Memoirs of a CPUNERD

I, like most people, thoroughly enjoy the variety, diversity, and quality of food in Davis. I, unlike most people, frequent the restaurants in Davis, as in virtually every day. I find myself wanting more now. For example, the only Caribbean place in town is not that great. And yes, I have enjoyed good Caribbean food elsewhere. We have no Moroccon, Ethiopan, or other African food. We have some absolutely great Armenian food from Cafe Mediteranee, but we have no Persian or Turkish food. We have magnificent Thai food, but no Malaysian. We have a severe lack of good Indian food (Indyna Bistro is expensive and you don’t get what you would expect for the price). The only “South American” food we have is actually food native to New Mexico, not Mexico. There isn’t really any place that serves French cuisine, and I mean more than quiche and crepes. One can get good Czech food, but I’ve yet to sample any Northern European or British Isle food in the confines of Davis. And of course, don’t get me started on the lack of a good steakhouse within Davis. Buckhorn is absolutely amazing, but it’s a twenty-five minute drive. Am I the only one who feels this way? Is it because I pretty much live off of the restaurants here? What do you think?

Monday is fun day! Well, kinda. We did another ladder in racquetball, and I’m pretty sure we’ll keep doing this until the end of the quarter. I’m actually quite fine with that as it allows for variety on more than a day-by-day basis.

I was really tired on Tuesday for some reason. I got enough sleep I felt, so perhaps it was something else. We worked on volleys in tennis, and even though one wouldn’t think it, that wore me out even more. I played a racquetball match against the coach and lost 8-15. He’s better than I thought. I had lunch at the MU with Alex and a few others, then watched Hitman again with Shakeh. We went to Woodstock’s for dinner pretty late, it was “Turntable Tuesday” where one of the employees spins some techno for a few hours in the bar room.

If I was tired on Tuesday, then I was practically sleeping on Wednesday. Everything was a struggle, even biking to the gym. I played racquetball with John, and that seemed to get me going. I couldn’t do much in tumbling though, my lower calves were starting to hurt. After tumbling I met up with Shakeh for lunch at the MU. Before my research meeting, I snagged some delectable pastries that were left over from Hari’s defense. For dinner, Shakeh and I went to the Farmer’s Market. Mmmm steak… I went to Sudwerks to meet up with everyone, but no one was there. Instead, a few people were at Delta of Venus so I drove over and hung out for a bit. After that, I headed to Sudwerks but didn’t stay very long. I got home around 2230 and pretty much went straight to bed.

My body was not any better come Thursday. I did well in tennis, got my opponent to 5-5, but then we had to go. I somehow managed to get nine points out of Mike in racquetball, and ten points out of the coach. Frisbee was really slow. No one was into running I guess. That was fine by me, I just didn’t feel like massive self exertion today. For lunch, I went to the MU with Tony, Daniel, and Falcon, then we stopped by 3rd and U with Bbhi, Tony, Falcon, and Shakeh. Afterwards I headed home, worked some more, then took Shakeh to Delta of Venus for dinner. Wouldn’t recommend it for dinner entrees… We had a football match at 2000, which we won, and then Shakeh and I went to see Serenity at 2200.

Early Friday morning I had a meeting with Ken. Afterwards I stumbled over to coffee and bagel day at the GSA office. I worked until lunch time, then went to Zia’s with Shakeh. I then proceeded to Wal Mart to get my oil changed and buy some groceries. After I got back, I got ready and picked up Shakeh, then headed to the Mondavi Center to see the Merce Cunningham dance show. Luckily there was free pizza, otherwise we both would’ve starved. The dance show was alright, though definitely not my thing. I found that often the dancers were forced to perform moves such that they had to forcefully exert their bodies or hold grueling poses, neither of which looked graceful. Not to mention the dancing was not in sync with the music. Yes, I know that was intentional. Even with all that in mind, I still say that I enjoyed it, I just don’t think I’d go to something like that again voluntarily.

Shakeh and I went to the market early on Saturday. I ran into a bunch of people there, a popular place I must say. For lunch, we went to Verena’s, then to headed to the theatres to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The movie was actually really good. The writer has produced a lot of great comedies thus far, I’m glad he’s accepted in Hollywood. For dinner, Shakeh and I ventured to The Old Spaghetti Factory. Once we got home, we watched some South Park, then went to sleep.

