and Danny. Luckily there were other girls nearby to pull me to safety.

Before they left town, Shakeh and I met up with Verena and the Bay Area Boys at Burgers & Brew. We all enjoyed our lunch (though don’t get the chili fries), then Shakeh and I headed back to my place to get some work done. We finished off the night with the season finale, which was a bit depressing and weird to say the least.