Memoirs of a CPUNERD

I know this point is brought up constantly. And it’s not that I mind it, but… doesn’t it seem really funny that a secular country observes religious holidays [1, 2, 3]? Don’t try and bring up the founding fathers, just don’t. The types of observation vary, but they are indeed observed. Halloween has very little bearing on most people’s lives, but the government is still involved. Easter always falls on a Sunday, and a sizeable portion of the population, including business owners, use the day to celebrate. Christmas is actually recognized by the federal government of the United States. Just food for thought.

Like I said, don’t give me this speech about how America was founded by Christians. That is not the case[4, 5, 6]. America was founded by Freemasons [7, 8, 9, 10]. Those Freemasons did have respect for all religions but fought for a nation in which religion was not a qualifying or discriminatory factor for any person.

Halloween is an interesting holiday to examine. The celebration is largely secular now, but the history lies with Christianity. Local governments even go so far as to plan the specific night on which kids celebrate. Luckily for adults, this celebration doesn’t affect them all that much. They just have to turn on their porch light, hand out candy, and pray (yes, this word was intentional) that their house doesn’t get vandalized.

Now let’s examine the impact of Easter. Sunday comes around, ninety percent of Davis shuts down. Easter might not be a United States Federal Holiday [11], but it is a day in which the country says “I’m taking the day off.” And good for them, I whole-heartedly love the fact that people of any religion here can celebrate their holidays openly.

Christmas is a more iffy situation. It is the one religious holiday that the federal government of the United States recognizes. Fair? Don’t ask me. All I know is that if it weren’t for casinos and movie theatres, there wouldn’t be an open business in half the U.S. cities.

I know this is mainly a collection scattered thoughts, but I just figured they were worth sharing. But being as nobody ever reads these notes, it doesn’t matter. Right God? ; )

[1] - Christmas history - The origins of Christmas and related celebrations…
http://www.christmas-time.com/ct-history.htm

[2] - All Hallows Eve, All Souls and All Saints Day - Halloween’s Christian Roots…
http://www.americancatholic.org/features/halloween/

[3] - CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Easter
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05224d.htm

[4] - The U.S. NOT founded upon Christianity
http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

[5] - Top 5 myths about america (sic)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26169/Top-5-myths-about-america

[6] - Our Founding Fathers Were NOT Christians
http://freethought.mbdojo.com/foundingfathers.html

[7] - Freemasonry
http://www.freemasonry.org/

[8] - Freemasons
http://www.nobeliefs.com/freemasons.htm

[9] - Freemasonry, symbolisms of Masonry, art gallery
http://www.religion-cults.com/Secret/Freemasonry/Freemasonry.htm

[10] - Christians beware - of Freemasonry
http://bibleprobe.com/freemasonry.htm

[11] - Holidays and Other Dates in the US Secular Calendar
http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/ushols.html

On Monday, Shakeh and I went back to Jojo’s, hoping that they were actually just closed on Sundays. Turns out they were indeed out of business. What the heck? The owner of the building was there, and he told us that he’s had one hell of a time trying to find a reliable partner to lease the building. After lunch, the cast came off! I received a splint for the next few weeks, but at least I can take that thing off and air the hand out (and wash it).

Justin decided to skip the gym on Tuesday. After doing cardio, I went for a bike ride around Davis again. I visited the MU for lunch. I worked for a bit, then went to Burgers & Brew with Abhi, Shakeh, Martyn, and Sara for dinner.

On Wednesday, I lifted for half an hour, then played three and a half hours of racquetball with John and Chris. Rather intense. I picked up Amanda from the airport and then showed her the campus. Sara and I bowled with her until 1830, then we went to the Farmer’s Market. I overdid things just a bit and ordered a polish dog (good), a paneer wrap (so-so), and a bunless buck (great!). Franci, Javi, Shakeh, and Larry also joined us at the market. We left as the weather was getting cold.

