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.

Not just laptops, but computers in general. Do you do it? I know I do with my laptops. I don’t know why. I think my übergeek friend Thoren did it for me the first time I installed Linux, and since then, it’s just been a harmless habit. However, when I asked some friends what they named their laptops, they just looked at me weird. Admittedly, none of them were from the US, and most of them were non-technical. But still, is this something only done in the nerd-dom of the US? Say it isn’t so…

For those who have never named a computer before, but would like to now, it is fairly easy. If you run Windows (the Linux instructions are easy, just change your hostname, most likely in /etc/hostname), just right click on “My Computer”, select properties, then click on the “Computer Name” tab. Enter a name at your discretion.

“But what shall I name it? I’m at a loss!” you say.

Don’t worry, naming a computer is not as complicated as naming a child. Well, in one case it is, since you have to decide if your computer is a boy or girl (new computers are not old enough to be a woman or man). Obviously with people that’s an easy distinction (and please, no flames about trans-gendered people here). So, once you come up with a sex for your computer (besides “yes please”), then you have to decide an appropriate name. This is where your search gets cut. One often names his or her computer with a name that shares the first letter with the make or model. For example, if one owns a female Dell computer, one might choose to go with Daria as the name (obscure MTV cartoon reference anyone?). However, if one falls short on names that begin with the letter ‘D’, one could look and see that their Dell is an Inspiron, and thus choose to name their computer Inya.

Now that the instructions have been laid out, get to it!

Ah, the first Monday morning back at the gym. I lost some momentum from the weeks I took off. Being as it was the first day, none of the classes were actually doing anything. Chris was there though, and he brought his racquet. Martyn and Emma came back so I played a little bit of squash with them. After I got home, I took off my shoe and found out that the left one was cutting my foot! What the heck?! After lunch, I took down the Christmas tree, did some shopping and laundry, then went with Alex and Javi to Best Buy. Alex didn’t find quite what she was looking for, so she delayed her purchase and we headed back to Davis. We went to In & Out with a bunch of other people to say goodbye (again) to Matthias.

The coach (Dwayne) let us play on Tuesday in indoor. It was incredibly exhausting, I forgot how much running is involved.  I went to gymnastics and messed around a bit there. I went to the MU for lunch and met up with Justin and Franci. I sat in the Griffin Lounge and read for a bit, then headed to my 1500 research meeting. After the meeting, I went to get some food from Subway with Javi, then went to the bookstore to pick something up. Javi, Shakeh, and I ate at my place while watching some basketball. During that time, I burnt Javi a DVD he needed. After he left, Shakeh worked and I finished reading The Subtle Knife.

Due to the number of people that showed up for racquetball on Wednesday, I had to play cut-throat (which I hate). I started on The Amber Spyglass, then met up with Shakeh at the MU around 1700. After we left there, we went to Pluto’s for dinner.

Thursday brought my first (non-serious) injury of the quarter. I took a football to the face. This time I wasn’t jumping though, so it didn’t knock me backwards. After lunch, I read some in the lounge, then went bowling and met a few new international students. After bowling, I headed home, then went to dinner with Shakeh at Round Table before going to see Team America with everyone. It was great! I saw it in the theatres originally, and it was awesome to see it again. Martyn, Shakeh, and I were all singing along with the songs, and at most parts we were laughing before things actually happened. During the first scene, virtually everyone in our group was watching the horror on Emma’s face as Paris was getting totalled. Later, Bill would recall her saying over and over “That’s not funny!” But Emma dear, for us, it was, and you only made it more so = ) Oh, and Ish laughing at all the dead chickens during the bombing of the Panama Canal… Priceless.

I went to lunch with Tina, Abhi, and Bill at the MU on Friday. Not many people were around at school, probably because the weather was turning to crap. For dinner, Shakeh and I went to Cafe Mediteranee. I received some Armenian lessons from her while there, and I’m hoping it’s something that wills tick. We wanted to go to the gymnastics meet, but didn’t get a chance. So instead, we went to the Yogurt Shack. After dessert, we went home and watched Good Luck Chuck, which was just terrible. The movie tried to be both raunchy and heart-warming at the same time. And because it tried to do both, it accomplished neither.