We finished South Park thus far on Sunday. We polished off the piave cheese I purchased from V. Sattui for brunch. I, like an idiot, decided to bike to Safeway. Yes, that is normally not a bad idea. However, biking back with thirty pounds of fruit was not part of my original equation. Woops… For dinner, Shakeh and indulged our inner carnivores and went to Burgers & Brew.

Okay, I’m getting tired of people telling me that P.F. Chang’s is not “Chinese food.” Yes, I know that! I know that virtually no Chinese place in the U.S. is not actually “Chinese food,” I understand that authentic Chinese food is usually just rice, fish, and some sauces poured over to make things taste better. But you know what? It doesn’t matter to me. Do I call you out for referring to burritos at Chipotle or fajitas at Chevy’s Mexican food? No. Of course not, even though that food is actually New-Mexican, not Mexican. I think it is a well understood fact that when we say a food is X, we really mean the food is an American-bastardized form of X. Remember this next time you wish to be pretentious. If you don’t, you’ll probably just end up sounding sophomoric. Just some American food for thought.

I got up and got ready early Monday morning. Justin and Justine picked Amanda and me up around 0840. I got to the airport, checked in, and boarded fairly quickly. The flight was quite pleasant, I flew on an EMB-145. There was no real turbulence, and I was able to listen to XM while flying. Once landed, I headed to the rental-car pickup and made the way out. The car they gave me was a bit of a beast, a Chrysler 300. I stopped off in downtown Albuquerque for lunch at a local pizza joint, then headed to Santa Fe. I didn’t want to book any hotels in advance, so I had to drive around for a bit. Luckily the Hilton in Santa Fe had a big garage and good Wi-Fi signal. After looking up hotels, the new destination was the Old Santa Fe Inn. A quite nice place actually, fairly rustic but kept up well. The one problem was that the Wi-Fi signal there didn’t reach the room, thus I couldn’t look up any places to see or restaurants without going outside, a bit annoying. Once settled in, Santa Fe presented a new problem: being as the population is roughly that of Davis but with working professionals instead of students, everything fun to do closes at 1700. For dinner, the destination was a place on Canyon Road (the local art-gallery road) called Geronimo. The restaurant was recommended by the tennis coach. I can see why now. The food there is awesome, though definitely pricey. I think my meal was at least sixty-five dollars. Parking there was a bit silly. There was a small lot, and the attendant came up to my window and asked if we were eating there. I said yes. He then asked if we had reservations. I told him no. He informed that the parking lot was only for reservation-holding customers, so I drove off, went to the side of the road, and made a reservation for fifteen minutes in the future. Then I went straight back to the valet and had him park. Sigh… As for food, I had a wonderful salad with macadamia nuts, venison loin, and for dessert I had banana-cream pie. Yum.

Tuesday morning started with an early wake up and a short but very-scenic trip to Los Alamos. The Inn had a nice burrito bar, so that made for a good breakfast. I checked out of the Inn since I wasn’t sure I’d be back in Santa Fe that night. I met up with Pat McCormick at Los Alamos around 1000 and had a nice conversation with him and a few others. Pat showed me some of the clusters they were using, and explained some of the expansion cards he had in them. I had originally written a presentation, but it was much easier to just have a conversation and get the facts out in the beginning, then take a bunch of questions to clarify everything. We got lunch from the local cafe, then went back and talked a little more about my work. Pat dropped me off with a man named Scott Pakin who developed a small MPI for the Cell processor. I walked back to the cafe with him, then parted ways there after some discussion. After the cafe, the next stop was an old army-surplus store called The Black Hole. Nothing much was there to see, just a bunch of old-military junk (no, I was not surprised). After the store, I drove to Bandelier National Monument to do a small amount of hiking. Turns out they charged twelve dollars just to get in, pfft! Cave-dwelling Native Americans used to live there, and the bases of their structures were still around, though far from intact. Seeing the remnants was very cool, and the hike was far from strenuous. The last part of the hike actually reminded me a lot of the arboretum in Davis, except drier and no swarms of gnats. After the hike, I drove back to Santa Fe and again required the borrowing of a wireless connection. The Hilton said they were booked solid, as did El Dorado, so a place called the Hotel Plaza Real became my bed for the night. It was really nice, surprisingly so. For dinner, there was a well rated place called La Plazuela located in the interior of the downtown plaza. The food there was authentic New Mexican, and quite delicious. Of course, the meal ended with sopapillas and honey. The hotel was a warm welcome after the chilly walk back on a wonderfully-full stomach.