Amanda and I woke up early on Thursday, got ready, picked up Sara, and headed to Posh Bagel and Starbucks. We ordered some breakfast, then headed straight to to SF. We did the usual thing, parking at Daly City and taking the BART in. We visited Union Square park first, then headed to Hyde park. After that, we circled back around to Chinatown to look around, then went to North Beach and visited the Stinking Rose. We went to Washington Square Park and then made our way to Coit Tower. We walked around and wound our way to Pier 39 and checked out the Battlin’ Sea Lions. It was funny, some of them would be in the water, trying to get back up onto a platform. However, other sea lions had opposing plans. As one sea lion would try and get onto a platform, the other sea lion would just butt it off. It was fun to watch. After that, we walked to the wharf and watched the sourdough guys work their magic at the Boudin Bakery, then laughed at all the people getting startled by the bush guy. We went to Ghiradelli Square next and enjoyed some wonderfully decadent then took the trolley back to the BART. We crossed the Golden Gate by car, then headed to Horizon’s in Sausolito. After a long day, we got home and Amanda and I just crashed.

On Friday, Amanda and I went to The Village Bakery for a quick bite, then headed to Berkeley. Amanda and I walked around the campus and checked out a few of the buildings, then headed to Telegraph street for a quick look. We went to Palo Alto along 280, then walked down University Avenue and stopped at Madison and Fifth for lunch. I had a ravioli dish that was really good, but made my stomach hurt. We didn’t get a chance to really check out Stanford because there was absolutely no parking. We went to Google and had a forty-five minute tour, courtesy of Andrew. After that, we headed back to Davis. We got in, met up with Sara, Shakeh, and Javi for dinner at Kathmandu Kitchen. We went home and tried to watch Run Fatboy Run, but ended up watching The Darwin Awards instead.

Saturday we went to breakfast with Sara at Crepeville. Said goodbye (again) = \, then headed to the airport to drop off Martyn. Shakeh, Amanda, and I then went to Old Town Sac. My parental units met up with us, then we walked around and went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. Shortly after lunch, we headed back to Davis. Amanda and I biked to “The Domes,” then another eight miles around the Davis bike loop. After we got back, we rested for a bit, then went to see Drillbit Taylor with Shakeh and Javi. We went to Sophia’s for dinner after that, then Amanda and I headed back to my place.

A lazy day was had on Easter Sunday. I worked through most of it, as did Amanda. pretty much a lazy day. Amanda and I wandered down to the 3rd and U cafe for lunch, which was closed for Easter (like most of the town apparently). We ended up going to Woodstock’s for lunch since most other things were closed and Bistro was just doing an easter brunch that was ridiculously overpriced. Later that night, Amanda and I met up with Bill, Emma, and Laura at Pluto’s for dinner around 1815, then headed to see the Bank Job.

I was looking through the journal of my summer outings, and I realized that the East Bay had yet to garner my wonderful presence. Not wanting to displease an entire area, several of us decided it would be fun to go to Berkeley and check out the campus and Telegraph street.

Before we headed to Berkeley, I had to get my oil changed. I went to the Walmart in Milpitas, waited fifteen minutes for the attendant to get to me, then had to leave because he said it would be about three hours. I had to meet up with everyone sooner than that, so I couldn’t stay… oh well.

Yesterday, Shang emailed me and asked if I could give her a lift to the post office so she could mail her stuff home (otherwise she was just going to toss it). I told her I could give her a ride early in the morning, so I called her up at 8:45 AM (right after I left Walmart). I apparently woke her up (woops), but she said that we would be leaving too early for Berkeley. Again… oh well.

I got back to GP and looked up directions to Berkeley. Lee, Aaron, and Simon made their way over to my place around 10:15 AM, and Lee came with better directions. Once we were all sorted out and ready to go, we got in my car and hit the road.

