Jeff Stuart - Memoirs of a CPUNERD

Wow… everyone is either gone or leaving. Saying goodbye at the BBQ was especially hard. I was lucky that I didn;t have to say goodbye to many people, since I am going to see them again before they leave. But saying goodbye to Rachel and Sunny was painful. I expected Sunny to cry a little, and she did. Rachel though, seeing her cry just made the whole permanence of the situation hit home. For many of my friends, it can’t be see you later. I will most likely not see them again. Don’t get me wrong, I fully intend to try, and when I go to their country, I’m seeing them if they’re there. But the problem is that we all travel, and many of them aren’t reachable during the summer months. But I’ve told myself not to look at the past. I still have many friends in Davis, and I am one-hundred percent positive that I will make more friends this summer at Google. I just wish I didn’t have to lose the ones I already have.

Monday was nothing special. Just the usual sports-grind. I did end up hitting with Desiree for awhile in tennis because Paloma’s leg was really bothering here. In tumbling, we practiced our routines and handsprings some more.

I think I finally figured out what is going in frisbee. Of course, it takes until the last day of our class to do it. There is one person in our class who is injured. Most of the other people in the class are just in the class to screw around, and maybe get better if they’re pushed. Recently I’ve always been on the team with those people, and the one injured person has not been on my team. Hence, we were able to focus on playing and getting better, and since our oppenents were just screwing around, we tended to beat them quite handedly. After all my sports, I went to the MU and had lunch with everyone, then met up with Desiree and helped for an hour or so with some ECS 30 questions.

The last day of tumbling was a lot of fun. All the groups did their routines, most of which were pretty entertaining. Racquetball and squash was good to. I got to play almost everyone in the class, and I played Mike one last time. I hit with Desiree in tennis as Paloma’s knee was still bugging her.

Dan I went down to Mountain View on Thursday to sign our lease and fill-out the move-in form. Dan forgot to call the cable company so we couldn’t get cable set up that day. I actually ended up having to call to get the cable installed since the cable company was feeding Dan a line of crap about having to pay a one-hundred dollar installation fee. What happens when I call? Why what else, they don’t have any free appointments for a week. Oh well, after I got home I got changed and went to go play racquetball with Rachel and Anne. We played for about two hours, then they both had to leave.

Minya and her friend Sol played racquetball with me on Friday. After I played them, I played with some people from my class, then also played Elaine. I ran to Wal-mart afterwards for an oil-change and to pick up some stuff for the new apartment.

Shakeh and I went to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and met Verena there. Chris showed up a little later. We hit up a head-shop for some cigars, then just waited around for Justin to get back. Once he was back in town, we picked him up, then headed for Reno. We got in around 17:45 and just went straight to Bully’s. I was shocked when I got there. Apparently Nevada passed a measure to ban smoking in restaurants! I’m glad, but still very shocked that Nevada would pass such a measure. Anyways, Mike, Sebastian, and Nathan joined us for an hour or so. After we were done eating, Sebastian, Chris, Justin and I headed to Stoney’s to see Static-X play. The venue seemed alright, except it got ridiculously hot! A band called In Vitro was the first to play. They were alright, but for silly reason they came out in tin-foil masks and hats. It looked kind of lame, but they lost them fairly quickly. After In Vitro, Ot3p played next. They were pretty good. I saw them several years ago at the Ozzfest, and they were pretty decent. Of course, we couldn’t wait for Static-X to come on. They came out, and Wayne was already incredibly drunk. They still played an awesome set though, besides being completely trashed and continuing to drink as time went on. I couldn’t believe it though, they only played for an hour! They were the headliners, I thought they’d play for at least an hour and half and do an encore. However, with the air inside at ninety degrees and completely stagnant to the point where sweating did nothing, I wasn’t surprised that they chose to end early. I got to hear most of my favorites, though there were a few requests that went unanswered. Specifically, the songs I remember them playing were Cannibal, Cold, Behemoth, Push It, and Love Dump. They played more obviously, I just forgot which songs.

The international student thrown farewell BBQ was on Sunday. Shakeh went to that and hung out for a few hours, then took off and saw Knocked Up which was really funny. Not surprising though, the writer was the same as the one for The Forty Year Old Virgin. After the movie, we went home and Shake studied for a bit. We got a little hungry around 20:45 so we went to Woodstock’s for a slice. Afterwards we went to get gelato, but the only place in town was already closed.