A local place called The Pantry Kitchen served breakfast to me on Wednesday. I had a breakfast burrito with green chiles. It was great, and the chiles were mild enough that they added flavor without hurting. After breakfast, we stopped by a place called Jackalope. It sold all manner of things, and generally came off to be a single-person-owned flea market. After Jackalope, the downtown area in Santa Fe was tempting enough to be the next stop. There wasn’t a ton to see there. Canyon road, a street somewhat far away, had a bunch of art galleries that did not get my patronage. The rest of the area was basically a bunch of shops for tourists. A nice area around which to walk, but not to spend money for me. There was one nice place, an extremely beautiful cathedral. After seeing that though, there was nothing left. Next stop, the Sandia Tramway! Up at Sandia peak, outside of Albuquerque, there exists a sky tram. At the time of construction, it was the longest tram in the world. It spanned a vertical distance of one kilometer and a horizontal distance of four kilometers. The cost to ride wasn’t that bad, so I gave it a shot. I’m somewhat afraid of heights, so being suspended so high up amidst the thirty kilometer per hour winds in a little box with twenty other people was nerve racking at times. At the peak there was still snow and people were skiing. The restaurant there was overpriced of course, but I was hungry and didn’t care. Once the descent finished, it was time to find a hotel. The choice ended up just being one near the airport. After checking in and finding local restaurants, a place called Sadie’s stood out. The place reminded me of a chain restaurant, but apparently it was the only of its kind. It served authentic New-Mexican food (again) and holy crap were the portions huge. The food was so cheap too, but it was very good. Afterwards, the malt shop I found online turned out to be closed, so no dessert.

Thursday morning saw the invasion of the Frontier Cafe and the UNM campus in Albuquerque. The cafe was awesome. Of course I got a breakfast burrito, but I also got a cinnamon roll. Oh man, that was a mistake to get both. The cinnamon roll was absolutely covered in butter and sugar instead of icing, but I ate the whole thing anyways, as well as the burrito. After breakfast, the UNM campus had to put up with me. I always feel a little strange taking pictures of everything, and I felt even more so while taking pictures on the campus. I just couldn’t help it though, every building everywhere was adobe style (well, not every building, but most). After the campus came the atomic museum and Old Town Albuquerque. The museum was really cool. There was an entire wall tracing the foundation of the atom bomb. There was of course more, but that was the most interesting part to me. Old Town Albuquerque was pretty lame. Just another shopping district, as most all Old Town areas tend to be. The downtown area of Albuquerque came next. The place was very touristy, and in all honesty, didn’t have that much to do. It seems like a happening place at night, but it felt like a less yuppy version of Santana Row. After visiting the downtown area, it was time to go to the airport. After taking forever in security, I sat down and watched the North Carolina game. I must say that I was saddened to see UNC run away the way they did, I figured Louisville would put up more of a fight. While watching the game, I had some food at the bar and sipped a caramel-apple martini. I didn’t even finish half of it. Once the game was over, it was time to board the flight and head back to Davis!

Come Friday, it was back to the grind. Luckily my brother and Brianna stopped by to provide some midday entertainment. Mike, being the picky-ass bastard he is, had a hard time finding something to eat at Cafe Mediterannee. Shakeh, Brianna and I had to order him something fairly plain. By the end of the meal, he was opening up though and trying the sides the rest of us ordered. The best part of lunch came when Mike ordered a dessert item. As it disintegrated to nothing, he would just pick up all the pieces and put it in his palm, proceeding to devour it like a horse with a carrot offering. We were all laughing at him, but he cared not. Funny enough, this is why I love the guy, always entertaining and completely unapologetic. After lunch, we all walked back to my place and I got right back to work. Shakeh continued to watch some of her shows, and I watched some basketball. We grabbed some Chipotle for dinner, then went to see 21. The movie was actually very good! Several friends were afraid the movie would ruin the book and try to be very flashy and action packed. In the end though, the movie was definitely more about the kid’s life and story then about guns and women.

On Saturday I woke up and got right back to work. Shakeh and I ended up going to Zia’s for lunch, but we had to walk back as there were no seats available. I somehow convinced Shakeh to watch Firefly, and after the second episode, she was hooked. We continued watching, and I also watched basketball, for the rest of the day. We wandered over to Pluto’s for dinner, but just took the food to go because Shakeh wanted to keep watching Firefly. By the end of the night, we were already to the third disc.