Another Saturday, another trip to the Farmer’s Market. I got my usual treat, then Shakeh and I walked home. We checked movie times, then headed right away to watch The Bucket List.

On Sunday, Shakeh and I went to Posh Bagel and Starbucks for breakfast. We went home and worked for a few hours, then went to Pluto’swith Verena, Lee, Lindsay, and Jenny. When we got home, we worked while watching some of the Australian Open (yay! Tennis season in back!). For dinner, we went to Applebee’s. We got home pretty late, so just watched a bunch of American Dad before going to sleep.

Now that Christmas is almost here, let’s all pig out! At least, that’s what the voices in my head are screaming. Something about the constant surroundings of sugar and fat, it’s just so hard to resist! When you come back, and you see a blob-like thing slithering through the Davis campus, come by and say hello. Otherwise, I might just eat you!

I got up at a just ungodly hour on Monday. Ken’s flight departed from the Sac airport, so I had to be up at 0345 to pick him up by 0355. Alex escorted us to the airport, where we got to say our goodbyes. Ken was actually the most awake of any of us, probably due to the fact that he didn’t sleep. Alex and I headed back to Davis at that point. Though I guess I should say I headed back, since Alex was quite fast asleep in the passenger seat before we even got out of the airport. I got home around 0500 and went right back to sleep. I woke up and decided to skip the gym in favor of getting some more rest. Once I was actually up, I helped Shakeh ready her things, then took her to the airport, dropping her off around 0930. yes, that means I drove one-hundred and twenty miles in one morning. But it was worth it to be able to see people off. I got back into Davis and met up with Rachel, then we went and picked up Javi. We headed to Arden Fair Mall and got there around 1030. We walked in through Sears and proceeded directly to Cinnabon (first thing to eat for me besides a builder’s bar all morning). I ordered a cinnabon and almost ended up throwing half of it away. It was so sweet! It made the back of my throat burn from the all the sugar. The three of us went around to a bunch of shops. In Anchor Blue, I tried on a pair of jeans. The funny thing about them, they fit my waist perfectly, but when I looked in the mirror, I was wearing tights! No kidding, it was quite ridiculous. Obviously I didn’t buy them. We continued our jaunt around the mall, escorting Rachel around until 1500 or so. The three of us grabbed smoothies from Jamba Juice (so… intake for the day is tons of sugar, nothing else) on the way out. About halfway back, all three of us were starting to feel sick, sleepy, and lightheaded from the overdose of sugar and lack of any real food. We got back into town and went to Crepeville as fast as legally possible. I polished off everything on my plate at a speed of which even Mr. Hendrickson would be proud. After lunner (my word!), we went back to my place so I could send a few emails and Rachel could change, then we dropped Javi off. We headed to the basketball games, where Ish was already waiting. We ran into Dani on the way in so Rachel go to say hi. The women played the opener, and won, almost breaking the century mark. For some reason though, they chose to hold instead of hitting the number. After the game, Ish was quite tired so she left right away. The men were up next, and Javi wandered in to replace Ish just in time. I was actually quite surprised by the height of the men’s team. Eleven out of thirteen of the players were at least one-hundred and ninety centimeters (thats 6′4″ for the metrically challenged). The men’s game was good to watch as well. with luck, they’ll be competing for the conference before I graduate. After the gam, we were all tired so we just headed home and slept.