REPLACING TEARS WITH REBORN YEARS
IN HEARTS ONCE DARK AND HOLLOW

IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT
AS HIS LIFE SLIPS AWAY
AS HE READS BY THE LIGHT
OF A STAR FARAWAY

HOLDING ON
HOLDING OFF
HOLDING OUT
HOLDING IN

COULD YOU BE THIS OLD
AND HAVE YOUR LIFE JUST BEGIN?

READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY
IT BEGINS
READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY

TELL ME HOW MANY TIMES CAN THIS STORY BE TOLD
AFTER ALL OF THESE YEARS IT SHOULD ALL SOUND SO OLD
BUT IT SOMEHOW RINGS TRUE IN THE BACK OF MY MIND
AS I SEARCH FOR A DREAM THAT WORDS CAN NO LONGER DEFINE

READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY
AND THE TIME
READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY

AND THE TIME AND THE YEARS
AND THE TEARS AND THE COST
AND THE HOPES AND THE DREAMS
OF EACH CHILD THAT IS LOST
AND THE WHISPER OF WINGS
IN THE COLD WINTER’S AIR
AS THE SNOW IT COMES DOWN
AND VISIONS APPEAR EVERYWHERE

READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY
IN THE AIR
READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY

IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT
AS HIS LIFE SLIPS AWAY
AS HE READS BY THE LIGHT
OF A STAR FARAWAY

HOLDING ON
HOLDING OFF
HOLDING OUT
HOLDING IN

COULD YOU BE THIS OLD
AND HAVE YOUR LIFE JUST BEGIN

READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY
IT BEGINS
READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY
IT BEGINS
READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY
IT BEGINS
READING BY THE LIGHT OF A LOST CHRISTMAS DAY
IT BEGINS

I have renewed hope. Isn’t it funny how such small acts can bring one so much? A simple act of kindness can make someone’s day, while a casual brush-off can turn an excellent day sour for some. The actions we perform always have side-effects, both on the world and on others. I’ve said this before, and everyday I mean it more. I hope everyone does at least one good deed for the holidays. The title “The Lost Christmas Eve” to me is more about the world’s attitude towards itself. We are all sitting there, saying that we should be good to one another, but there are so many people out there who simply don’t care. The Lost Christmas Eve is the feeling inside of us to be good to each other, to help those who can’t help themselves.
This was an awfully busy week for me. Trying to recall everything that happened isn’t always possible, but I’ll try.

Let’s see, Monday… Monday… I went shopping with Rachel early in the afternoon, and ended up getting a Christmas tree. Sara came over to my place for a little bit to check it out for Sunny’s party. She stayed for about two hours, and we ended up having a nice chat in that time. I think it was the first time I’ve actually used my living room.

Tuesday was entertaining. I worked for awhile, then met up with Rachel to go to her first playoff game. Her team was doing really well, the were up 1-0. However, they ended up losing 1-2. Rachel took a nice head-butt while struggling against another girl. She did get the ball though, and a swollen eye as a consolation prize. After the game, Rachel and I went back to my place where we devoured a dark chocolate bar and some Port from Sonoma.

Wednesday… what was Wednesday? Well, we had our meeting, and my stuff finally works!

Thursday, Rachel came over and we put up the Christmas tree.

Later that night, Sara and I went to Sudwerks. A *ton* of people showed up, and I finally got to see some of the guys get totally wasted, it was awesome = )

Friday was ultra busy. I worked a bit, then picked up Chiara and had Sara come over so we could get the place set up for Sunny’s party. The party was a big success, we scared the crap out of Sunny, and then everyone had a wonderful time after that. I met someone new, Shakeh, one of the girls’ friends. We all stayed at my place until 3:00 in the morning, then we finally took off.

Saturday was also ultra busy too. I woke up at 8:00! ARGH!!! Need… more… sleep… Anyways, I worked for about three hours, then went to the market and Jamba Juice. After that, I went to Anna’s to help her with some parallel programming. I was then so tired that I couldn’t think, so I went home and slept. I, for some reason, decided that I didn’t have enough sports equipment. With that in mind, I headed to the local sporting goods store to buy a football, an american football, badminton racquets, and work-out gloves.

