Category: Uncategorized

Wanna exercise with other vegans and vegetarians? Join Team Veg!
Sadly, this one is at the same time as the swim team. Homos or veggies. Hmmmm.

Also cars for, say, =)

And the ever present apartments and houses for sale.

Nothing much to report. I seem to be in fine shape. My knee is still a little sore, but that may have something to do with the 10+ miles I’ve walked on it in the past few days. Brian is indeed screwed on the car after having been hit by an uninsured driver. Which covers, oh, most accidents out there. No fault car insurance for all, I say. Andrew Tobias is cool 😉

Tonight, I’m going to go check out the gymnastics club, then a co-op meeting, then go home and get sleep. Must churn out minutes. Tommorrow, I want to go wall climbing at the st paul campus. Maybe I should set up a date with one of those charming guys I’m neglecting for another day as well. But Tai Chi on Wed. And need to talk w/ parents regarding potential house purchase. They’re sold on it being a great investment, but there may simply not be enough time to get it all worked out. Which would be kinda sad, but so it goes.

In other news, I sold my soul to square-enix (though more of my wallet went to NVidia), and my kung-fu sex kitten is level 6 and rising fast. I justify this by noting that this will probably take the place of many movies, meals, and other things I’d have to pay for. =)

In discussing the disenfranchisement of black voters in florida, someone suggested that southern blacks tend to be very mixed in terms of party allegiance, split between labor and religious inclinations. I couldn’t find squat from a respectable source to support or refute this claim. I did however, run across an interesting analysis of who was in the news in 2001.

on the way back from gaming at ‘s place, brian and I were talking about gaming and what not, when a van jumped out in front of us (having blown through a stop sign). There was no way to avoid it, Brian slammed on the brake, but the front of his car hit the side of the van quite solidly. Some serious spinning occurred. My glasses flew off my face, and weren’t found for several minutes, well after the cops had arrived. The two people riding in the van got out of it, and apparently told brian they were okay, before disappearing completely.

My left knee was somewhat damaged. Doesn’t feel bad now, in fact, the two mosquito bites I got waiting to go back home have been more distracting than the knee, but I know that’s no guarantee of what tomorrow will bring. I probably won’t be swimming tomorrow morning. I hope I can make tai chi on sunday.

I feel most sorry for Brian, his car is pretty seriously out of commission. And I’m quite grateful for seatbelts.

That is all. Sleep will be much welcomed when next I see it, which I anticipate will be soon.

Oy. Events have run away from me. I’m now in a new place, not far from ‘s place. It’s a 4 BR house. I have at least two agreeable roommates. is consolation for not getting to be ‘s roommie. Very different people. But both alot of fun. (also, , would you like to roll out the queer welcome mat for Angie? She’s a fellow berkeley chemistry grad student). But, back to the roommates. has demonstrated taste in anime, non-armchair activism, and a highly agreeable personality. Plus she knew dr who. Sadly, the same could not be said of Ben. 😉 He’s the cute, straight roommate. Good guy, friendly, cute, a little clueless, but that is common of sheltered midwesterners, and I oughta know. =) I’m supposed to go to his band’s show this evening. That will be an interesting challenge to my resistance to sleep dep, but oh well.

So, moved in here, took minutes at a community task force meeting, and thank heavens for dvorak, once again. We were reviewing the report, so we basically revisited every conflict that had arisen within the history of the task force. It did make a good intro to the state of affairs.

The actual publishable minutes are going to have to wait. There are a few rather clout-ful people waiting on it, but this weekend was sacrosanct. I’ll just have to bust ass, and hope I get it good enough to send out by mid afternoon tomorrow.

I spent the weekend playing card games. I also got to play a fair amount of san juan, and a game of puerto rico with and . Got some sun on saturday at the beach in santa cruz. Some minor burning, which has since turned to tan. The exact beginning of my farmer’s tan is now more ambiguous, but my tan is certainly not even.

Sunday I met ‘s friend from Oberlin, Matt. He’s another chemist, tres cute, living in the Castro, and in possession of many of my kind of dork points. There may be a fair amount of grass is greener going on here, but regardless, I’m still glad I met him.

Monday, came over for games, and what not. I had dinner with and . This was especially relevant because I ditched dinner on tuesday with Josh to have dinner with Matt and Angie at Lucky Creation. Josh at dinner was actually a most welcome surprise. Especially since I don’t think I’ll be back near the bay for quite some time.

Tuesday was recuperation from weekend sleep dep, plus donating many books to goodwill. Followed by Lucky Creation with Matt, Angie, and . Tom was sad, due to job security reasons, or, rather, chain yanking by his boss’s boss. I’m worried about him. Tom needed to get back to work, so he dropped us off at Herbivore for dessert. After which, we wandered around the mission for a bit, before meeting up with Roger, a friend of Matt and Angie’s, and heading off to a lesbian bar. Butch lesbians can be fun to look at.

