Jeff Stuart - Memoirs of a CPUNERD

By plans, I’m talking spring break plans. I came up with two brilliant ideas. Both involved multiple locations. One was a left-coast trip involving Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. The other was an east-coast road trip covering Boston, Providence, Hartford, NYC, Philly, a random city in New Jersey, Arlington, DC, and Baltimore. Yes, they both seem a bit daunting, and there isn’t much time to do stuff in any single place with either plan. I liked the west-coast trip because those three cities, I’ve wanted to visit (and I still have never left the country). The east-coast trip would be great because I get to more than double my number of visited states (I’ve been to seven). However, despite my (self-perceived) brilliance, no one really seems interested in either. Le sigh…

On Monday, Shakeh and I went to lunch at Ali Baba. Before dinner, I took Martyn and Alex to Best Buy. This time, the laptop that Alex so craved was in, and she bought it promptly. Martyn spent some time looking at prices for a new laptop, then we took off and headed home. When I got back, I picked up Shakeh and we went to dinner with at Thai Recipes. The food was goo, as it was last time, but the location is unfortunate. If the place was more visible, I think that it would be doing just as good if not better than Sophia’s or Thai2K.

Tuesday brought another lunch at the MU followed by some more reading at the lounge. Shakeh and I went to Crepeville for dinner with a few friends. It was supposed to be a guy’s night tonight, as Shakeh was going to have a girl’s night with Ita, Laura, and a few others. For some reason though, the girls decided to join up with the guys. Lucky us. After dinner, Shakeh and I headed to the dance studio for our first “Advanced Beginning” Salsa lesson. Once we got done there, we went to Peet’s and then Baskin Robbins.

During volleyball on Wednesday, I majorly tweaked my shoulder. It was starting to feel better within five minutes, but I decided not to serve or hit after that point. I had to play cut-throat (again). Grrrr! Shakeh and I went to Chipotle for lunch. Afterwards, I went home and worked on the paper, but it was in such disarray that it was hard to start anywhere. I went to Burgers & Brew with Brian, Kim, and Tony for dinner. I got back home and watched the UNC-GT game. GT almost won, 82-83. It was a really close game. I would like to say now that I hate Tyler Hansbrough. I recognize that he is good (though not that good). However, I also recognize that he is over-hyped and over-emphatic. His facial expressions and his flailing are just downright annoying. Okay, enough of that.

Thursday morning brought another backroll in gymnastics, w00t! It was on a mat and going down though. I’m still nervous about doing one on the floor. I was going to go to lunch at the MU, but Paula flaked out so I went to the airport with Verena. We dropped his stuff off at Verena’s place, then went to Pluto’s for lunch around 1400. After lunch, I left Verena and the G-Man and went to get my haircut. I had two meetings later in the afternoon, so I went to both of those and then went to Kabul for Wijnand’s going away dinner. After dinner, Shakeh, Daniel and I went to see Blazing Saddles in the theatre.

I dropped Shakeh off at school on Friday morning, and decided to stop by coffee and bagel day. No one I knew was present though, so I just grabbed two donuts and left. I went to the MU for lunch and then to Cafe Mediteranee for dinner and an Armenian lesson. We went to theatre after dinner, but it was way packed. We went home and watched Becoming Jane, which I found not so becoming. It wasn’t slow per se, but it was pretty monotonous and not very interesting.

Shakeh and I watched the last two sets of the Hewitt-Bahgdatis match on Saturday morning. We drove around for awhile, and eventually went to Baker’s Square for breakfast. We met up with Gio at my place for an hour or so after breakfast. I was feeling sick, so we didn’t do much for the rest of the day. We ran to Pluto’s around 1900 to get some food, then came home and waited for people to show up. We proceeded to watch Office Space with Abhi, Pieter, Javi, and Anita. Ita, Ophelie, and Aisling showed up a bit later and joined us. After the movie, we watched half an hour of tennis, then everyone left. I took some fever reducing Advil and slept.

Sunday was a dead day. I was sick, Shakeh was sick, and we both were just feeling crappy. Besides going to Safeway, we didn’t go out at all.

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.

My guess is that most of my friends who read this are somewhat democratic/liberal in their thoughts. Obviously there are some exceptions, but this piece of prose is directed at those who will be voting in the democratic primary. I was talking with my brother the other day, and he related a very interesting predicament. As anyone who isn’t living under a rock knows, the two democratic front-runners are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. As far as republican front-runners go… I have no idea. My brother pointed me towards an interesting survey. Many republicans surveyed said that they are so disheartened by their party’s recent performance that they were even considering voting for a democrat. However, this came with a stipulation. Virtually every one polled also said that they are tired of government dynasties, the Bush family is an example. What they don’t want is another Clinton in the White House. What does this mean to you? Well, if you believe the poll, this means that many republicans might vote fordemocrat, unless Hillary is the democratic nominee. Now, I haven’t decided my vote for the democratic nominee, but should I take this poll seriously? Should I be bullied into blindly voting for the next best thing besides Hillary (assuming I wanted to vote for her, which right now I don’t)? Personally, I think that most polls like these are utter crap and will just vote for the candidate that I feel will do the best job. But that’s me. What about you? Would results like these sway your vote? What would the numbers have to be to sway you from voting for your favorite candidate in fears that republicans would pull another 2000 or 2004?

On Monday, I forgot my headphones. Argh! To make matters worse, I had to ride a recumbent bike since all the regular bikes were in use. I’ve now come to realize that the muscles used while riding a recumbent bike are indeed different than when riding an upright bike. After the bike, I went to tennis and continued working on my serve. It’s coming along, though I still need a lot of practice and repetition. Volleyball was also good, in that my arm wasn’t giving my any crap. I went to the MU for lunch and was joined by a few extras including Justin, Vanessa, and Miles’ girlfriend Jen. I headed to my research meeting and then to the lab to get a memtest going. While the test was running, I met with Bill for some bowling and billiards. I’m pleased to say I didn’t lose at everything = \ I headed back for our MGI meeting and found that my machine did indeed have memory problems, hurray… After the meeting, I went home and worked while watching MNF.