We got into Berkeley, and somehow managed to make our way to a parking structure near the campus. We couldn’t tell what to do about parking though, since the garage was a UC Berkeley permit holders garage. Eventually we found and deciphered some signs, and then made our way to a wonderful parking permit device. Unlike most of the garages in the Bay Area, these garages required you to pay before you parked, not after you left. I would also add that the ticket printer had us thoroughly confounded for about two minutes. Again, the intersection of CS majors and common sense is the empty set.

Now that parking was settled, we started our walk up to and around the campus. The quad is right at the west end of the campus (where we parked), so we decided to stop there first. We noticed, as we got to the center of the quad, that a large number of people with badges were making their across the quad. We decided to follow them for some reason, I’m not quite sure why.

We followed the line of people to the Telegraph street entrance, then stood around for awhile as to try and blend in… The bookstore and Sather gate were there, so we got a few pictures.

We shifted our direction towards the northeast corner of campus, where the buildings of Lawrence Berkeley Labs are located. We continued there, stopping to admire and/or loathe some of the architecture. The buildings at Berkeley were most likely impressive when they were built, but the school hasn’t done much if anything in the way of renovation and renewal.

After reaching the end of the campus, we decided it was time for lunch. We walked down the north edge of campus, and saw something typically Berkeleyian. We continued down Shattuck, which seemed like the more “upscale” part of the Berkeley downtown area, towards a “gourmet burger” place called Barney’s. Not surprising, the food was really good. This always seems to be the case in Berkeley.

After we got done eating, we met up with Alden and his friend Ben. They had yet to eat, so they went to Barney’s to eat, and we headed back to the campus to take a breather on the quad. We stayed at the quad for an hour or so, then met back up with Alden and Ben.

Once the group was all together, we headed to Telegraph street. We got to see the local flavor of Berkeley, ranging from homeless people, to head shops, to street vendors, to philosophical hot dog shops. The one in particular we stopped at was called “Top Dog.” We didn’t try the food, the reading was good enough.

After Telegraph street, we went back to the campus, per Alden’s friend’s suggestion. There is an eight story building on campus that is usually open that allows one to get a view of most of the city. We found the place, then made the trek to the top. The view was quite nice.

After our stay atop a building on campus, Alden wanted to check out the public library. He lived in Berkeley when he was younger, and he used to go to the library all the time. Apparently, the place has changed quite dramatically. The building was expanded in on direction, and now some of it resembles the Winchester Mansion.

After the library, we headed to Jupiter to get a drink. Everyone but Aaron and I ordered beer. I asked for a pitcher of water, to which the waitress looked at me funny and questioningly replied “okay.”

 
We stayed around and finished our drinks. I finished off my pitcher of water, which was a very bad idea, seeing as we had a forty-five minute drive ahead of us. After we got done, Ben hopped on the BART back to SF, and we went back to my car.
Instead of going straight back to GP, we went to google first. We did this for several reasons, Google is closer, I had a pitcher of ice water in me, and we wanted to grab some snacks for the movie at Carl’s. I got in and ran to the bathroom. Once that was done, we went to one of the kitchens and grabbed just enough snacks to appease our sweet tooth during the movie.
As it turns out, Carl wasn’t able to acquire the Eddie Izzard routine he wanted, so we looked through Cider-man’s connection of movies. We wanted to watch Tsotsi, but we couldn’t get subtitles working, and the movie was damn near incomprehensible without them, so we scrapped that idea. We looked again through the collection, and nothing stood out to us. I noticed that there was a directory called “New Movies,” and thus told Carl to check that. What was in there you ask? “The Notebook” and “Uptown Girls!” Does Cider-man have a secret he that he needs to share?
We ended up watching Underworld 2: Evolution. It was alright. I liked the first more, and the first was also definitely a better movie. The second one was rated R, and I feel it was unnecessary for the movie. There was some swearing, the usual gore, and a naked-but-covered Kate Beckinsale. I think the movie studio realized that only people who saw the original would see this one, and thus weren’t worried about the rating.