Bart back home. Wednesday was dealing with the books day. And shipping stuff. (All you people I owe shipments to, , , , , , and anyone else I forgot, the stuff is in the mail). It cost me $160, but the significant majority of that was shipping my own books to minneapolis. It involved an hour in the post office and a whole lotta tape. Not including box prep beforehand. Still one of my easier moves, with many lessons learned. The expenses per shipment were small, so those of you receiving, don’t worry about paying me back.

Afterwards, went to endgame, played powergrid with , Simon, and, um, I think her name is Kelly. Kelly won, which, I have to admit, I was a bit surprised by. She played the game I’d originally tried to play, the last time I played the game. Only, unlike me, she did it well and didn’t end up ass-last. =)

Brief farewell take 2 with .

Train ride, airport, plane ride, airport, bus ride, train ride, bus ride, home.

I miss my bay area friends. I also miss the loungerats. And the bay area is damn pretty and has a nice climate. Just not a varied one. I will be happy to visit a few times a year, when I can do that sanely within my budget.

I’m also happy to be back to my albeit temporary home. Wheesigh.

Have I mentioned how annoying I find the misappropriation of the term “friend”? Having the most listed interests in common with a person out of the journals to which one subscribes does _not_ make them one’s best friend. But it did manage to select a highly valued friend

So, this highway project that we’re doing associated research on has a community task force. They decided to have a meeting on the final project this evening. I, as resident bitch boy, got to take minutes. 2.5 hours of high speed typing. And my wrists don’t even hurt. I <3 you, dvorak. Thanks for leading the way, =)

It really wasn’t that bad, as I’m not terribly emotionally invested in this project. It’s projected to raise a few million in revenues. It may provide a much needed relief lane for some people on off days. But the passion these people have over a lane of traffic. Dude, if having to wait on the highway bothers you that fucking much, here’s a thought. Why don’t you goddam well move so you’re right next to work. Novel thought, eh?

It’s a small patch to a growing hole. It won’t do much to relieve congestion in the main stretches, and if it did, people would build out until it didn’t anymore. Build a city right, and don’t eviscerate it with highways until nobody wants to be there anymore. That’s my story. =)

and to all a good night.

Well, saturday I went and saw the parade. Ever since I did my own little bit of outrageousness in chicago’s pride parade, skates, related protective gear, speedos, and the ever-present backpack, and nothing else, I’ve been kinda enh on pride. I’m not big on parades. And despite my touristy presence at folsom and dore alley, I’m not that big on huge, densely packed masses of people milling about. Passive entertainment = bleh. Browsing booths isn’t much better. Hello, it’s the 21st century, time to get yourself a webpage. If I’m interested, google will show me the way =)

Could I be a bit embarrassed about my performance? Or is it my general aversion to mobs, and the way they can bring out an angry, and nearly violent side of me? Am I tired of the people who identify with “the gay community” and express it through the purchase of kitschy rainbow paraphenalia, which I basically did at one point? Or a tendency to hold hands, wave the rainbow, behave like a neutered carebear in public then pee on one another before barebacking anonymously in private? I do not know. But damn am I bitter. =)

I suspect that it’s mostly that I want, or at least, feel I ought to want, to date someone. Really, right now, what I need most are engaging friends who get along well together, such that I can join and add to the mix. Maybe the co-op will be a step in that direction.

A few years back, 5 to be precise, I went to my 5 year high school reunion. At this point in time, I’d been an officer in the various campus gay groups, had had a longish-term-in-the-gay-world relationship, had come out to a couple of my high school chums, had been called “Mr Gay Youth Pride” by my friends and was just generally out. At my reunion, I tested the waters in a deplorably cowardly way, slamming a friend who wasn’t there for being flaming. Getting an unclear reaction, I didn’t open up. Immediately after I left, well before the end of the reunion, I went to Axis, a gay club in columbus, danced shirtless, humped a few guys on the dancefloor, and kissed a stranger.

I’d been feeling a little claustrophobic at work these past few weeks because of my silence. One of my fellow graduate research assistants is from sf, alamo square to be precise, lives in loring park (the local gayborhood v2.0), and had the right hair. I guessed, but didn’t do anything about my guessing.

He was chatting with one of my cubemates (to whom I had recently shown lj), and he asked me if I’d ridden the light rail (free!) that weekend. I hadn’t, but I used it as an in to mention pride, and my disenchantment, which he sorta agreed with. Kim was apparently a little surprised by this, to which I responded “Seeing shirtless guys dancing on floats gets old after awhile”. (The truth is that is the least part of the parade. There are at least as many politicians seeking the gay vote as shirtless guys on floats.) Then the converation moved on to fahrenheit 9/11 and a few other topics, can’t really remember where it went. I’m not feeling claustrophobic anymore. But I’m still no fan of pride. =)