Tuesday morning came the removal of Rachel’s stitches. My apologies, but you’ll have to wander over to Facebook to view the video. It’s over nine minutes long, but most of the good stuff is in the beginning. Before going, we chatted with Verena for an hour or so while the ladies had their morning tea. Rachel made plans to hang out with Danny, so Verena and I schemed to get a few people together for lunch at Zia’s. As Rachel and I were walking out of Verena’s place, a parking attendant was parked by my car. I ran over and quietly explained that I was just picking up Rachel. He said okay, and didn’t bother writing the ticket. I was quite upset at the matter though. I know that the area outside of Verena’s complex requires a resident’s pass to park, but there was NO OTHER CAR to be seen on the block. The attendant really could’ve let that slide… I dropped Rachel off downtown to get some shoes and meet up with Danny, and then I went to run a few errands before lunch. I picked up Alex and then headed to Zia’s to meet up with Ish, Verena, Justin, and Javi. Apparently half the group hadn’t been before, and luckily they enjoyed it. While there, we had a discussion about how within virtually every country, dialects are always present. For example, I know at least fifteen people from Deutschland, and none of them speak with the same accent. At some point in the conversation, Verena showed us her lovely Prussian accent that she uses to scare her students into doing their homework. After lunch, Alex and I dropped Ish off, then headed to the MU to pick up a few things. One of those things happened to be Ken’s old bike that was given to Alex. We found it outside by the fountain, then walked it to B&L to get a basket installed. After we dropped her bike off, I dropped her off at her place and went back to mine with Javi. We watched some Family Guy and messed around on our computers for a few hours, then Rachel showed back up so we switched to watching some basketball. She headed out around 1830 for dinner with her friend, and then Javi headed to Guadalajara while I swung by Alex’s to pick her up on the way. We met up with Justin and his friend Lindsay for dinner. After some wonderful conversation about injuries from sports, we headed over to Cold Stone to partake in some dessert. Unfortunately for us, the place had just closed. Justin and Javi suggested going to Safeway right next door, so we did just that. I got some of Stephen Colbert’s flavor from Ben & Jerry’s, I think it’s called Americone Dream. The four of us took our ice cream and headed to my place for a movie. We all sat and talked on the couch for a bit and somehow got to mentioning Stephen Colbert (I think due to my ice cream) and his appearance at the White House Correspondent Dinner. We ended up going to my room to watch some Youtube clips, including the Stephen Colbert clips. Instead of watching a movie, we just did that for a few hours. I must add that I think I finally met my match in ice-cream eating. Somehow Alex finished off her pint before I did mine! Astonishing. We watched some Happy Tree Friends, Flight of the Conchords, and a few more random clips. Everyone was tired by the end, so we called it a night and people went home.

I finally went to the gym on Wednesday. Justin staggered in at the tail end of my workout so he just did some cardio with me. After the seventeen miles of biking, I walked over to meet up with Rachel, and then we walked even more to go to The Grad. We stopped off at the Starbucks at the University Mall to get her some breakfast food that wasn’t rich in fat, then we headed over to watch the Chelsea-Liverpool match. While watching the match, I took the opportunity to use my free lunch card. The match was good, though sadly Liverpool lost. They also got hit with a red card. Some guy went at someone elses knees with both feet and his spikes showing. That would have hurt. After the match, javi went home for food and Rachel and I went to the market. I didn’t have any cash, so I went to the bank first while Rachel headed to the market to meet up with Jeff. While at the bank, I realized that we had left the speakerbox on the table! Woops… I briskly walked home and then drove back to get my ID. After that, I drove and parked at the market, and then met up with Rachel, Jeff, and not much later, Alex and her shiny man-bike. There were only a handful of vendors at the market, so we stayed only long enough to get some apple juice and cookies. After that, we walked to a few bookstores looking for a “Californian” bookmark for Rachel’s mother. We had no luck with this unfortunately. So we headed back to the park and gave Alex and her manly bike a ride home. Rachel and I then went and picked up Justin and gave him a ride to the airport. And of course, what would a night be without watching some basketball = ) Later on, Abhi, Alex, Javi, and Wijnand joined Rachel and I at Thai2K, followed by some yummy Cinnabread from Woodstock’s.  I dropped Alex off at home and then met up with everyone at my place for some Family Guy.

I managed to get my lazy butt to the gym again on Thursday morning. After I got home and showered, I headed to the airport to pick up Shakeh. We dropped her stuff off at her place, then went to Habit Burger for lunch. We each went back to our places after that and did some wrapping. Rachel got back later in the afternoon, so we hung out for an hour or so, then went to Safeway for some party supplies and Dos Coyotes for Rachel’s last burrito of her trip. We went back home and got the stuff all prepped for the party. A lot of people showed up, I think fourteen in total. There was Franci and Larry, Pieter and Anne, Victor and Claudia, Matthias and Frederic, Shakeh and I, Rachel and Abhi, and Javi and Sebastian. Franci brought some wonderful pumpkin-bread, and the germans, bless them, brought some PBR ; ) The gift exchange was quite fun, and people got away with some, umm, interesting (?) gifts. Not a whole lot of stealing was going on though, at least until near the end. Once we got to the last four people or so, everyone started large chains, which made for some lovely fun.