Same ol’ on Sunday. Get up, get to work. I started actually writing the paper and discovered that writing an abstract is much harder to write when the rest of the paper is not present. Sometime in the morning, we finished Firefly. Shakeh then went back to watching her shows. For lunch, we visited the 3rd and U cafe. The food was alright, and since no one else was there, the service was quite snappy. I can imagine though, based on what I witnessed, that the service during a peak time would be bad. After lunch, we went back to work. After bringing home Woodstock’s for dinner, we watched The Pianist without subtitles. Funny how the meaning of a movie or scene in a movie can be conveyed through acting, even without an understanding of the dialog.

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.

More precisely, why it’s so much better than pro-basketball. I was trying to fully understand how a competition with (compared to the NBA) inferior players and a smaller arena crowd could be more fun to watch than the professional counterpart. Then, it hit me. Yes, there are the obvious things, like how in the NBA regular season, few teams actually try until the final quarter. And yes, the NBA has an annoying sound system. Oh yeah, and half the time, star players just mail-in their performance and make fans pissed off that they payed $40 for a ticket.

I realized, it was for those reasons that college basketball is more fun to watch. In college basketball, players try for all forty-minutes. Highlights are equally likely from the first thirty seconds as they are from the last. There are no craptaculous sound systems in college basketball. The crowd is responsible for making noise, not a few sound engineers and massive speakers. May anyone help a college player who doesn’t go all out all the time. His coach would chew him up in a second, not to mention threaten to take away a scholarship. Let’s also not forget that at this point in their lives, college players aren’t getting paid, but they are getting scouted. They can’t afford to take a night off and disimpress a scout, otherwise their NBA-draft stock falls, and they lose out on a bunch of money if and when they turn pro. Did I miss anything?

Oh,  I do concede that with the exception of the BCS schools, the dancers are much better in the pros ; )

Volleyball on Monday was fun. The coach wasn’t there so we just played the entire time with decent people. We’re doing games to eight in racquetball right now, which I don’t like. I have a habit of coming back around ten points or so, so playing to eight takes me out of my groove. Also, my serve is definitely my strong point, and we have to give up serve after three straight points. For lunch, Shakeh and I went to Hunan. They had hot & sour soup again, my favorite! Afterwards, Martyn and I went to STA for our NYC plans. I went home and didn’t do anything exciting. I just stayed home for dinner and some excellent left overs.

I went to lunch at Manna with Martyn, Emma, and Alex. Our research meeting was okay, nothing special. My night-time Salsa lesson was good. Afterwards, I ran into Van and she let Justin and I sit in on her Zoomba class. It was great! But neither of us were dressed for it.

For some reason, I was just dead tired on Wednesday morning. I got plenty of sleep, so I don’t know what was wrong. I went to Zia’s with Shakeh for lunch, then came home and did some work. I watched the Texas-Texas A&M first half, as well as the Cincy-WVU game. Before Shakeh and I went out for dinner, I got a chance to see Kansas State knock off Kansas, and showed Shakeh how storming a court should be done. We decided to try Sudwerks for dinner. It was really good, though probably about ten-to-fifteen percent overpriced. After dinner, I met up with the others and played games until 2200.

Javi and I went to lunch at Pastaq on Thursday. The lunch special was nice, though the most expensive so far. Before our co-ed game, Bill and I got a round of squash in. He actually got a game off me, his tennis shows through. We lost the coed game 3-5 (I could only play the first half), though I won my racquetball match 15-3, 15-5 and rolled my ankle in the process. I couldn’t play the men’s game against the other international team. We ended up winning 6-5 though. Yay! I saw Spaceballs at the retro theatres, man do I love that movie. Ludicrous Speed…

On Friday, Shakeh gave me a ride to school for the SciDAC meeting. I was able to get breakfast and sit through the morning talks. I ate lunch with John and Greg Humphreys, then went to SISS to say hi. I made a quick trip to the MU to chat with Justin, Mauricio, and Tina. After that, I went home, worked, then went to dinner at Sophia’s, which got changed to Thai Recipes. Afterwards, I went to Yogurt Shack and then home for some rest.

Saturday afternoon, Shakeh and I saw There Will Be Blood at 1300. We were going to go ice skating, but Shakeh was too cold. Instead, we went to Ciocolat and drank something warm. We headed to Old Town Sac and wandered around for awhile. We ended up going to dinner at California Fat’s. Once we got home, I did some reading.

I got a head-start on the day Sunday by doing laundry and going to Safeway early in the morning. I made a carrot cake! It was great! For the Super Bowl, Shakeh and I went over to Larry and Franci’s place. We watched some Stephen Lynch afterwards, much to the delight of others around us.

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.