Ilan and Dave got into town around 17:00. We walked downtown to Sophia’s, then got some ice-cream from Ben & Jerry’s afterwards. And finally, around 19:20, we headed off to go see TSO! The concert totally r0×0red. There were some slow parts, but it was a ton of fun. After we got back, I headed over to Franci’s for the big birthday bash. There were a ton of people there (some of whom I’d never met), and the party ended up getting busted up at 1:00. Luckily though, the five Mexican girls lived two stories higher, so three quarters of the people left for there, while the rest of us stuck around and just mellowed out and chatted. I eventually left at 2:00, and didn’t get to bed until 3:00.

Well, on Sunday, I woke up at 7:00, then 9:00, does that mean I got a decent amount of sleep? I don’t think so… Luckily I didn’t do anything crazy today. I just worked most of the day, watched some football and basketball, then went out to Ciocolat with Sunny and Sara. I ended up staying up till 12:30 though, teaching a new friend the joys of serial emails.

I know Reno is a desert, but geez is the climate bipolar. I still remember one day about ten years ago when I was wearing shorts and working in my backyard, it was probably a nice twenty-five degress outside. Two hours later, the temperature plummets to a few degrees above zero and it starts snowing! A similar thing just happened to me again. I’m in Reno, the weather is a bit chilly, but nothing extreme. I check the weather in the morning and all of a sudden I see snow forecasted for the next thirty-six hours! ARGH!!! But anyways, onto the weekly recap:

Monday I watched Rachel’s football team’s final game. They did alright, but were outdone unfortunately. I got a few pictures and some videos, though not much is really worth showing. Here are some of the better ones.

Tuesday rang in a lot of frisbee, YAY! I also had my VR lab meeting early in the week (and early in time, 14:00). Dan and I had to readjust some of the projects to get a single eye working on the wall. It took enough time that I ended up staying for the talk by Michael Garland. The talk was about quadrangulating meshes, and it was (for some strange reason) hosted by the math department. The talk was interesting though, and afterwards Dan, Sung, and I went to the MU to play pool. We did that for an hour or so, then Dan and I went to grab dinner before I went to a poetry reading. As it would turn out, Chiara, Sunny, and Sara also showed up, and Grinil was one of the hosts. The event turned out to be a lot of fun, and Dan ended up staying for the entire thing. Afterwards, I rode back a bit with Sunny, then finished the trek home and went to sleep.

I learned the difference between checking and picking in Lacrosse on Wednesday. And I also learned that people need to calm the heck down sometimes. Oh well, nothing too bad happened, so it isn’t a big deal. We had a late GI meeting today, and now that G80 has finally launched, I don’t have to be so careful about details I mention. I caught up with Brothers & Sisters, and if it was already obvious, yes I’m addicted. Did you catch the election results? I’m suddenly reminded of a line from Liar Liar, “The pen is blue… the god damn pen is blue…” And to that, all I have to say is hw00t!!!1! After the GI meeting Tony, Sung, Shubho, Brian, Meike, and I went to some faculty awards ceremony in Kemper. Props to Professor Owens for telling us where to snag the free food and al-key-hol. I would also like to take this time to say that MPI needs some good examples online, like how to create a new communicator.

Thursday in Davis was alright, I was having a bad frisbee day, so I wasn’t too upset that I had to leave early to catch the talk by James O’Brien. Something about him though, I thought he would be both tall and imposing, when in reality he’s maybe 1.75 meters. His talk was good though, lots of cool examples done by his grad students. After his talk I hurried home, packed up, and drove to Reno. Sebastian and I went to go see Anberlin in concert. We had to endure through two other crappy emo bands, but it was worth it. Anberlin was good, and they were freaking awesome in comparison to the previous bands. I ended up running into Jason Stern, and old friend from IGT, while at the concert. He’s now working full-time at IGT.

After the concert, a ton of us went to the Little Waldorf Saloon to get some drinks and hang out. It was five and seven dollar pitcher night, so after we did a round of Irish Car Bombs, shout out to Carl and Sean by the way ; ), some of the guys just ordered themselves pitchers of beer, like Fat Tire (another shout out to you Carl). Bei wanted to be able to drive home, so we (as in a bunch of us) ended up going back to her place to have some more drinks so she could get socially lubricated (and then some).