Friday morning Shakeh and I joined Rachel and Abh at Crepeville for Rachel’s final breakfast in Davis. After that, Shakeh ran to the registrar to pay for her tuition. picked up shakeh from the campus when she was done paying her bills. When she was done, I surprised her with a full day at the movies. First, we went ot the G Street theatre to see Charlie Wilson’s War. We went to Burgers & Brew for a few minutes after that to say goodbye to Charlotte, as she was leaving the next morning. After saying goodbye, we went to Chipotle to get some lunch, and then rushed to the movie theatre to see Sweeney Todd. I needed to move my car once the movie was over, so I did that, and then came back in and we watched Walk Hard. I liked all of the movies, though the first was my favorite from the bunch. After the movies, we went home for a few hours and did some more gift-wrapping, then went to dinner at Cafe Mediteranee.

We got up early on Saturday and packed up our stuff. I headed over to pick up Javi, and then we were off to Reno! We stopped off in Auburn for gas and in Truckee to get some pictures of the landscape. Once we got in, we dropped off our stuff and talked with my parents for an hour or so. We headed to Jamba Juice and then over to the university to check out the campus. While there, I stopped off in the bookstore and bought some items for myself. We headed back home after that, and then went to Bully’s for lunch. The Nevada bowl game ws on while we were there, but they were doing terrible. By the end of the game, Nevada didn’t score a single point. After lunch, Javi and I went downtown and tried our luck at some of the Circus-Circus games. Javi had more luck than I, as he actually won something. After the games, we went to the ice-rink on First street and tried our luck. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but by the end we were both capable of skating around without holding the railing. We headed home after that and watched Love Actually, then went to sleep.

After Javi got up on Sunday, I took him to enjoy one of the worst (for you) American things one can imagine, Krispy Kreme. After getting breakfast, we headed to Sparky’s to watch the Madrid-Barcelona match. Madrid actually won! Javi was quite pleased, being as he is from Spain, not Catalunya. After the match we headed around to Reno to check out some of the landscape and local architecture. I took Javi to Windy Hill and Grandview before we headed home. At 1730, we went to check out the Christmas lights. As a surprise for everyone, I rented a limo. The problem… The limo would only seat eight people and we had sixteen to come along. The other slight inconvenience was that even though I had requested the limo for checking out Christmas lights, the driver had never done so. He didn’t even know where Hidden Valley was. It wasn’t that big of a problem though. We got to just sit back and relax. We ended up going to Idle Wild Park, Hidden Valley, Moana and Skyline, and the Los Altos Hills.

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.

As if the night doesn’t come early enough, we have to make it come even earlier by rolling off of daylight savings time (DST), or “Summer-time” for those of the British persuasion. Seriously, who cares if it’s still dark a little later in the morning? People want sunlight when they’re biking/driving home. The last thing anyone needs is to look outside at 1630 while at work and see street lights come on because it’s so dark outside. We need to start a petition to make DST be in permanent effect. And no, a group on Facebook won’t cut it, unfortunately.

On Monday, I returned some stuff to Hot Topic after my meeting. When I got back, I went in to say hi to Shakeh before my second meeting, and ran into some other friends at the MU. I chatted for five or so minutes, then went to the lounge and said hello to Shakeh. I headed to my MGI meeting, which was really short. Apparently I was the only one who really had a chance to work on anything, so it was just a “hi, bye” meeting. Sigh… couldn’t we just cancel it next time, please?