I tumbled again on Tuesday, and I didn’t have any problems. I played John in racquetball after I finished a squash match against Coach Clink. We had an extended football practice, even going so far as to venture to the fields at Hutchison. After practice, I went to Applebee’s with the guys. Shakeh called near the end, and I was treated to my first “bloke in a pub” treatment. I took off from the restaurant, picked her up, took her to Fuji’s, then went to B&R for some wonderful dessert.

I went to Pluto’s for lunch with Shakeh on Wednesday. I ventured to the lab afterwards to run another memtest, then went to an in-person interview with Apple. The interview went fine, and I was told I would get at least a phone interview later on. Later that night, I met up with Javi, Daniel, Justin, and Pieter for dinner. We went to Thai Recipes. The food was actually really good there, and it was hot enough for Justin (he was actually sweating). There were two girls sitting near us at another table who were both very entertaining and incredibly annoying. The sentence “like totally actually for sure” serves to sum it up quite nicely. After dinner, I quickly ran to Sophia’s to say happy birthday to Paloma, then we all went to get some yogurt at the Yogurt Shack. Paul met up with us there as daniel was leaving. After yogurt, we went back to my place and watched Snatch. I forgot how much I liked that movie. Though… will someone please explain to me why Brad Pitt was one of the four guys involved in the diamond robbery?

Holy crap! My bike’s derailer literally exploded Thursday on my way to the gym. I was riding, and my chain came off. When that happens, I usually can just keep pedaling and the chain will catch again and re-engage. However, this time, the chain got pulled very tight, then snapped loose, wrapped around itself, and formed a kink. Before I could stop, that kink went into the derailer and BAM!!! I stopped, turned around, and walked my bike back on foot. Luckily, I had my other bike. Unluckily, I practically have an ulcer whenever that bike is not parked safely indoors. Anyways, I’m looking forward to going to Reno, and not just for the conference. Working out in the morning is just killing me. I think it’s all the extra sports that I’m playing, because when I do my cardio ride in the morning, I can’t keep my heart rate up because it’s so hard on my leg muscles. In racquetball, I played four matches with John, winning one and losing three. I take consolation in the fact that two out of the three that I lost, I lost 14-15. In frisbee, we played a full game instead of two small games. When I got home, I got a call from Shakeh. She was really rushed and freaking out about her lab report, so I helped her format it. After I got back home, I showered, then took my bike to the bike shop. I got into the MU at 1345. I ate lunch and chatted with some friends, then headed with Ita and Pphelie to meet Shakeh at the Commons. We got Jamba Juice while Shakeh got Habit Burger. After that, I went back to the bike shop to sign off on my bike. Two-hundred and thirty dollars! Jesus… When I got home, I headed to pick up Ken, then we headed back to my place and watched some Family Guy. After that was over, we headed to the match. Unfortunately we were handed our first loss of the season, 2-3. It wasn’t that bad of a loss, except the guys we played against were a bunch of floppers. I’m not just saying that, and I’m not sour grapes. Several times, when one of our guys had an advantage on a ball, their guy would create contact and fall down in an attempt to draw a whistle. It was really pathetic. I really, Really, REALLY, wanted to level one or two of them, because all they would do is bitch and moan instead of actually playing. The worst part you ask? One of them spiked Bill hard, and instead of stopping play, they continued playing. I had to literally scream at them and run up and almost crash into their ball handler to get them to stop. Luckily, they had some guys who were genuinely good. They were very fast, and technically sound. Those guys I had no problem with. Afterwards, shakeh and I got ready and went to our salsa lessons. We learned the hook turn, and we were also shown two cross-body turns. We finished with that, then went to Kathmandu Kitchen to say hello to Giovanni and his group, and we also caught Anuja and Bbhi’s group. After saying hello and goodbye, we went to Woodstock’s for dinner, then to Ita’s for an after-match night cap. I was getting really tired though, so we only stayed for an hour and a half (though she was kicking everyone out at 0030 anyways).

On Friday, I went out to lunch with Shakeh at Raja’s. I dont know why I’ve been avoiding the place! It was very decent Indian food, and they have a lunch buffet! I drove from there straight to Reno. I made it over the hill and home just in time for my phone interview with Apple. For dinner, I met up with Jesse, Dye, Kenyon, and Randy at the Bully’s at the mall. We had some good old-fashioned nerd conversation for three hours, then I went home after that and hung out with the parents for an hour before going to sleep.

With Saturday came the realization that the conference was holding only something for the education program (so I came down a day early pretty much). I decided to work out early in the morning so I wouldn’t have to do that during the week. I watched College Game Day and finished my workout. The parents and I went to see Fred Claus around noon. The movie was good, though a bit too childish for my taste. I still enjoyed it though. After the movie, I went home and worked on some seismology stuff, then had dinner with the parents and Vicky. Frank cooked steaks. Holy crap! It has been so long since I’ve had a real steak, it tasted so good. For dessert, I bought some Coldstone for the first time in several months. Tasty indeed.

Sunday was the first real day of the conference. I went to the first half of the petascale storage workshop. I had to bail early so I could go to the mall and get a present for Sinead. I also took the opportunity to look for pants, but didn’t have much luck. I headed home home and worked for a while longer, before going to Lisa’s for dinner. I got to meet Adrienne’s boyfriend Eric. He seemed like a very nerdy person, so we got along great. I also got to see Michelle and Michael for the first time in several months.