Category: Uncategorized

mountainview, theater & theatre, housewarming, and bay to breakers

So, thursday I headed down to mountainview to visit , , and . Hung out with Charlie during the afternoon. Hit a coffeeshop & stuff. Then went out to dinner with him, his roommate Kyle, and Josh at garden fresh. That place is loosing appeal every time I go. Which is good. Means I won’t miss it when I leave. =)

Checking my mail while out there, I noticed something from the humphrey school. They need a summer research assistant for transportation pricing stuff. Cha-ching! Must re-write resume for that, and send it in soon.

Made my first trip to King of Clubs that evening. Saw , and Mike, as well as Josh, Kyle, and Charlie, and met a recently graduated, greek cs doctorate from berkeley named Jordan (summer work in the south bay, then mit in the fall). Fun was had.

Following day, schlepped up to berkeley. Called Ro as I was exiting bart to see if he’d be interested in lunch. Turns out he was grabbing it with travis half a minute from where I was. I said I’d join them, and surprised them with my promptness. Ro had plans for the Day, so Travis and I watched Van Helsing. Which was fun, if you go in expecting bad acting, awesome special effects, and a recasting of Wolverine into midieval Europe.

That evening, I went to see Antigone Falun Gong with down in berkeley’s theatre district. I enjoyed it. Price was hard to beat (yay comp tickets from theatre friends ;). The plot was engaging, and the acting was by and large good. (One of the smaller parts, arguably the smallest part, in the play was unfortunately overdone.) Afterwards Eric and I grabbed some Indian food. And I went home.

Saturday was pretty uneventful. Farmer’s market. Dragged Simon off to the housewarming of and . We arrived an hour late, which was apparently an hour early. But a good time was had. I met and spent a fair amount of time talking with . Left early to catch the bart back home.

Then Sunday morning, dragged Simon to Bay to Breakers. Long walk, lots of bizarreness. It was like a street fair in motion. Only with more alcohol. 7+ mile walk + 3 or more miles of getting to and from left simon and I pretty wiped. Few hours of sleep when we got home. Dinner at Fontina, to once again express my disdain for atkins. =)

I managed to plow through alot of money (by my budget anyway), between food and transportation. Must do more cooking at home.

biodiesel, berg, books, and bruises

This afternoon on the shareandenjoy instance, someone pointed out this wired article, saying hybrids ain’t as fuel efficient as we think. In the ensuing conversation, biodiesel was brought up, and it occurred to me that I knew less about this than a variety of other energy alternatives, so I started looking into it.

Looks like the basic technology takes oil, as in vegetable oil or animal fat, and processes it with ethanol or methanol to produce something that has about 80-98% of the oomph of regular diesel. There are a number of obvious and inobvious advantages. When one area doesn’t have enough fuel, it can devote more of its land to farming the bio-diesel crops. Less with the international shipping of crude or refined oil. In the steady state, it recycles the CO2 that the engines produce back into more fuel. Bio-diesel releases far less polution than fossil diesel. The current infrastructure for diesel can be used for bio-diesel. Bio-diesel is already being mixed with diesel in some places, and working fine.

Diesel cars, like the the VW Golf, already exist. pointed out that currently, VW voids the warranty for using biodiesel. But, they’re working on that. It seems like a good way to go, and is far from incompatible with the pursuit of fuel cells, but that’s another story.

I saw the uncensored nick berg video. Drives the event home rather clearly. I don’t think I’ll be watching it again. It makes me rather sad. I mean, granted, he was an idiot to be wandering around a warzone anti-american terrorist haven looking for work. But your life is a rather high penalty for idiocy. And he’s not the only one who’s been paying that price, sometimes with even less cause.

On the guardian website, I’ve run across the sort of thing I haven’t seen at all in my browsing of american websites, a review of Arab reaction to the killings.

I have an assload of books to sell. Many of them fantasy books. I went down to “The Other Change of Hobbit”, and chatted briefly with the proprietor. Turns out he reads this (Hi! =) journal. And that The Other Change of Hobbit (fantasy/scifi bookstore, some of the stock used, much of it new) may not be with us for much longer. Which is kinda sad, I rather like the spot. But I haven’t purchased much there. Cursed tight budget. =/ He also suggested a few bookstores in Minneapolis to check out.

And a few local used bookstores to try hawking my wares to. I’ll do that, also considering ebay/craigslist options. And for my rpg book collection, the endgame, if the proprietor would be interested. Almost all the books I intend to keep are packed into boxes. Going through and pitching stuff and selecting clothing to donate should be another big agenda item.