The roll call for Bei’s place was me, Bei, Nick, Sebastian, Penick, Smith, Stanhope, Alicia, Tunya, and Peter. The night was really fun, if you want the details you can always inquire to me personally ; ) Here’s some photographic evidence for those interested.

Friday wasn’t too terribly exciting. I had brunch with the folks and dinner with them, Mike, Bei, Nick, and Sebastian. After dinner, Bei and I went to a Nevada basketball game (GO PACK!). After the game (the pack won of course), Bei and I got some Cold Stone, then went back to my place. We were both tired, and Brian’s flight got delayed until after midnight, so we just crashed on my parent’s very comfortable sectional until Bei had to leave to pick up her hubby.

Remember what I said about the weather? That’s why I had to leave Reno so early. Well, that and I had a bunch of work I had to get done. I got in around 11:00, and ended up going to lunch with Dan and Meike around 13:30. After lunch, Meike and I walked around downtown until 15:30 or so, then we went home. I made half of the ClubI Thanksgiving flyer while watching Kansas State beat the Longhorns (HA! Take that you Trojan killing bitches!). Saturday was also Brian’s birthday, so we met a bunch of people at Ben & Jerry’s for ice cream. Everyone else ran off to go see BORAT! while I went to Sophia’s with Cathy. We played “Liar’s Die” for awhile, and ended up meeting the owner of Crepeville (it’s a chain… never woulda thought…). I dropped Cathy off and got to sleep around 01:00.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep Sunday morning. I woke up around 08:00 for no reason, so I just decided to get up and work. I took a break around 14:00 and went shopping at the Co-op and Safeway. Sara emailed me around 16:00 with a computer problem. I went over to her place for awhle trying to help her. Turns out her problem wasn’t an easy fix. We then went out to dinner at Crepeville with Sunny and Chiara. Somehow I ended up staying there until 22:15, then I had to go home to get my car and pick up Rachel. Right as I was about to leave I checked the flight status, and for some reason, it wasn’t scheduled to get in until 23:30. I waited around for a little while longer, then took off. I didn’t end up getting home until 00:30, hence why I didn’t get to sleep until 01:00!

As summer is now officially over, I’ll probably only be posting every week or so. Obviously, the more comments I get (i.e. the more people read this), the more I’ll update. However, everyone is now in school (myself included).
My birthday went off almost exactly as planned. I forgot that Facebook tells people when a friend’s birthday is coming up, so I got a few people calling me, which was nice (still waiting on someone *cough*Carl*cough* to say something, but he has a good excuse). Randy came into town and we went to the Godsmack and Rob Zombie concert. It was really cool, especially since we hung out near the pit which was mere yards from the stage.

Conny and Daniel helped me move my couch, so now I don’t have to feel embarrassed when I have people over because of an empty living room, hw00t!!1! I played another game of Ultimate Frisbee on Tuesday (with the class). It was a ton of fun and a decent amount of running. I can’t wait for the rest of the quarter = ). On the other hand though, my racquetball class(es) are all pretty full, so we have to keep playing doubles and cut-throat. I like them both, it’s just that you don’t do nearly as much in either of them.

Volleyball seems like it’s going to be fun, especially since T-Dawg is in it with me. He already has a firm grasp on strategy and form, so I just hope he doesn’t get frustrated with my wild flailings = ). And badminton… well, badminton seems like it’s going to be exactly what it is, a lazy man’s tennis. It’s also full, so I have to play doubles in there as well.

Thursday’s classes were a lot of fun. My team got its arse completely stomped in frisbee (I think we had two total points), but it was still fun and a good workout. Some lady was there taking pictures of it for some reason… even more propoganda with my face on it apparently.

Apparently the DMV in Nevada hasn’t gotten any better since I moved. My VIN is apparently screwed up in their computers, so the smog check I got has to be presented to them in person, and of course I can’t do that because I’m at school. ARGH!

Dan, Tracy, and I went out on Saturday night. In order to “punish” Dan for last Tuesday, he had to drink all night while I stayed sober (well, I also had to drive him home). We got back to my place around 2:00 AM, then for some reason we all fell asleep on the couch until 5:00 AM, when I woke up and took them both home.