Memoirs of a CPUNERD

This was the last day of work for Lee and myself. It started out rather uneventfully. I got some donuts for the myself and the Waterloo guys. Matt and I played a little bit of tennis before we headed in to work. Oh, let me add that I got to sleep at 2:45, and woke up (if I ever really slept) at 6:45 for no reason.

I got to work and concentrated on wrapping things up. My boss and I had a pleasant chat around midday. I finished cleaning up some bugs, moved my machines to my mentor’s cube, then packed up my stuff and headed out. We went back to GP for a little bit to play tennis and such again.

I had to swing back by NVIDIA at 6:00 PM to give some friends a ride to the airport (picking up a rental car), then it was back to GP to get changed and ready to go out to dinner. When I got back I changed right away and met the guys and Roma by the pool (Lee was still at work, looking for places for dinner tonight). While at the pool, Matt had the bright idea to try and splash Roma and I. He apparently forgot that I was already changed out of my gym clothes… oh well, luckily I had some more dress clothes waiting.

Lee got to my place around 7:45 with some recommendations. None of them sounded absolutely appealing though, so we just decided to hit up Santana Row. It somehow took us over forty-five minutes to get out of the place. We arrived at Santana Row and tried to find a place to eat. We chose a French restaurant called Left Bank for two reasons: 1) I like French cuisine, and 2) It was the only place that could seat nine in a reasonable amount of time.

We had a twenty minute wait before we could eat, and for some reason we split up into our usual groups. Lee and I walked down the street go listen to a band playing at the bar on the street. The Waterloo guys hung out by the restaurant just talking, and I don’t know what Vani, Andrew, and Roma did.

Lee and I ran into Brian in our walking, I had suggested earlier to him to go to Santana Row for dinner, and he remembered that there was a good Mexican place there. Sure enough, he was at the Mexican restaurant with his girlfriend, eating the dish he remembered liking so much. Lee and I said hi, then continued walking around the place. We stopped across the street within earshot of the band and sat down at a table. We talked about our plans for the next week for awhile, then headed back to the restaurant.

We rounded up the rest of the gang, then got seated. We all ordered our food and drinks and enjoying everyone’s company. Fifteen minutes later, we get two appetizers dropped off at our table. We told the manager we didn’t order them, but because they were already on our table, he told us they were ours compliments of the house. Score! I didn’t try the Escargots, perhaps next time. I did try the liver paste (or whatever it was) however, it was pretty good.
Dinner came shortly thereafter. There was a decent variety of orders, so we all let each other try nibbles of food. Lee ordered fresh salmon that I actually liked. Fresh fish seems to taste more like beef than fish, so I am able to actually enjoy it.

We didn’t get out of the restaurant until 10:30 PM, and I had told the Rich and Eric that I would meet them in Sunnyvale for drinks at that moment. I called to tell them that we were just taking friends back and we were on our way. We dropped the Canadians off at Greenpoint, then headed out to Murphy’s for free drinks, courtesy of my group.

When we got to Murphy’s, we grabbed some drinks and hung out with Eric and Rich for two hours, just talking. We had some interesting conversations, mostly about work experience as a Ph.D. and the horrible, horrible politics involved in being a professor at a top-notch research institute. The night ended fairly early, a little before 1:00 AM. Lee and I drove home, then he took off and I went to sleep immediately.

Lee and I figured one last trip to Giza was in order. Andrew and Vani went with us last time and were going again, and Roma decided to come with us this time. We got to Giza around 10:00 PM and had to wait a little bit to sit down.

The first thing we noticed is the lack of a DJ (thank goodness). Last time we were there (on a Thursday), there was some god-awful DJ spinning scratched CDs; talk about a buzz-kill. This time, it was just nice ambient music, and the noise of mellow hookah smokers around us.

The night transpired rather uneventfully. Vani caught her buzz a little earlier than last time. Roma experienced her first buzz and seemed to enjoy it. There was something weird with the hookah though, the water wasn’t very cold at all, so the smoke started getting harsh earlier than expected. Other than that, everything was grand. We wrapped up around midnight again, then headed home for some sleep.

I drove Carl to Oakland today. I still have no clue how I-880 can be so jacked up. it boggles the mind. Even at 10:30 in the morning, well after rush hour, it is still clogged near all entrances and exits. I thought Californians were supposed to be better at driving.

After work, Lee, Andrew, Fa’y, and Vani went to Giza in San Jose. We got put in the exact same spot as last time. However, with half the people, it was much more comfortable. Andrew had visited Giza several times in the past (this is his third co-op in the San Jose area). Fa’y and Vani however, had never been. Fa’y had experience elsewhere with “smoking” but Vani had none. Of course, Lee and I had already been to Giza, so it was nothing new to us.

This time we all made sure that our mouthpieces were fully functional. I got the hookah going, taking the first two hits. After another pass or two, the smoke was flowing freely, and by my third round, I took in enough to get light headed. In the meantime, Fa’y was trying to outdo me, while Vani was still trying to get the hang of inhaling properly and deep enough. Speaking of proper inhalation, we meant to order two hookahs, but apparently only ordered one. It was definitely enough though. After almost two hours in front of the hookah, all of us were sufficiently pleased with the experience. We finished up, then headed out from Giza around 12:30 AM.

With some new Waterloo guys in town, we decided that it would be a good day to go out and do something lax. Little Miss Sunshine was playing at the CineArts on Santana Row, so we got fourteen of us together to go see it. Included in the group was two of Johnson’s friends, and one of Fred’s friends from Intel.

After the movie, we went looking for a bar/restaurant on Santana Row, but it was 11:30 PM, and they were all closed. We didn’t really know a better place, so we went to CJ’s near GP to play pool. Not long after we got in though, the four Waterloo guys got carded, then subsequently asked to leave. They weren’t even trying to buy alchohol, the bartendress literally walked out of the bar, over to our tables, and asked to see their IDs (but not mine or Lees for some reason).

The guys weren’t going to make a big deal out of it, so Johnson drove them home. In the meantime, Fred, Lee, Carl, Simon, Albert, Mindy, and I decided to stay and enjoy some drinks and pool (well, Albert and Mindy didn’t play pool). Somehow I managed to stay on the table for an hour. Johnson knocked me out fair and square, which was a good thing since it was 12:50 AM and time for me to get some freaking sleep!

I was looking online the other day, and randomly found this. It just came out today, but I’ve been so out of the loop on movies and such this summer that I never heard about it. I emailed out to the group, and got a decent number of bites, so we decided that we would see it tonight. Funny thing though, even though it was a nationwide release, it wasn’t playing at the huge multiplex near us. Instead, it was playing at 10:00 PM at the CineArts on Santana Row.

Since we had an hour and a half to kill after dinner, we stuck around and played some good old fashioned Threewave Quake. The game of choice was CaptureStrike, and it actually turned out alright. We had five people playing, and (keeping in mind I have literally thousands of playing hours now) the opposing team to me actually came close once.

After Quake, we met Fred and headed to the theatre. It’s quite shocking how packed Santana Row is at times. There are a few nice places there, but I think it’s the complete lack of other destinations in San Jose that keep the place hopping. We eventually found a parking spot at the very top of a parking garage, then swam through the crowds to get to the movie.

I won’t bore you with a review or a long, drawn-out critique, I’ll just tell you that I thought the movie was good. Very different from other roles that Edward Norton has done, but it still turned out well. The story was very interesting, even though it was a drama/romance (though mostly drama).