I dislocated my right arm in racquetball on Tuesday, huzzah! It didn’t stay out luckily, it just slipped out and then right back in, the repercussions will be seen sometime in the near future I’m sure. Ultimate Frisbee was good, we actually got to play a full-game (actually even bigger, 8v8) instead of two games with smaller teams. After lunch, I met with a man named Jeff Ota from BMW Research in Palo Alto. The conversation was enjoyable. Pinar, Brian, and I talked about the work that we are doing, and he let us know what he is doing. He also mentioned that there is a chance for internships in both Palo Alto and Munich. That would be very nice, though another summer in the Bay Area not spent at Google would probably seem lackluster. I went to football practice at 1730. Instead of playing (some of the pick-up games are just stupid), we just drilled on shooting at the goal, since we felt that was our worst performance issue during last week’s match.

I started the slow process of installing Gentoo on my work machine on Wednesday. While packages were compiling, I helped set up the demo area (hey, I got a free shirt!) for the visitors from the IEEE Visualization conference. Afterwards, I went to Sophia’s for Justin’s birthday dinner. Once we were done there (around 2100), we went to Swirl, then to Little Prague. Cover was already in place, and since it was almost 2200, I just decided to head home since I wouldn’t stay very long and I wasn’t planning on drinking anything.

I played in the ladder again in racquetball on Thursday. This time, I got Coach Clink to 13-15 (almost there!. Ita, Martyn, and Alex joined us for lunch. After chatting with them for a few minutes, I went to the lab and continued installing Gentoo. I left around 1630 and headed back to my place. I got changed and went to the fields for our third match. We warmed up for a bit, positioned ourselves, and then proceeded to get a goal against in less than a minute. Once that happened, our team actually woke up and the last 39:30 went really well. The game ended 8-1. Ken got a hat trick, I had an assist (as well as some reverse groin karma finally!). Shakeh and I went home and to the dance studio for our salsa lesson. After that, we went over to La Casa de Amy y Jess.

This Friday was the first time that I went to the GSA breakfast all quarter. I stopped by there on the way to the lab. I finally got my machine (kinda) up and running and then went to lunch at Cafe Mediteranee. I went home and started working from there, but then had to go back into the lab at 1600 for various reasons. I finished up again around 1800, then headed home and continued working, this time while watching some American Football, then headed over to Verena’s at 2000. The dinner was supposed to be a house-warming party, but one of Verena’s grandparents just passed away, so the party was cancelled and instead a wake/dinner was held. Most everyone had arrived by 2100, so we started eating our wonderfully prepared dinner (though some of us ate all the appetizers beforehand… woops). During dinner, Irish Car Bombs were mentioned. Chief Justice couldn’t resist, so he, Ciderman, and I ran out to get the necessary ingredients. We got back with the liquids, but found that there was but a single shot glass in the place. As such, Sean and headed back to the store, where there was none. After that, we tried Safeway, the Fast & Easy Mart, and even Dead Zone (which was closed), to no avail. We got back, talked some more, then someone finally broke into the Bailey’s and started doing car bombs. Not long after we were finished, most people left. I stayed for a bit longer, then as I was passing out, bid everyone fairwell and headed home.

Shakeh and I met up with Verena and the Bay Area boys at the farmer’s market. Rawi was doing some street performing to try and pay for grad school apps. We listened to him for a little while, then went to get some food. We were sitting down as the market was closing, and ended up running into a ton of people. Why were they all there AFTER the market was supposed to be closed? Heck if I know. Anyways, I went home and worked for a little while, then went back to Shakeh’s and talked with Ciderman, Sean, and Lee for half an hour or so until Shakeh was ready. We took off and headed to Old Town Sacramento. The place was actually pretty nice. We walked around for awhile and looked at the shops, then headed to P.F. Chang’s in Downtown Sac for dinner. The wait was about forty-five minutes, so when we finally sat down, we knew exactly what we wanted. After dinner, we went to Baskin-Robbinn’s back in Davis, and then to see Dan in Real Life.

I realized upon waking up how much I am going to miss Summer-time. I got up around 0700, showered, then ran to Safeway to get some groceries. I went home after that and made breakfast and started taking care of the daily chores. Shakeh and I went to Chipotle for lunch, then headed back to my place. I got to talk to Chiara online, I actually dug out my webcam.