Finally, I managed to bruise myself on a trampoline. They look like tiny hickeys in a tight grid on my back. I have pictures

Things to do in the last month in bay area

1) Go to ‘s housewarming on saturday.
2) Arrange a trip down to santa cruz, hang out with , , and their significant others (and maybe mr presby?) and experience the area.
3) Possibly go to KublaCon over memorial day weekend.
4) Visit Tom, Charlie, and Josh in MV, at least once.
5) Going away party.

plus preparations for new life:
1) have another transcript sent directly to umn’s grad office to feed the bureaucrats. I’d rather napalm them, but that seems like a bad sort of reputation to establish.
2) get a post office box on or very near umn campus. (sadly, usps.gov gives an inactive number for them).
3) Pack all boxes (mostly done. Books are pretty much packed.)
4) Return to owners, sell off, recycle, or trash all earthly possessions not being shipped.
5) Purchase plane ticket (check).
6) Talk to Humphrey school’s career services people about internships and/or research assistantships.

Looks like Ro is leaving pronto, sometime next week. I can understand why. I’m definitely having a lameduck feeling to my life at present. But that’s a very final end to a certain chapter of my life.

Gymnastics

Saturday evening was the [“first annual”] gymnastics banquet. Catered at the faculty club on campus. Surprisingly, after peeling a layer of cheese off the vegetarian option, it was vegan. =)

All the gymnasts got this silly little stuffed bear with an associated “title” (cal’s mascot being a bear & all, white fur for females, light brown fur for males). Hell, one of the gymnasts brought his boyfriend, and the boyfriend got a bear, sans title. I sat next to Brandon (cute little redhead gymnast), and we had an enjoyable chat throughout dinner. He ended up getting “best advice giver”. I got “most up and coming gymnast”. Other titles included “most explosive tumbler” and “biggest ripper” (the recipient had accidentally ripped a yard long gash in the tumble track). That was all kinda cool.

Afterwards, the homos congregated and went to the white horse. I got a smirnov ice. And rapidly grew disenchanted with the topics of conversation such as tv, trashing people, and people I don’t really know. It was frustrating that people I enjoy talking to one-on-one became far less appealing in large groups.

I was tired from a three-bears bike ride that morning, which was ’bout 30(?) miles, and pretty hilly. Shortly after people hit the dancefloor, I just asked Brandon to let me get my bag out of his car, and I walked home. I was still a little buzzed after a 40 minute walk, pretty steep at the end. Did I mention lightweight?

Anyway, the past two days I’ve gone to gymnastics, first time in awhile, and one of very few times overall that I’ve gone two days in a row. The pain was pronounced. =) But I also made some definite progress. It’s pretty clear that I do my best stuff on the trampoline. Figured a couple of things out, like how to continually bounce on my back. Started hitting my ball unders more consistently. I almost have a flat back drop where I spin it into a front drop. And a back drop where I rotate in midair into an opposite-facing backdrop. Note that the only terminology I’m sure I’m using correctly is “ball under” and I’m not sure if it has the space. =)

Bobby was asking me for pointers on the trampoline stuff I’d just figured out the other day. Bit of an ego boost. He’s been doing this for quite a bit longer. He’s another one who started this as an adult, like a year and a half ago. He’s more tumbling focused than I. But I’m holding my handstands for longer fractions of a second, so I’m improving on multiple fronts. 😉 Did my first fairly successful roundoffs last night. Hurting my wrist in the process. Didn’t have time for gymnastics for the rest of the week anyway. =)

Gymnastics: Yay!

cultural disjunction

bolson(cslounge:abortion@AND)» [21:34:35 Brian]
if you want to be angry, read this:
http://www.tfp.org/TFPForum/TFPCommentary/pro_death_march.htm
…
scu(cslounge:abortion@AND)!!!» [22:06:50 Hippies & Weirdos & Nerds, Oh My!]
I didn’t find it terribly anger-producing. Some sadness. Mostly at the cultural disjunction, and the failure of just about everyone involved to see it without rancor.
bolson(cslounge:abortion@AND)» [22:09:03 My mind is going, I can feel it.]
yeah, that’s true. that event didn’t do much to bring the two sides together. I didn’t like everything that was said for ‘my side’.
bolson(cslounge:dailykos.quote@AND)» [22:09:39 A kinder, gentler]
“In a holy war liberals are a serious annoyance to both sides.”
scu(cslounge:dailykos.quote@AND)!!!» [22:10:04 Hippies & Weirdos & Nerds, Oh My!]
I strive to live that principle.

further commentary