Author: cheerfulchaotic

Pittsburgh, here I come

Rescheduled the teacher test, coming out to pittsburgh april 9-13, for spring carnival.

Apparently united fucked up my flight schedule, so I’ll be leaving sfo at 7am, meaning I’ll be leaving my apartment at about 4:30am local time. Great way to get on pittsburgh time I guess.

Excuse my bitterness over bart’s inability to schedule construction. They are ‘98%’ or ‘99%’ done at all 4 of their new stations, yet they still have no idea when they will open other than ‘some time this spring’. I remain unimpressed.

That having been said, when it does link up, I will be a much happier camper. Especially with the direct sfo link and the connection to caltrain at millbrae.

flight info

Whee =)

So, the dinner party last night was much fun, and went through some very distinct modes of operation. Props of the mad variety to and for opening and closing the party, and bringing a very tasty dish of bico (sp?).

The food seemed to be appropriately scaled than usual, in that there was just a little of everything left over, rather than the usual, more than half left over. The dishes are manageable partially due to the use of disposable stuff (bad, bad environmentalist, though the plates were at least made of recycled paper).

Noting that irc peoples need more notice than clinic peoples. =) Not that we really would have had room for everyone I’d invited. Next time I think I’ll go for a party for alumni type friends in the area. It’d be really cool if I had a place big enough to hold all three groups, plus the random people I’ve run across here and there.

Ro and I have started to look for people to move in with. Simon is sounding strongly inclined to remain at cal, despite his advisor moving to stanford (something stanford having only one faculty in his area of study, after his advisor arrives there). Which makes for three, at least. Other current housemates are less certain, and we’ve found a few people off of craigslist, we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully we can get a house, which would certainly help with the place-big-enough-for-party plan. =)

And on a mostly unrelated note, surprise birthday parties. I think having one would be cool. However, there are two major problems with this for me. 1. I will throw my own birthday party, and in fact, have for my past several years, therefore, if I didn’t know about a birthday party, it’d probably end up being redundant. 2. Who could I possibly trust to come up with the guest list, given the multiple, significantly disjoint social circles I run in?

meetup.com

This I find intriguing.

In an article on the technology supported, self-organizing protesters, I found this website called meetup.com. Basic idea is to provide an organizing tool for various groups to get together and meet in person. And there are lots of them.

I decided to try out the howard dean group. And then I piled a few others on top of that. I’ll let you know how it goes, but those of you interested in it, might want to check it out.

Addendum: This is a meet locally thing. There are about 150 people signed up for the oakland/alameda dean meetup. 230ish in sf. 600+ in dc, so forth, and so on. 60 in pittsburgh, 290 in boston, 230 in chicago. You can see more on the website. They show 100 in decreasing order of size, with 16 people showing up in Akron, OH. I bet there are more that they just aren’t showing. It’s cool stuff.

Update from the showers

Well, I’ve been a little less encouraging to ‘my fans’ and they’ve calmed down. The guy I arranged the date with flaked out on me, though I’ve arranged for another date with someone else (recognized from yahoo’s personals, actually).

Started doing water polo. Not entirely clear on the rules. Not sure that such a team sport is really for me. But I’m figuring it out, and finding it somewhat enjoyable.

Asked for someone to stick around in the pool to demonstrate what was and wasn’t a foul, and one of the cute, spanish-speaking guys did. I got a little flustered having such an attractive guy of uncertain orientation rubbing up against me, so I basically kept saying “yeah, got it,” kinda prematurely.

During my goalie time, I actually caught a ball, and didn’t give any balls directly to the opposing team. An improvement over my first game. Still want to learn the basic rules and forms. Maybe find a website with that stuff on it.

vegan bread pudding

Vegan Bread Pudding

2 c grated apples
1 juice of 1 lemon
4 c whole grain bread, cubed, small
1/3 c raisins
1 ts cinnamon
1 1/2 c soymilk
1/2 c maple syrup
1 some vanilla if you use plain soymilk
1 egg replacer to equal one egg

Mix lemon juice with grated apple. Blend the soymilk, egg replacer, maple syrup and cinnamon (and vanilla, if you use it) together. Put one third of the bread in the bottom of a greased 8″ by 8″ baking dish and cover with 1 cup of the apples and half the raisins. Pour one cup of the liquid mixture over these ingredients. Repeat the layers of bread, apple and raisins, ending with a top layer of bread. Pour the rest of the liquid ingredients over it. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Let pudding sit for a few minutes Bake, covered, at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Let stand for 10 to 20 minutes at room

I’ve substituted unsweetened applesauce for the apples and the egg replacer, and it works well, for lower effort. Very tasty.